Installing the Catalogic DPX Master Server Appliance

Before you begin

Complete the following tasks:

• Download the virtual appliance template installation OVA file from Catalogic Software MySupport website.

• Run MD5 Checksum on the downloaded template installation file. Ensure that the generated checksum matches the one provided in the MD5 Checksum file, which is part of the software download.

• During deployment, you will be prompted to enter network properties from the VMware user interface. You can enter a static IP address configuration or leave all fields blank to use a DHCP configuration. At this step, you have chance to change the hostname, ensure that the hostname is added to DNS.

• To reassign a static IP address after deployment, you can use the Network Manager Text User Interface (nmtui) tool. For more information, see Assigning or Changing an IP Address.

Note the following considerations:

• Deploying DPX Master Server virtual appliance requires a minimum of 4 CPUs and 16 GB memory.

• Both thick and thin provisioning are supported. Thick provisioning should be used for optimal performance. A minimum of 270 GB must be available on the datastore to which the DPX Master Server appliance is deployed when the Master Server is deployed with thick provisioning.

• Consider configuring an IP address pool that is associated with the VM network to where the virtual appliance will be deployed. Correct configuration of the IP address pool includes the setup of IP address range (if used), netmask, gateway, DNS search string, and a DNS server IP address.

• If the hostname of the DPX virtual appliance changes after deployment, either through user intervention or if a new IP address is acquired through DNS, the DPX appliance must be restarted.

• A default gateway must be configured properly before deployment. Multiple DNS strings are supported and must be separated by commas without the use of spaces.

• For later versions of vSphere, the vSphere Web Client might be required to deploy DPX appliances.

• DPX has not been tested for IPv6 environments.

Procedure

To install the virtual appliance, complete the following steps:

1. In the vSphere Client Hosts and Clusters view or the VM and Templates view, right-click on a container (e.g. ESXi or Resource Pool) or click on the Actions menu and select Deploy OVF Template from the context menu.

2. Select Local file and click Choose Files or Browse to specify the location of the downloaded DPX490GA.ova file and select it. Click Next.

3. Enter a unique name for the virtual machine in the Virtual machine name field and select a target location for the virtual machine from the Select a location for the virtual machine list. Click Next.

4. Identify the compute resource from the Select a compute resource list. Click Next.

5. Review the template details and click Next.

6. Read the license agreement entirely and accept the End User License Agreement by selecting I accept all license agreements. Click Next.

7. Select the storage and disk format to store the virtual disks. Select from the datastores that are already configured on the destination host. The virtual machine configuration file and virtual disk files are stored on the datastore. Select a datastore that is large enough to accommodate the virtual machine and all its virtual disk files. To help optimize performance, keep the default option: Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed. Thin provisioning requires less disk space but might impact performance. Click Next.

8. Select networks for the deployed template to use. Several available networks on the VMware ESXi server may be available by clicking Destination Networks. Select a destination network that allows you to define the appropriate IP address allocation for the virtual machine deployment. Click Next.

9. Enter a hostname for the machine in the Hostname field. The hostname should be a DNS resolvable name. If this is left blank, localhost is the default.

Important. For the hostname, enter the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) when deploying the virtual appliance. The provided hostname must match the DNS record. Ensure that the settings provided will allow the DPX Master Server to communicate with other nodes in the environment.

10. If not using DHCP, work with your network administrator to determine the network properties. Enter the network properties for the virtual machine in the respective fields: Default Gateway, DNS, Network IP address, and Network Prefix. The network prefix should be specified by a network administrator. The network prefix must be entered using Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) notation. If using DHCP, leave the fields blank which is the default setting.

11. Enter the two character keyboard layout for your language in the Keyboard Language field. The default setting is US. Additional choices include: UK, DE, FR, ZH, and PL. Click Next.

12. Enter the string for the timezone in the Timezone field for the Timezone Configuration. The default setting is America/New_York (US Eastern). Other examples include America/Chicago (US Central), America/Denver (US Mountain), America/Los_Angeles (US Pacific), Asia/Hong_Kong (Hong Kong), Asia/Kolkata (India), Asia/Shanghai (China - Beijing), Asia/Urumqi (China - Xinjiang), Europe/Berlin (Germany), Europe/London (UK), and Europe/Warsaw (Poland). Additional timezones can be found here: http://worldtimeapi.org/timezones.

13. Review your template selections. Click Finish to exit the wizard and to start deployment of the OVF template.

14. After the OVF template is deployed, power on your newly created VM. You can power on the VM from the vSphere Client.

Important. The virtual machine must remain powered on for the DPX Master Server to be accessible.

15. The IP address is required to log on to the DPX Master Server. Find the IP address in vSphere Client by clicking your newly created VM and looking in the Summary tab. Record the IP address of the DPX Master Server.

Important. It may take several minutes for to initialize completely.

16. Log in to the DPX Master Server.