VMware vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide vCenter Configuration Manager 5.4 This document supports the version of each product listed and supports all subsequent versions until the document is replaced by a new edition. To check for more recent editions of this document, see http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware Web site at: http://www.vmware.com/support/ The VMware Web site also provides the latest product updates. If you have comments about this documentation, submit your feedback to: docfeedback@vmware.com © 2006-2010 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws.
Contents About This Book 5 Overview 7 Agent and Collector Host OS Platform Support Understand the VCM Installation Manager Understand VCM Installation Configurations Hardware Requirements for Collector Machines Determine the Size of Your Environment Identify Your Specific Hardware Requirements Hardware and Operating System Requirements for Agent Machines VCM Agent Requirements Windows Custom Information Supports PowerShell 2.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide Disallowed Packages VCM Agent Patching the OS Provisioning Server Network Requirements Provisioning Network Interface Configure the OS Provisioning Server Firewall Configure SQL Server for VCM SQL Server Database Settings SQL Server Processor Settings Configuring SQL Server Processor Settings SQL Server IO Configuration Use SQLIO to Determine IO Channel Throughput 4 42 42 42 42 42 44 47 47 48 48 49 52 VMware, Inc.
About This Book The VMware vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide describes the hardware and software requirements necessary for a successful VMware vCenter Configuration Manager (VCM) installation.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide Technical Support and Education Resources The following technical support resources are available to you. To access the current version of this book and other books, go to http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs. Online and Telephone To use online support to submit technical support requests, view your product and contract Support information, and register your products, go to http://www.vmware.com/support.
Overview 1 This manual helps you determine your specific hardware and software requirements for VMware vCenter Configuration Manager (VCM) and helps you install and configure the prerequisites necessary for a successful installation. To determine your hardware and software requirements, you must begin by considering the answers to several questions. Worksheets are available later in this document to help you determine the answers to these questions.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide If you have questions about the Windows server/workstation or UNIX machine configuration, or about any requirements not answered in this document, contact your VMware account representative or VMware Customer Support.
Overview Figure 1-1: Typical VCM Enterprise-wide, single-server installation VMware, Inc.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide Figure 1-2: VCM Collector with OS Provisioning Server 10 VMware, Inc.
Hardware Requirements for Collector Machines 2 VCM hardware requirements are dependent on the number of physical and virtual machines within your enterprise that you plan to license for use with VCM. Use the information in this chapter to determine how many machines you plan to manage and what VCM components you plan to license.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide In this example, an enterprise contains machines and objects that represent 1177 managed machines and so is in the 1000 to 2000 managed machines category. Table 2-1.
Hardware Requirements for Collector Machines Longer data retention, additional WMI, registry filters, and custom information collections also add to the requirements. For questions about how your specific requirements are affected, contact VMware Customer Support. Table 2-1.
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3 Hardware and Operating System Requirements for Agent Machines Agent machines are managed machines from which VCM collects data. The Agent is supported on many different machine and operating system types. VCM Agent Requirements The amount of additional disk space required on a Windows, UNIX/Linux, Mac OS X,or AD managed machine running an Agent is fairly constant. Each machine requires no more than 200MB to run an Agent. However, the recommended memory to run the HP-UX Agent is 1GB.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide Agent Supported Operating System AIX 5L AIX 5L AIX 5L AIX 6L 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 (5.2 Agent or later) Debian 4.0 (Package LSB-Release is required) ESX 4.1 Update 1 ESXi 4.1 Update 1 HP-UX 11i v1.0 (11.11) (If you are installing on HPUX 11.11, Patch PHSS_30966 is required.) Supported in trusted mode. HP-UX 11i v2.0 (11.23) HP-UX 11i v2.0 (11.23) HP-UX 11i v3.0 (11.31) HP-UX 11i v3.0 (11.31) Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 (ES/AS) (up to 5.1.
Hardware and Operating System Requirements for Agent Machines These x64 platforms have been tested: n For Windows: Intel64 and AMD64 n For Linux: Intel64 and AMD64 n For Solaris: Intel64 Itanium is not supported for either Windows or UNIX/Linux, except for HP-UX for Itanium servers. Windows Custom Information Supports PowerShell 2.0 PowerShell version 2.0 is required for Windows Custom Information (WCI). VMware recommends that you upgrade from PowerShell 1.0 to PowerShell 2.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide Software Provisioning Requirements VCM Software Provisioning provides the components to create software provisioning packages, publish the packages to repositories, and install and remove software packages on target machines. Table 3-1.
Hardware and Operating System Requirements for Agent Machines Supported Operating System Supported Hardware Platform HP-UX 11i v3.0 (11.31) Mac OS X 10.4 Mac OS X 10.5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (ES/AS) including Desktop with Workstation edition Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (ES/AS) including Desktop with Workstation edition Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide Physical Requirements n Processor. Single Xeon or single-core 2 GHz minimum n RAM. 4 GB minimum n Disk Space. Each VCM for Virtualization Agent Proxy requires an additional 93 MB of disk space, above the 200 MB required for the standard Agent. In addition, you will also need: n 4 MB per ESX server for data model storage n 150 MB per ESX server for Agent master files Virtual Requirements n CPU.
Hardware and Operating System Requirements for Agent Machines Operating System Version Hardware Platform FIPS Module Certificate Windows Windows Windows Windows Windows SP1 Gold Gold All 1 x86 x86 x86 x86 x86 and 64-bit; Itanium is not supported. 240 240 238 103 See "Cryptographic RSA Enhanced Validated Modules" on page 21 and "Cryptographic DSS Enhanced Validated Modules" on page 21.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide DSSENH Validated Operating Systems Validated Versions (Links to Security Policy) FIPS Certificate # FIPS Version Validated Windows Server 2008 6.0.6001.18000 #1009 140-2 FIPS Used by VCM Agent Proxies The VCM Agent Proxy uses the OpenSSL FIPS v1.1.2, which is validated to the 918 certificate. Agent Sizing Information The VCM-related file size on the disk varies depending on the platform and the actual data collected.
Hardware and Operating System Requirements for Agent Machines Agent Type Installed file size Data File Size (after collecting Projected Data File Size (determined by collected data data using types and actions) default filter set) Database 140KB Software Repository. Increased sized is based on the number of installed packages and the size of the packages. The size of cratecache changes if packages are "cleaned" from the cratecache after package installation or removal.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide Mac OS X Machines Table 3-3. Mac OS X Agent File Sizes Agent Type Data File Size (after Installed collecting Projected Data File Size (determined by collected data types file size data using and actions) default filter set) CMAgent.5.3.0.Darwin 97MB 24 5-30MB The projected data file sizing information can vary greatly depending on your collection filter set. The size can vary from 10-20MB to more than 100MB.
Software and Operating System Requirements for Collector Machines 4 Your system must meet these software requirements before you install VCM. The requirements are divided into steps, with several requirements consolidated under a general step. Each step must be performed in the order specified to ensure a smooth and efficient VCM installation. The final step in preparing your VCM Collector is to download and run the Foundation Checker tool.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide Upgrade Considerations To upgrade to the current version of VCM, you must have version 4.11.1 or later installed and running. Detailed upgrade procedures are provided in the VCM Installation and Getting Started Guide. Configuring a 64-bit Operating System for a VCM Installation To prepare your 64-bit system for a successful VCM installation, complete the procedures in the order they are presented.
Software and Operating System Requirements for Collector Machines VCM managed machines do not require DCOM. Instead, you can use HTTP on VCM managed machines if you do not want to use DCOM or if it is blocked by firewalls or disabled on the clients. You must ensure that DCOM is enable on the Collector to successfully install and run VCM. Although DCOM is enabled by default when Windows Server 2008 R2 is installed, DCOM can be disabled by a custom installation or a lock-down script. 1.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide To verify the correct IIS 7.5 Role Services are enabled on the Web server 1. Open Server Manager. 2. Expand Roles and click Web Server (IIS). 3. In the Web Server (IIS) pane, scroll down to Role Services. 4. Make sure these Role Services on the IIS Web server are Installed: Table 4-1.
Software and Operating System Requirements for Collector Machines To Configure the IIS 7.5 settings 1. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager. 2. Expand the Server Manager (), expand Sites, and click Default Web Site. 3. In the Actions area, under Edit Site, click Bindings. 4. Click Add and set the Port to 80 and the IP address to All Unsigned. 5. Save the settings and close the Site Bindings dialog box. 6. In the Actions area, under Manage Web Site, click Advanced Settings. 7.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide To verify the ASP Role Service 1. Select Start > Administrative Tools > Server Manager. 2. Expand Server Manager () and expand Roles. 3. Click Web Server (IIS). 4. Scroll down to Role Services. 5. Locate ASP and verify that the status is Installed. 6. If the status of the ASP Role Service is Not Installed: a. Click Add Role Services. b. On the Select Role Services page, select the ASP role service. c.
Software and Operating System Requirements for Collector Machines Verify the IIS Server-Side Includes Role Service The IIS ServerSideIncludes Role Service must be installed. To verify the IIS ServerSideIncludes Role Service 1. Select Start > Administrative Tools > Server Manager. 2. Expand Server Manager () and expand Roles. 3. Click Web Server (IIS). 4. Scroll down to Role Services. 5. Locate IIS ServerSideIncludes and verify that the status is Installed. 6.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide Install and Configure SQL Server VCM operates with a Standard or Enterprise edition of SQL Server. You must install SQL Server 2008 R2 (64-bit), English (United States) version on your designated Collector and verify that the settings are configured correctly for a VCM installation.
Software and Operating System Requirements for Collector Machines To install SQL Server 2008 R2 1. Run setup.exe to begin the SQL Server 2008 R2 installation. 2. In the SQL Server Installation Center, review the list of Planning options. You do not need to run the SQL System Configuration Checker. When you install VCM later, the VCM Installation Manager will run the VCM Foundation Checker to ensure your system is ready for the VCM installation. 3. Click Installation and review the installation options.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide 21. On the Error Reporting page, you do not have to take action and can proceed to the next page. 22. On the Installation Configuration Rules page, correct any errors that might have occurred before you proceed. 23. When the rules pass, proceed to the next page. 24. On the Ready to Install page, review the features to be installed and click Install. 25.
Software and Operating System Requirements for Collector Machines 1. Select Start > All Programs > Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 > SQL Server Management Studio. 2. Click the Database Engine Query button. 3. In the SQL Query pane, type SELECT @@Servername and click Execute. 4. Verify that the resulting server name matches the machine name.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide 1. In Internet Explorer, click Tools. 2. Click Internet Options and the Security tab. 3. Click Local intranet and clear the Enable Protected Mode (requires restarting Internet Explorer) check box. 4. Click Apply and OK, and close all instances of Internet Explorer. Back Up Your SSRS Key Use the Microsoft command line utility, rskeymgmt.exe, to back up the symmetric key to an encrypted file. Use rskeymgmt.
Software and Operating System Requirements for Collector Machines During the installation process, you must specify certificates for the Collector and for the Enterprise. You can have Installation Manager generate the certificates for you, or you can use your existing certificates. If you plan to use your own certificates, familiarize yourself with the certificate names so that you can select those certificates from your certificate store during installation.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide Assign ASP.NET Permissions to the VMware Application Services Account The VMware Application Services Account is a custom service account that requires appropriate permissions to access the IIS metabase and file system folders that are used by ASP.NET. Use the Aspnet_ regiis.exe utility to grant these permissions. 1. Open a command prompt window. 2.
Software and Operating System Requirements for Collector Machines Run Foundation Checker Foundation Checker is a tool that runs system checks on the VCM Collector machine. Foundation Checker automatically checks the machine to verify that all of the prerequisites are satisfied for a successful installation of VCM. Installation Manager runs Foundation Checker automatically during the VCM installation.
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Hardware and Software Requirements for the Operating System Provisioning Server 5 VCM OS provisioning supports one instance of VCM with one instance of the Operating System (OS) Provisioning Server. You must first configure the server to meet the prerequisites provided here, and then install the OS Provisioning Server application as specified in VCM Installation and Getting Started Guide. Supported Platform The OS Provisioning Server can be installed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide Required Packages The Development Tools and Legacy Software Development package groups can be installed from Red Hat media. These packages are found in the Legacy Software Development option for Red Hat and include these components: n cURL n libstdc++.so.5, which is typically installed as part of compat-libstdc++-33 n libstdc++libc6.
Hardware and Software Requirements for the Operating System Provisioning Server Configure the provisioning network interface on the machine you are using as the OS Provisioning Server with a static IP address so that the OS Provisioning Server can act as a DHCP server. The following are the default and preferred values used throughout OS Provisioning Server installation process: n IP Address: 10.11.12.1 n Netmask: 255.255.255.0.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide Add the following entry in the /etc/sysconfig/iptables firewall configuration file to allow traffic on all ports on the provisioning network. -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -i eth1 -j ACCEPT Configure the OS Provisioning Server Firewall Configure the firewall on the OS Provisioning Server to allow proper communication on the required ports.
Hardware and Software Requirements for the Operating System Provisioning Server -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-host-prohibited COMMIT # Completed on Fri Dec 3 14:51:10 2010 4. Restart the iptables service using the following command: service iptables restart VMware, Inc.
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Configure SQL Server for VCM 6 SQL Server 2008 R2 is user friendly and designed so that even a novice Database Administrator (DBA) can set up and operate a high performing database system. However, because VCM places such a heavy load on the database, changes are required to the default settings to optimize SQL Server performance. By understanding the SQL Server actions, a DBA can tune SQL Server for use with VCM.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide n Recovery interval (minutes): Type or select 5. This setting configures the approximate amount of time that SQL Server takes to run the recovery process. The default setting is 0, which means that the system automatically adjusts this value. If you allow SQL Server to automatically adjust the recovery interval, it will base the values on the historical operation of the server.
Configure SQL Server for VCM 1. Select Start > All Programs > Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 > SQL Server Management Studio. 2. Right-click the SQL instance that you installed and select Properties. 3. In the Select a page area, select Processors. 4. Select the Automatically set I/O affinity mask for all processors check box, located below the processor list, and then select all I/O Affinity check boxes for all processors in the Enable processors list. 5.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide Because SQL Server is extremely disk-write intensive, performance suffers when SQL is configured with RAID 5. Understanding the RAID levels can help SQL DBAs configure the disk IO subsystem in the most efficient manner. n RAID 0. “Striping Without Parity”.
Configure SQL Server for VCM n Ultra 320 SCSI, or U320 supports up to 320MB/s throughput per channel. The HP SmartArray 6404 can support multiple U320 channels (four in the case of the SA6404) and on-board, battery-backed-up cache. The cache provides for increased read and write performance because it allows the controller to batch requests to the drives. n Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) uses special 2.5” drives, and has a higher data rate than the U320, up to 600MB/s for newer controllers.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide Use SQLIO to Determine IO Channel Throughput SQLIO is a tool that determines the I/O capacity of a SQL configuration. To predict how well VCM will function on a particular IO configuration, and to obtain a baseline of how well the IO subsystem functions, run SQLIO before you install VCM.
Index . .NET status .NET versions 64-bit 29 29 29 29 A about this book administrator rights agent hardware disk sizing software provisioning software PowerShell software provisioning agent proxy FIPS virtualization application services account ASP.NET ASP IIS ASP.NET application services account 5 36 38 15 22 18 15 17 18 22 19 37 38 VMware, Inc.
vCenter Configuration Manager Hardware and Software Requirements Guide PowerShell agent prerequisites installation processor settings SQL Server properties SQL Server provisioning, operating system network requirements server platform server requirements software supported platforms system requirements 17 25 48 34 42 41 41 41 41 17 41 V vCenter software virtual directory permissions virtualization agent proxy hardware 20 38 19 19 W WCF ISAPI extensions web services extensions Windows OS 31 30 26 R re
