VCF9 – VCF Operations and VCF Operations for Logs installation/configuration without VCF Installer

We sometimes get the question how to install a standalone VCF Operations and VCF Operations for Logs without the VCF installer. Some customers want to use the OVAs in their environments and manage them over the lifecycle option in Fleet Management. So only for monitoring purposes with some lifecycle options for the Management Solutions. I have therefore reproduced the necessary steps and documented them in this blog.

Note: This procedure is technically working, however the recommendation from VMware is to do a full VCF deployment using the VCF installer as outlined in the documentation.

The instructions explained here only work with a VCF license. Check out my other blog which explains the procedure for a VVF scenario.

VVF9 – VCF Operations and VCF Operations for Logs installation/configuration without VCF Installer and Fleet Management

Deploy VCF Operations Appliance:

Search for the appropriate location in the vCenter, right-click on it and select the menu item “Deploy OVF Template”

Select Local Files and click on Upload Files. Select the VCF Operations OVA and click NEXT

Choose a name for the VM and a folder. Click NEXT

Select a compute resource. Click NEXT

Review details. Click NEXT

Accept all license agreements. Click NEXT

Choose the Size for the Appliance. Click NEXT

Select the storage. Click Next

Select the Destination Network. Click NEXT

Define a password for the root user, choose the right time zone and scroll down

Define the network properties, the IPv4 configuration and scroll down

The IPv6 configuration is not mandatory. Click NEXT

Check all parameters. Click FINISH

Wait until the deployment is finished and power on the virtual machine

Open a browser window and connect to the url of the Operations Appliance via https. The inital setup wizard will come up. Click NEXT

Define a new password for the admin user. Click NEXT and then FINISH

The preparation takes some time, once finished you are automatically taken to the login page

Configure the VCF Operations Appliance:

On the login page enter the admin credentials and click LOG IN

Click on EXPRESS INSTALLATION

Click NEXT

Accept the license agreement. Click NEXT

Click NEXT and FINISH

You now land on License Management in the VCF Operations UI. You can also see that only the menu items for License Management and Administration are available. This is because our VCF Operations is not yet registered.

Go to License Management > Registration and do the registration in a connected or disconnected way

After registration, the VCF license appears and the remaining menu items are now activated.

We can now integrate our vCenter. Go to Administration > Integration and click ADD

Click on vCenter

Insert the required parameters for the vCenter

We still need to create new credentials. Click on the plus symbol and insert the credentials for the vCenter User. The Action User is not mandatory and only needed if you want to execute actions by Operations. Click OK

Click on VALIDATE CONNECTION

Accept the Certificate

Click OK and then ADD

On the Account Monitoring Notification click OK (we start the collection in the next steps)

The vCenter account is now available but in “Stopped” status

Click on the 3 vertical dots and then on „Start Collecting“

The status changed from „Stopped“ to „Collecting“

Since I have integrated a vCenter 8 in my environment, the corresponding Pre-Version 9 licenses are now also displayed automatically under License Management > Licenses > Pre-Version 9

Deploy Fleet Management Appliance:

Search for the appropriate location in the vCenter, right-click on it and select the menu item “Deploy OVF Template”

Select Local Files and click on Upload Files. Select the VCF Operations for Logs OVA and click NEXT

Choose a name for the VM and a folder. Click NEXT

Select a compute resource. Click NEXT

Review details. Click NEXT

Select the storage. Click Next

Select the Destination Network. Click NEXT

Define a hostname and passwords for the root and admin user and scroll down

You can decide if you want to join the Customer Experience Program and if you want to enable FIPS (i disabled the checkboxes for both)

Define the network properties. Click NEXT

Check all parameters. Click FINISH

Wait until the deployment is finished and power on the virtual machine

Under Fleet Management > Lifecycle you still get the message that the Management Lifecycle is Not Ready

We must first connect the Fleet Management Application with VCF Operations. To do this, we need to switch to the Admin UI of VCF Operations (https://<ops>/admin). Under Fleet Management click CONNECT

Enter the Node Address of the Fleet Appliance and the Admin Password. Click TEST CONNECTION

Accept the Certificate and click NEXT

Enter the Primary Node Password and click FINISH

The Fleet Management Appliance is now connected

Import VCF Operations into VCF Management Lifecycle:

Reconnect to the VCF Operations UI. Under Fleet Management > Lifecycle > VCF Management you can see that the integration now works. Since we have to select the vCenter in which the appliance is running for the import, we must first add it as a target. Switch to Settings > Deployment Targets and click ADD DEPLOYMENT TARGET

Choose the right vCenter and click VALIDATE and then ADD

Switch back to the Overview page and on VCF Operations click IMPORT

Click NEXT

Fill the required fields and accept the certificate. Click NEXT

Check all properties and click SUBMIT

VCF Operations is now integrated and managed over the Lifecycle

Deploy VCF Operations for Logs Appliance:

Search for the appropriate location in the vCenter, right-click on it and select the menu item “Deploy OVF Template”

Select Local Files and click on Upload Files. Select the VCF Operations for Logs OVA and click NEXT

Choose a name for the VM and a folder. Click NEXT

Choose a compute resource. Click NEXT

Review details and click NEXT

Accept all license agreements. Click NEXT

Choose the right size for the Appliance. Click NEXT

Select the storage. Click NEXT

Select the network. Click NEXT

Define the root password and the hostname and scroll down

Define the network properties. Click NEXT

Check all parameters. Click FINISH

Wait until the deployment is finished and power on the machine

Configure VCF Operations for Logs:

Open a browser window and connect to the url of the Operations for Logs Appliance via https. The initial setup wizard will come up. Click NEXT

Click on START NEW DEPLOYMENT

This could take some time

Define a new password for the admin account. Click SAVE AND CONTINUE

Click SAVE AND CONTINUE

Define a NTP server. Click TEST and then SAVE AND CONTINUE

Skip the SMTP Configuration

Skip the SSL Configuration

On the Setup Complete page click FINISH

Operations for Logs is now configured. No further steps need to be carried out as the rest is configured via VCF Operations.

Integrate VCF Operations for Logs in VCF Operations:

Under Fleet Management > Lifecycle > VCF Management go to operations-logs and click ADD

Choose Import and click NEXT
(that´s also the point were you could start the installation)

First we have to define the passwords for the admin and root user. Click ADD PASSWORD

Fill in the required fields for the Admin User. Click ADD

Repeat the steps for the root user. Click NEXT

Fill the required fields and accept the certificate. Click NEXT

Check all properties and click SUBMIT

VCF Operations for Logs is now integrated and managed over the Lifecycle

We now only have to activate the log collection on the vCenter account. To do this, we go to Administration > Integrations and click on the three vertical dots next to the vCenter and then on Edit.

In the Log Operations section, we now need to activate the Activate Log Collection checkbox. Click SAVE

The Integration is done and now we can analyze the logs under Infrastructure Operations > Analyze

Only one VCF Operations for Logs can be integrated into VCF Operations at a time!

Have Fun!