This demo will walk you through the Cloud Foundation on VxRail deployment process. First, we must log into the vCenter using the administrator credentials.
In this demo, we will begin with a four node VxRail cluster already deployed and configured per the Cloud Foundation prerequisites. This cluster will be used as the Management Domain cluster for our Cloud Foundation on VxRail environment.
Cloud Foundation on VxRail is deployed using an installer utility that is directly integrated with VxRail, called Cloud Builder. We will begin this demo by deploying the Cloud Builder (OVA). Click “Deploy OVF Template” to continue.
Click the Local file button to continue. To browse the directory where the Cloud OVA file is located, select Choose Files to continue.
To browse the directory where the Cloud OVA file is located, select Choose Files to continue. Click Next to continue.
Click Next to continue.
We will maintain the default compute resource cluster here. Click Next to continue.
Review a list of our previous selections. Click Next to continue.
Select the button to accept the license agreement (EULA). Click Next to continue.
We will deploy the Cloud Builder VM on the “VxRail-Virtual-SAN-Datastore”. Click Next to continue.
We will not change the default Management Network shown here. Click Next to continue.
In step 8, we must complete our VM template settings. Click the text line to enter our Admin account password for the Cloud Builder VM, the Hostname, the networking settings and DNS, etc.
We must enter the vcf-vxrail SKU to enable the Cloud Builder VM to be deployed using its VxRail Profile.This profile unlocks all of the VxRail integration and awareness it will use to install Cloud Foundation on a native VxRail cluster. Click Next to continue.
Click Finish to begin deploying the Cloud Builder VM on our VxRail cluster.
The Cloud Builder VM is now deployed. Let’s power it on.
When Cloud Builder VM is now successfully deployed and powered on. Now we can log into the Cloud Builder web portal to walk through the Cloud Foundation deployment wizard. Access the Cloud Builder web interface. Enter the Username and Password, click Login to continue.
Before Cloud Builder can deploy Cloud Foundation, a few prerequisite configuration items need to be performed. Click the scroll bar to see the remaining list of tasks. When we have verified that all of the required tasks have been completed. Select Check All to continue, next Next.
Select the check box to accept the end user license agreement (EULA), then Next to continue.
The Cloud Builder utility accepts a deployment parameter file that is pre-populated with all of the configuration information that needed for deployment.
Click Upload to continue.
In this demo, select the rack1-vcf-bringup-demo.xls. Click the Open to upload the file.
The Cloud Builder utility has a validation capability that analyzes the data in the file, and that syntax is correct and matches the environment for which Cloud Foundation will be deployed. Click Validate to begin this validation process.
The validation has completed successfully. Click Next to continue.
When the configuration information has been validated. We are now ready to begin the Cloud Foundation Bring-up deployment process. Click Begin Bring-up to kick off the automated Cloud Foundation installation.
Click the scroll bar to view more of the Bring-up tasks being executed.
We can see the Cloud Builder deploying and configuring the SDDC Manager.
Cloud Builder is now creating and configuring the NSX components. This is the last virtualization component to complete the SDDC. VxRail has already configured vSphere and vSAN as part of the VxRail cluster deployment by VxRail Manager.
We are viewing Cloud Builder’s last set of tasks related to VxRail Manager certificates.
The Cloud Foundation Bring-up process has successfully completed. Click the SDDC Manager URL to launch the SDDC Manager console.
The first item you see when launching the SDDC Manager UI is a dialog box asking to “Join the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program.” In this demo, click the checkbox to deselect this option.
Now we see the SDDC Manager Dashboard. Before we navigate this, take a look at what Cloud Foundation management components the Cloud Builder utility has deployed.
Open the vCenter HTML5. Cloud Builder has created resource pools on our VxRail cluster to organize the placement of the Cloud Foundation management components. Select Mgmt-ResourcePool to expand the components.
We can see that Cloud Builder deployed a number of items such as SDDC Manager, NSX Manager, NSX Controllers, an additional PSC, and vRealiize Log Insight. It even added the VxRail Manager VM to the Mgmt-ResourcePool.
Select Networking and Security to view the NSX configuration information for what has been deployed.
This is the SDDC Manager dashboard screen. Here you can view high level information about the configuration and status of your Cloud Foundation environment.
Let’s view the details of the Management Domain that was configured as part of Bring-up. Click Workload Domains to continue.
Click View Details to continue
This is the Virtual Infrastructure (VI) dashboard. All configured Workload Domains are listed here along with information about them. We can see there is only one MGMT Domain listed. Select MGMT to continue.
We see the list of hosts in the MGMT Domain and some information for each. Let’s look at more details about an individual host.
On Services menu, we see various links (vCenter, PSC’s, and Log Insight) to launch into the management tools for the MGMT Domain.
One of the automated tasks performed by Cloud Builder involves the deployment of vRealize Log Insight and its configuration to capture logs for all Management Domain components, including all hosts in the cluster. Now let’s take a look at the components that were automatically configured for log capture by logging into the vRealize Log Insight.
This is the vRealize Log Insight Overview Dashboard. Click on the menu icon to enter the Administration menu.
Select the Hosts menu item to view the hosts that have been automatically configured with log collection.
All deployed Management Cluster components have been automatically set up to send logs to Log Insight.
It completes this demo.
Victor Wu
Chief Architect, Blogger, Author at Dell EMC Knowledge Sharing & Packt
Victor Virtualization 
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