Install VMware vCenter (VCSA) 6.5: Deployment

You have to have at least one ESXi host installed if you want to deploy VMware VCSA 6.5. This is because the ESXi host will act as a target, as a support to run the VCSA virtual machine (VM). So how do you install and configure VMware vCenter 6.5 in a small business environment?

The vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 has two main parts:

1. vCenter Server
2. Platform Services Controller (PSC)

The VMware PSC enables management of certificates via the VMware certificate authority, licensing services and the vCenter single sign-on (SSO) authentication service. The latter enables communication with vSphere components via a secure token exchange mechanism.
While most environments will be fine with all components installed as a single VM, you also have the option to install a separate VM for the PSC and another VM for vCenter. This case applies to multi-site environments where multiple linked vCenter servers communicate with a single PSC (or multiple PSCs behind a load balancer). There are other cases where such a configuration is necessary, but this is not the subject of this post.
Let’s get started with the single VM deployment we’ll do today. As usual, you’ll need a proper DNS configuration. So make sure to create forward and reverse DNS records on your DNS server before you start your deployment.
Depending on your system, you have a choice of running the installer from a Windows, Linux or Mac workstation. Pretty cool if you ask me, as you can be a Mac user. The VCSA is one big ISO file, which you’ll need to download from VMware. After mounting the ISO, you’ll find a file and folder structure that is easy to navigate.

VMware VCSA 6.5 Mac installer

The installer starts the wizard, which will walk you through installation and configuration. The process has two main parts:

• Stage 1 – Deploy the appliance
• Stage 2 – Set up the appliance

Let’s get started. The first screen is essentially just a recap informing you that you’ll need an ESXi host (or another vCenter server) to start the deployment.

Deployment wizard

Then we’ll need to accept the licensing agreement.

Accept the licensing agreement

The next step is to choose which deployment type we’re doing. As stated earlier, you can deploy separate VMs or a single VM. When choosing separate VMs, you can run the installer to deploy just the vCenter server or just a PSC.

Choice of server topology

Next, we’ll need to specify the appliance deployment target. In our case, we’re deploying directly to the ESXi host.

Specify deployment target

Then we’ll need to accept the SSL certificate, an untrusted one by default.

Accept certificate warning

The next step involves setting up the name for the VM and also a root password. Make sure to remember this password, as you’ll need it later when configuring the appliance.

Set the root password

On the next screen, you can choose the size of the appliance and also specify the amount of RAM, the number of vCPUs and the amount of storage space to use.

Deployment size

The next screen will invite you to select a target datastore. I’m picking a local datastore for now, but this can be a shared datastore too, depending on the configuration of this ESXi host. This window shows all datastores present on this ESXi host.
You can check the “Enable Thin Disk Mode” box to save space on the target datastore by not allocating the entire space right now.

Select a datastore

The last screen before the final one asks you to configure the network. Once again, make sure you created your DNS records for the VCSA. You can also use DHCP if you want, but I’d recommend going with a static IP.

Final screen

After that, you’ll see the progress bar.

Progress in the VMware VCSA 6.5 Mac installer

Click the Continue button to proceed with the configuration steps.

Starting the VMware vCenter (VCSA) 6.5 configuration

A nice wizard will guide you through the rest of the configuration process.

Stage 2 of VCSA configuration

The next screen invites you to set up the time synchronization mode. There is a choice between two modes: one with the ESXi host or another via NTP servers (internal or external).

Select a time synchronization option

Configure single sign-on (SSO) on the next screen, which will ask you to provide an SSO domain name and administrator’s password. You’ll use this for initial configuration. (Note that this is not the root account, which is used for command line configuration).
By default, VMware vSphere proposes a “vsphere.local” domain, but you can choose anything else. I’d recommend picking something different from the name of your Microsoft domain with Active Directory, just to differentiate the two.

SSO configuration

After this, the next screen invites you to join the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP), which is optional.

Join the VMware's Customer Experience Improvement Program CEIP

Here we have a final screen inviting you to review everything for accuracy. You still have the possibility to hit the Back button and correct things if you need to.

Review your configuration

After this, you’ll have to confirm again in order to proceed.

Confirm starting the configuration process

You’ll see the progress bar move forward. You have time to go have a cup of tea.

Starting the configuration

When the installation finishes, you should see a success message with a green check mark. As you can see, you also have the vSphere web client URL, which you’ll need to access the vCenter server. Click the first URL to continue.

Successful configuration message

We end up with a browser window where we can enter a user name and password necessary for the connection. Note that we’ll be using the default SSO administrator’s account (Administrator), which we set up during the installation and configuration process, as well as the SSO domain name (vsphere.local, or whatever domain you specified during SSO configuration).
TIP: Please note that you’ll still need Adobe Flash installed on your system, as the HTML5 web-based client does not allow you to implement and configure all vSphere 6.5 features.
The connection string for the HTML5 client is https://vcsa65-01.lab.local/ui.
Enter administrator@vsphere.local (or @yourdomain) for the user and the password you assigned during the setup process.

vSphere web client login screen

After connecting, you’ll see the initial vCenter Server screen.

Connecting to vCenter

We’ll go forward from here. As you can see, one of the first things to do is to apply a license to your vCenter Server as well as your ESXi hosts. You can manage all licensing through vCenter Server.
At first, I usually Hide All Getting Started Pages so I don’t have to see them when I click on the different components of the architecture. You may want to leave them on.

Hide all getting started pages

Another initial thing to do after login is to create a new datacenter object. The easiest way to do this is to right-click the vCenter object and select New Datacenter.

Create a datacenter object

After this, enter a name for your datacenter.

Enter a meaningful name

We can do the same to create a cluster object. As before, right-click the datacenter object we just created, and create a new cluster.

Create a cluster object

Once again, enter a meaningful name and validate the options by clicking the check boxes next to the features that vSphere 6.5 offers, depending on which ones you want or plan to use.

Options for creating a cluster object

Note that this is only a basic configuration with an overview of what’s possible. We’ve learned the basic datacenter objects and their placement. The way in which you’ll decide to create the structure depends only on your environment. If your enterprise already has some sort of administration and security environment, such as Microsoft Active Directory, then you would essentially follow the same logic.

To configure a comprehensive storage solution (let’s say VMware vSAN), you’ll have to satisfy certain hardware and software requirements, and also networking. You might want to check out our recent VMware vSAN article where we talk about this hyper-converged solution.
Others vSphere features such as vMotion, high availability and fault tolerance require some networking configuration as well, but we won’t go into those details in this article.


VMware vSphere 6.5 is a mature platform with a large ecosystem of backup, replication and monitoring products. Many hardware manufacturers are integrating their products and plug-ins into the vSphere web client in order to manage hardware through the vCenter user interface. Unfortunately for now, the pure HTML5 client is not yet finished and only some features are available. The old Windows C++ client no longer works for vCenter Server connections. It still works for individual ESXi hosts.

In the next post of this series I will show you how to add an ESXi 6.5 host to vCenter Server (VCSA) 6.5.