Automating grid node deployment in VMware vSphere

You can automate the deployment of StorageGRID grid nodes in VMware vSphere.

Before you begin

You have access to a Linux/Unix system with Bash 3.2 or later.
You have VMware OVF Tool 4.1 installed and correctly configured.
You know the username and password required to access VMware vSphere using the OVF Tool.
You know the virtual infrastructure (VI) URL for the location in vSphere where you want to deploy the StorageGRID virtual machines. This URL will typically be a vApp, or Resource Pool. For example: vi://vcenter.example.com/vi/sgws
Note: You can use the VMware ovftool utility to determine this value (see the ovftool documentation for details).

Note: If you are deploying to a vApp, the virtual machines will not start automatically the first time, and you must power them on manually.
You have collected all the required information for the configuration file. See “Collecting information about your deployment environment” for information.

You have access to the following files from the VMware installation archive for StorageGRID:

Filename	Description
NetApp-SG-`version`-`SHA`.vmdk	The virtual machine disk file that is used as a template for creating grid node virtual machines. Note: This file must be in the same folder as the .ovf and .mf files.
vsphere-primary-admin.ovf vsphere-primary-admin.mf	The Open Virtualization Format template file (.ovf) and manifest file (.mf) for deploying the primary Admin Node.
vsphere-non-primary-admin.ovf vsphere-non-primary-admin.mf	The template file (.ovf) and manifest file (.mf) for deploying non-primary Admin Nodes.
vsphere-archive.ovf vsphere-archive.mf	The template file (.ovf) and manifest file (.mf) for deploying Archive Nodes.
vsphere-gateway.ovf vsphere-gateway.mf	The template file (.ovf) and manifest file (.mf) for deploying Gateway Nodes.
vsphere-storage.ovf vsphere-storage.mf	The template file (.ovf) and manifest file (.mf) for deploying virtual machine-based Storage Nodes.
deploy-vsphere-ovftool.sh	The Bash shell script used to automate the deployment of virtual grid nodes.
deploy-vsphere-ovftool-sample.ini	The sample configuration file for use with the deploy-vsphere-ovftool.sh script.