Deploying VDP 5.5 Advanced

In this post I'm going to show you how to deploy the VMware VDP (VMware Data Protection) 5.5 virtual appliance.  Some of the features of the VDP appliance include:

• Virtual appliance deployment
• vSphere Web Client Integration
• Simplified backup policies
• One-step recovery
• Self-service file-level recovery
• Deduplication
• Agents for mission-critical apps (Microsoft SQL, Exchange and Sharepoint)
• Network-efficient, secure backup replication

Prior to deploying the .ova file you need to ensure you add both forward and reverse DNS entries otherwise you may receive the following error message during the configuration:

Ensure you've downloaded the latest version from vmware.com and saved the .ova file to your local disk.  Now we are going to deploy the .ova into your environment.  Open the web client interface, select your cluster and then right click and Deploy OVF Template:

Click Allow if prompted:

Browse your local file system and locate the .ova file and click Next:

Once it has been validated review the details and click Next:

Accept the license agreement and click Next:

Give the appliance the same name as the DNS record you added earlier, select its location and click Next:

Select your desired disk format and datastore and click Next:

Assign it to the correct portgroup and click Next:

Enter the correct IP address and network information for the portgroup and click Next:

Review your setting and optionally tick the Power on after deployment if you so wish.  Finally click Finish and wait for the .ova to deploy and power on:

Once the appliance has been powered on you should be able to browse to the following URL in order to start configuring:

https://FQDN:8543/vdp-configure

Username - root

Password - changeme

Once logged in click Next:

Verify the network settings are correct and click Next:

Select your timezone and click Next:

Enter a suitable password ensuring the password complexity requirements are met and click Next:

Enter valid credentials that have permission to your vCenter server and test the credential to ensure they are correct and can successfully connect.  If you can successfully connect then click Next to continue:

Select the size of the storage you wish to create and click Next:

Specify the device allocation how you wish to provision the storage and click Next:

Finally click Next:

Click Yes when prompted:

Once the process has completed the appliance will automatically reboot:

It may take a while for the appliance to complete it's configuration but you can monitor this in the Recent Tasks pane of the web client.  Once it has finished in order for the VDP plugin to become visible you may need to log out and back into the web client.  If you experience any issues with it not being visible check out the following link which helped me out.  The VDP plugin should now be visible:

I had issues connecting into the VDP appliance and received the following error message:

I verified that the time was identical on both the SSO and VDP servers as per the following blog entry but this failed to resolve the issue.  I ended up restarting the vCenter server (Or in my case, the VCSA) and hey presto, I could access the VDP server:

In the next article I will show you how to configure backup jobs and also perform a restore.