Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter 1.6 Deployment Guide

Michael Hepfer

Sangita Pandit

Umer Shabbir

Trung Tran

Enterprise Product Group

Hypervisor Deployment using the Dell

Management Plug-in for VMware

vCenter

This Dell technical white paper describes how to use the Dell
Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter to deploy a hypervisor onto a
Dell 11th Generation or later bare metal server.

Hypervisor Deployment using the Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter

This document is for informational purposes only and may contain typographical errors and
technical inaccuracies. The content is provided as is, without express or implied warranties of any
kind.

© 2013 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Dell and its affiliates cannot be responsible for errors or omissions
in typography or photography. Dell, the Dell logo, and PowerEdge are trademarks of Dell Inc. Intel and
Xeon are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Microsoft,
Windows, and Windows Server are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation
in the United States and/or other countries. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this
document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell disclaims
proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.

January 2013| Rev 1.2

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Hypervisor Deployment using the Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter

Contents

Executive summary ................................................................................................... 4

Introduction ........................................................................................................... 4

The Deployment Wizard ............................................................................................. 4

Select servers ........................................................................................................ 5

Deployment template............................................................................................... 5

Creating a new deployment template .......................................................................... 5

Hardware profile .................................................................................................... 6

Creating a hardware profile ..................................................................................... 6

Selecting the reference server .................................................................................. 6

Hypervisor profile ................................................................................................... 7

Creating a hypervisor profile .................................................................................... 7

Global settings ....................................................................................................... 7

Server identification ................................................................................................ 7

Connection profile .................................................................................................. 8

Creating a connection profile.................................................................................... 8

Selecting a connection profile ................................................................................... 9

Schedule job ......................................................................................................... 9

The Job Queue ........................................................................................................ 9

Deployment jobs .................................................................................................... 10

Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 11

Figures

Figure 1. Deployment Wizard ...................................................................................... 5

Figure 2. Job Queue ................................................................................................ 10

Figure 3. Purge deployment jobs ................................................................................. 10

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Hypervisor Deployment using the Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter

Executive summary

The Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter is a virtual appliance that streamlines tools and tasks
associated with management and deployment of Dell servers in your virtual environment. It reduces

complexity by natively integrating the key management capabilities into the VMware vSphere Client

console. It minimizes risk with hardware alarms, streamlined firmware updates and deep visibility into
inventory, health and warranty details.

The Dell Management Plug-in enables and speeds up bare metal provisioning from within VMware
vCenter. Rather than complicated server provisioning tools and processes, the Dell Management Plug-in
uses the Deployment Wizard to both configure hardware and deploy the hypervisor. This automation
reduces deployment steps from 55 to 9, reducing the time it takes to go from an open box to a running
host.

Introduction

The Dell Management Plug-in deploys hypervisor onto local hard disk for Dell PowerEdge 11th and 12th
Generation bare-metal servers. In addition, it deploys onto an Internal Dual SD Module with a minimum
of 1GB of storage.

Note: Automatic hypervisor deployments using the Dell Management Plug-in on Internal Dual SD
Modules are only supported for the ESXi versions and not supported on the legacy ESX versions.

The Deployment Wizard

The Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter uses the Deployment Wizard to step through the
hypervisor deployment process and schedule deployment jobs. The Deployment Wizard is displayed on
the left-hand navigation panel of the Dell Management Center. You launch the wizard from VMware
vSphere Client Home-> Management tab->Dell Management Center icon -> Dell Management Center.
The Deployment Wizard contains the following steps:

1. Select undeployed and compliant Dell Bare-Metal servers.

2. Select a deployment template.

3. Specify the Global Settings.

4. Assign identification to the deployed servers.

5. Assign a connection profile to each server.

6. Schedule when the server deployment is to run.

4