Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

Installing a Remote Agent Appliance for VMware vCenter

Install a remote agent appliance to connect with an external environment.

  1. Open the navigation menu  and select Migration & Disaster Recovery. Under Cloud Migrations, select Remote Connections.
  2. On the Source environment page, select the active environment for which you want to install the remote agent appliance.
  3. On the environment details page, select Download agent VM
  4. In the Download agent VM panel, select Download next to the appropriate remote agent appliance from the list of agents.
  5. Sign in to the vSphere Client of the external environment and deploy the remote agent appliance OVA file.
    For information about deploying an Open Virtualization Format (OVF) or an Open Virtualization Application (OVA) template on VMware vSphere, see VMware documentation.

    To know about the information that you can use when deploying an OVF or OVA template, see Details for Deploying an OVA or OVF Template.

  6. Wait for the remote agent appliance VM to be created on the external environment, and then power on the appliance.
  7. To power on the remote agent appliance VM, right-click the VM under the object pool, select Power, and then select Power On.
  8. To verify that the remote agent appliance VM is running, from the correct pane, select Launch Web Console under the VM.
You can now register the remote agent appliance with a source environment.
You can also do the following after you install a remote agent appliance:

Details for Deploying an OVA or OVF Template

This task describes the information that you can provide on vSphere Client when installing the remote agent appliance.

After logging into vSphere Client, right-click an object pool, and then select Deploy OVF Template. You can enter the details in the Deploy OVF Template wizard, as mentioned here:

  1. For the Select an OVF template page, select the Local file option and browse to select the remote agent appliance that you have downloaded in Step 4 of Installing a Remote Agent Appliance for VMware vCenter.
  2. For the Select a name and folder page, enter a unique name for the virtual machine with which the VM is identified in VMware.
    Note

    Ensure that the virtual machine name is unique within the vCenter server virtual machine folder.
  3. For the Select a compute resource page, proceed next to continue with the default deployment location.
    The default deployment location is the object pool from where you started using the Deploy OVF Template wizard in Step 1.
  4. For the Review details page, proceed next to continue with the default values.
  5. For the Configuration page, select deployment option that matches the network infrastructure:
    • Standard: Deploy the OCB appliance with one network adapter. During the Select networks step, you will be prompted to map the external and internal networks. In a standard deployment, the single adapter is connected to the external network. Ensure that ESXi, vCenter and OCI endpoints are reachable through a single network mapped to the external network.
    • Advanced: Deploy the OCB appliance with two network adapters. During the Select networks step, you will be prompted to map the external and internal networks. In an advanced deployment, external network is used for communication to OCI endpoints, and internal network is used to connect to vCenter and ESXi hosts.
  6. For the Select storage page, proceed next to continue with the default values.
  7. For the Select networks page, select the following for the destination networks of the source network:
    • External Network: Select the network that provides connectivity with Oracle cloud (Internet).
    • Internal Network: Select the network that provides connectivity within VMware vCenter.
  8. For the Customize template page, enter the following information for various properties:

    1. OS properties

      Hostname: Specify the host network name. If you don't specify the host name, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) assigns a relevant host name.
    2. Network properties
      1. External IP Address and CIDR suffix: Specify the IP address and CIDR suffix of eth0. Only IPv4 addresses are supported. If you don't specify the IP address and CIDR suffix, then it's set to DHCP.
      2. Gateway: Specify the gateway of eth0. If you don't specify the gateway, it's set to DHCP.
      3. DNS: Specify IP address of the domain name system (DNS) server. If you don't specify, then DHCP lease must include a DNS server IP address.

        For the replication to work, the Remote Agent Appliance must have connectivity to a DNS server that resolves addresses for names in the oraclecloud.com domain and the fully qualified domain names (FQDN) of VMware infrastructure components (vCenter Server and ESXi hosts). For more information, see Prerequisites.

      4. DNS Domain: Specifies the DNS domain. If you don't specify the domain, it's set to DHCP.
      5. Internal IP Address and CIDR suffix: Specify the IP address and CIDR suffix of eth1. Only IPv4 addresses are supported. If you don't specify the IP address and CIDR suffix, then it's set to DHCP.
    3. Proxy properties
      1. HTTPS Proxy: Specify the HTTPS proxy settings for Internet access. The login and password are optional.
      2. Non-proxied DNS domains: Specify a comma-separated list of domain HTTP(s) connections to bypass the HTTPS proxy.
    4. Time properties

      NTP Server: Specify a comma-separated list of NTP server addresses or DNS names to be used instead of the appliance-hard-coded list when the entry isn't empty.

After selecting Finish on the Ready to complete page, the virtual machine is created under the selected object pool.

The virtual machine isn't powered on now. To power on the VM, see Step 6 of Installing a Remote Agent Appliance.