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How to Set Up VMware vCloud Director [Step-by-Step]
How to effectively create and manage the cloud environment for your business? It is necessary to know how VMware vCloud Director expands data centers across sites and geographical locations to manage enterprise cloud data.
By Amelia / Updated on October 15, 2024
What is VMware vCloud Director
VMware vCloud Director (vCD) is a management platform that provides support for public cloud services and helps organizations transform geographically distributed data centers into virtual data centers (VDCs). This allows VMware vCloud Director to flexibly and elastically provision network, storage and compute resources and deliver services to users.
vCloud Director's self-service enables tenants to quickly provision and manage resources. At the same time, with vCloud Director, organizations can realize cost savings by easily scaling up or down their infrastructure.
How to Setup a VMware vCloud Director
VMware vCloud Director (vCD) enables the creation and management of multi-tenant cloud environments for organizations. This section will provide you with detailed steps to set up VMware vCloud Director.
🎈Note: Before starting the vCloud Director setup, make sure you have downloaded the vCloud Director OVA.
Step 1. Deploy vCloud Director Appliance in vSphere
1. In the vSphere Client, right-click an inventory and choose Deploy OVF Template.
2. Then you need to select some appropriate deployment options, including name and folder, computer resource, storage and networks. You can just select these options for your needs.
3. Once you have finished all the options, there is an overview of options, making sure all these are correct, and then click Finish.
Step 2. Initial Configuration of vCloud Director Appliance
Open the web browser, and navigate to https://< vCloudDirector>: 5480. Then log in, configure the Appliance Settings, Administrator Account, and VMware Cloud Director Settings, and click Submit.
Step 3. Configure vCloud Director Database
Install PostgreSQL and create a PostgreSQL database by using the following command:
CREATE DATABASE vcloud;
CREATE USER vclouduser WITH PASSWORD 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE vcloud TO vclouduser;
Then connect vCloud Director to PostgreSQL by logging into the vCloud Director appliance and run the command:
Then enter the database details, like hostname, database name, username, and password.
The Differences between vCloud and vCenter
Although VMware vCloud Director and vCenter are both important parts for VMware, they have different functions and purpose. The below table shows their differences in features, use cases, and architecture.
|
|
vCloud Director |
vCenter |
|
Purpose |
Primarily for service providers and enterprise to create and manage cloud environments. |
As the central management platform for vSphere environment. |
|
Use Case |
Provides cloud service, such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). |
Provides a management to single tenant’s infrastructure, such as virtual machine, and datastores. |
|
Architecture |
It offers multi-tenant support by creating isolated environments for multiple tenants within the same infrastructure. Each tenant has dedicated virtual resources and access to a self-service portal for deploying and managing VMs and applications. |
vCenter lacks native multi-tenancy capabilities and only allows administrator access. Third-party tools or VMware solutions like vCD or VMware Cloud Foundation are needed for multi-tenancy. |
For Further Data Protection Using AOMEI Cyber Backup
While VMware vCloud Director has features that prevent data loss to ensure that data in a cloud environment remains secure, it is not completely immune to data loss scenarios. So for better data security, you can use AOMEI Cyber Backup.
It’s a professional backup software, enabling you to create backup tasks that cover multiple VMs, restore entire VMs, automate VM protection, and also it can send you email notifications if the backup process has an error. With AOMEI Cyber Backup, you can also enjoy:
Multiple Storage Destination: It supports saving VM backups to local and external drive drivers, NAS drives or network share, and Amazon S3 bucket.
Image-based Backup: It can create an independent image-level backup for VMware ESXi and Hyper-V VMs agentless.
Automated Execution: It can create backup schedules to automate backup daily, weekly, and monthly.
Role Assignment: It allows one administrator to create sub-accounts with limited privileges.
Email Notification: It can send email notification when the backup task is completed or abnormal.
Simple Steps to Backup VMware VMs with AOMEI Cyber Backup
📌Note: When using the AOMEI Cyber Backup, the supported versions are VMware ESXi 6.0 and later versions, Hyper-V in Windows 8/8.1/10/11, Windows Server/Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 and later versions.
Step 1. Access to AOMEI Cyber Backup, go to Source Device choosing VMware, and click + Add VMware Device to open the add device page. After open the page, enter Device Information and User Information, then click Confirm.
Step 2. Go to Backup Task, and click + Create New Task, then select >VMware ESXi Backup as the Backup Type. Then set the Task Name, Device, Target, Archive, Schedule and Cleanup according to your needs.
Device: You can overwrite multiple virtual machines on a host in a single backup task.
Target: You can select back up to a local path, or network path.
Archive: You can add an Amazon Object storage, and save backup files to it.
Schedule: You can choose to perform full, differential, or incremental backup, and automated execution.
Cleanup: You can configure a retention policy to auto-delete backup files and save storage space.
Step 3. Click Start Backup and select Add the schedule and start backup now, or Add the schedule only.
When the backup process is complete, you can check the status in the Backup Task screen, and edit the settings by clicking ... on the right side of the task.
Conclusion
In this article you canlearn that VMware vCloud Director is a powerful and versatile cloud management solution that provides organizations with a way to build and manage cloud environments with a degree of protection against data loss. At the same time, with the support of AOMEI Cyber Backup, it can ensure the safety of the important data of the enterprise.
