Cisco Virtual Wide Area Application Services Configuration Guide (for WAAS 6.2.x)

Cisco vWAAS and VMware vSphere ESXi

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This chapter describes how to install the VMware vSphere ESXi hypervisor for vWAAS, and contains the following section:

• Installing Cisco vWAAS with VMware vSphere ESXi

Installing Cisco vWAAS with VMware vSphere ESXi

To install the vWAAS Virtual Machine (VM) with VMware vSphere ESXi, follow these steps:

Step 1 From the vSphere Client, choose File > Deploy OVF Template.

The Source window appears.

Figure 3-1 vWAAS—Deploy OVF Template

Step 2 Click Browse.

The Open window appears.

Step 3 Navigate to the location of the vWAAS OVA file and click Open.

• If the virtual host was created using an OVA of vWAAS for WAAS Version 5.1.x or later, proceed to Step 4.
• If the virtual host was created using an OVA file of vWAAS for WAAS Version 5.0 or earlier, and you have upgraded vWAAS from inside WAAS, you must verify that the SCSI Controller Type is set to VMware Paravirtual. Otherwise, vWAAS will boot with no disk available, and will fail to load the specified configuration.

If needed, change the SCSI controller type to VMware Paravirtual by following these steps:

a. Power down the vWAAS.

b. From the VMware vCenter, navigate to vSphere Client > Edit Settings > Hardware.

c. Choose SCSI controller 0.

d. From the Change Type drop-down list, verify that the SCSI Controller Type is set to VMware Paravirtual. If this is not the case, choose VMware Paravirtual.

e. Click OK.

f. Power up the vWAAS, with WAAS Version 6.1.x or later.

Step 4 Click Next to accept the selected OVA file.

The Name and Location window appears.

Step 5 Enter a name for the vWAAS VM, choose the appropriate data center, and then click Next.

The Cluster window appears (if a cluster is configured), or the Resource Pool window appears (if a resource pool is configured). Otherwise, the Datastore window appears (in this case, skip to Step 7).

Figure 3-2 vWAAS—Name and Data Center Location

Step 6 If configured, choose a cluster for the vWAAS VM or, if configured, choose the resource pool and then click Next.

The Datastore window appears.

Step 7 Choose a datastore to host the virtual machine and click Next.

Figure 3-3 vWAAS - Datastore

Note The datastore must be formatted with a block size greater than 1 MB to support file sizes larger than 256 GB.

The Create a Disk window appears.

Step 8 The Disk Provisioning section has three disk format options: Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed, Thick Provision Eager Zeroed, and Thin Provision. Select Thick Provision Eager Zeroed.

Note You must choose the Thick Provision Eager Zeroed disk format for vWAAS deployment; this is the format recommended with vWAAS deployment for a clean installation.

Step 9 Click Next.

The Network Mapping window appears.

Step 10 Choose the network mapping provided by ESXi and click Next. You have the option to change this later if necessary.

The Ready to Complete window appears.

Figure 3-4 vWAAS—Network Mapping

Step 11 Click Finish to complete the installation.

The status window appears while the OVA file is being deployed.

Figure 3-5 vWAAS—Status Window

Step 12 When the deployment is finished, the Deployment Completed Successfully window appears.

Figure 3-6 vWAAS—Completed

Step 13 Click Close.

Step 14 You are ready to start the VM. Highlight the vWAAS VM and click Power on Virtual Machine.

Step 15 After vWAAS finishes booting, click the Console tab to view boot up messages.

Figure 3-7 vWAAS—Console

Note Under rare conditions, the vWAAS VM may boot into diskless mode if other VMs on the host VM server do not release control of system resources or the physical disks become unresponsive. For information on how to resolve this situation, see Resolving Diskless Startup and Disk Failure in Chapter 8, “Troubleshooting Cisco vWAAS.”

For vWAAS configuration information, see Chapter 2, “Configuring Cisco vWAAS and Viewing vWAAS Components”.