So the new version is here, as mentioned in an other post. Lets have a look at the deployment and installation, in this case I will do it via the vRealize Easy Installer option. This option is suggested by VMware since it makes the deployment quicker than installing the components individually.
First we need to go to my.vmware.com and download the product as usual. This is relatively simple and download the VMware vRealize Automation ISO. The other option is to also download the Orchestrator component if you require an external Orchestrator but in this case we just need the Automation appliance. It’s a nice 9 GB ISO so it may take a while.
(In vRA 8.0.x and 8.1 there was an issue with an expired password and an error would occur during installation, I made a post about it, which you can find here).
The ISO once downloaded and extracted includes the following:
- Life-cycle Manager appliance.
- IDM appliance
- vRA appliance
This is also the order of which that it is recommended to deploy it via the Easy setup.
Things to prepare before the installation:
1: Make sure the ports you require are open. These can be found here.
2: DNS entries are usually required for VMware products so make sure you have IPs and DNS names noted down and entered in your setup.
3: Make sure you meet the resource requirements. For a minimal installation you need 12 vCPUS, 44 GB RAM, and 229 GB disk space. For a large deployment the numbers grow to: 32 vCPUS, 120 GB RAM and 621 GB Disks space (excluding load-balancers).
So first up: Accessing the vRealize Easy Installer
The program is found inside the folder vrlcm-ui-installer on the ISO file. Inside you have three folders: Linux64, Mac and Win32. You want to find the file “Installer” within the folder that matches the OS where you run it from.
This brings up the following Window:
In my case I want Install so clicking that and we get started:
We see that the installer will install three products in the environment. Next it is time to agree to the license agreements and the Customer Experience Improvement Program.
On the next screen it is time to fill in the vCenter information, and click next. Accept the certificate warning if prompted.
Next it is time to select a location for the appliances and Compute Resources and storage location:
Next it is time for network settings and to create a password.
After these general settings we get to the configuration specific to each appliance that will be deployed.
First LCM:
Then IDM:
And finally vRA, notice that you can skip the vRA installation here, not sure why but you can. Also you can select standard or cluster deployment. If you select cluster you get prompted for a LB and 2 more vra-appliances.
You are required to supply a license key!
You are finally presented with a summary screen. Click Submit to get started and off we go. In case of a problem you have the installer log location listed also on the screen during the install.
Around 15-30 mins into the installation you will get the message that the Lifecycle manager is up and that you can access it, in the meanwhile the IDM and vRA deployment continues in the background.
If you choose you can go to the lcm and see the flows, as you can see there are 6 stages and it goes through the various stages on the page.
And then it eventually moves on. Keep an eye on your resources if you are running low. I ended up having to move Log insight to an other server to progress the installation.
And that is it. vRA is installed via the Easy installer:
