Getting Started, Converting the OVF for VMware vCenter

Importing the OVA using vCenter GUI

It is possible (in vCenter 7 and newer) to use the vCenter (also known as vSphere Client) Graphical User Interface to import and deploy our NMIS Suite OVA.

1. Point your browser to your vCenter Server Graphical User Interface (GUI) and authenticate with your credentials.
2. How you deploy in vCenter is entirely up to you and your configuration, it can be done either by:
   1. Right click on the cluster in the Hosts and Clusters side panel then click "Deploy OVF Template".
   2. Right click on the specific host you want to deploy the OVA to, then click "Deploy OVF Template".
3. A window will then display asking to select an OVF template like the below.
    
   The following needs to be done:
   1. Click on the radio button next to "Local File"
   2. Click on the UPLOAD FILES button, choosing where you downloaded the FirstWave NMIS VM OVA to.
   3. Click Next once completed.
4. Choose a name and location for the virtual machine to be deployed to. In this example we are deploying to the "Contoso-Brisbane" datacenter. Click Next once completed.
   
5. Choose the compute resource that the virtual machine will be deployed to. Depending on what you decided in Step 2, you will either choose the cluster itself (and vCenter will choose the most appropriate ESXi host) or directly to the ESXi host. Click Next once completed.
   
6. On the review details screen click Next.
7. On the select storage screen, choose the most appropriate datastore to deploy to. It is also important to choose the virtual disk format - either an option of Thick Provisioned or Thin Provisioned. Click Next once completed.
8. On the the select networks screen, choose the most appropriate network that the FirstWave NMIS VM should be connected to. Click Next once completed.
9. A final "ready to complete" screen will be displayed with all the options you have chosen. Once confirmed click Finish and vCenter will commence the import and deployment of the OVA.

After some time it will then complete and you will be able to use the virtual machine. Once powered on, use our provided credentials to login. You can find this in the Install instructions on our website.

Tip: Once authenticated, our appliance ships with a Message of the Day (MOTD) which will provide you with the virtual machine's IP address (if DHCP is enabled), used to access the NMIS Suite Graphical User Interface (GUI). You can also find this by typing "ip a" into the console of the virtual machine.

Importing the OVA file to an ESXi Datacenter via vCenter using VMware OVF Tool

You can import the OVA file into a VMware ESXi Datacenter via VMware vCenter using VMware ovftool, from the PC/Mac or server you run ovftool. Remember to set the Virtual Machine name you like, the datastore you want, the network you want, and point it at the server you want to deploy to.

Run commands like this:

• In this example our vCenter Server has the below configuration:

  • FQDN 'photon-machine' with

    • user 'administrator',

    • sso domain name 'vsphere.localdomain', and

    • sso password 'Vagrant1!'

      • which must be escaped when used in this context using ovftool:

        • escaped  password: 'Vagrant1\!'

• VMware ovftool option that should be determined appropriate to this use case for this OVA import:
  • -ds="datastore_name-number"
    • Required if the selected Datacenter has more than one datastore
  • -nw="network_name-number"
    • Required if the selected Datacenter has more than one network 
  • -dm
    --diskMode
    

    Specify the disk format. You can specify the following formats:

    • monolithicSparse 

    • monolithicFlat

    • twoGbMaxExtentSparse

    • twoGbMaxExtentFlat

    • seSparse (vSphere target)

    • eagerZeroedThick (vSphere target)

    • thin(vSphere target)

    • thick (vSphere target)

    • sparse

    • flat