Orchestrator – Install the vCO vApp

In case you missed the announcement, the barrier to entry for vCenter Orchestrator was just lowered significantly with VMware’s release of the vCO 4.2 vApp. Here, we’ll talk about installing it.

Installing the vCO vApp

Assumptions

Basically, I’m assuming that you have an edition of vSphere that is licensed for vCenter and have downloaded both the OVF and VMDK files from the VMware download page:

Installation

Once you have the bits, do the following:

Fire up the vSphere client, login.
File > Deploy OVF Template…
Aim the wizard where you put the files:
Accept the EULA
Give it a Name & Location
Pick your host/cluster
Storage
Disk (it’s all greyed out)
Properties (This is where you set your static IPs):
Done!

Configuring

Even though most of the vApp comes configured out of the box, there are still some additional steps you need to do once the VM has been deployed:

Select the VM in the client, locate the IP:
Point your web browser at that IP:
Now, pick “Appliance Configuration”. You will be prompted to change the default password:
On the next page, log in as root, and you’ll be presented with the following:
You will need to do the same password change for the vCO configuration page. This time log in with the default of vmware / vmware

Logging in

Start on the default page for the vCO Appliance:
Start Orchestrator Client (The client is in Java, and will launch the Java Web Start bits):
Log in with vcoadmin/vcoadmin
Accept the SSL cert.
Done!

Summary

Long blog post is long. To put it in perspective however, it took me 8 minutes from start to operations not including the download. For more info on Orchestrator, check out my past posts here. You should also pre-order the vCO Book here. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop a line.