Installation Prerequisites; Recommended Configurations; Downloading The Vcenter Plug-In; Installing The Vcenter Application Server - Dell PowerVault MD3600f User Manual

Installation Prerequisites

To install and use the vCenter Plug-in, the following prerequisites must be met.

The VMware vCenter 4.x server is installed

One of the following servers is available to be the application server:

Windows 2003 server

Windows, 2003 R2 server

32-bit Windows 2008 server

64-bit Windows 2008 server

32-bit Windows 2008 R2 server

64-bit Windows 2008 R2 server

Dell MD Storage Array with VMware certified firmware

The vCenter Plug-in requires the following firmware versions:

7.35

7.60

7.70

7.75

7.77

Recommended Configurations

The vCenter Plug-in uses the SMI-S protocol to communicate with the storage arrays that are managed within
the vSphere infrastructure. Many procedure calls are made to obtain and send changes to the storage arrays,
which require large amounts of data to be passed between the storage arrays, the application server, and the
vSphere client. The number of managed storage arrays, the number of virtual disks, and the number of physical
disks on each storage array determine the overall performance of the vCenter Plug-in. Therefore, limit the
number of managed system components to the following:

No more than 10 Dell MD series storage arrays

No more than 256 objects, such as virtual disks, virtual disk copies, and snapshots, on each array

No more than 16 remote replications

Downloading the vCenter Plug-in

Obtain the correct version of the Dell Storage vCenter Plug-in for your environment (x86 or x64) from the
Download and Drivers area at support.dell.com. See the Support Matrix at support.dell.com/manuals for the
most current versions. The file should be copied to the application server.

Installing the vCenter Application Server

Install the vCenter application server on a different Windows 2003 server or Windows 2008 server than the
VMware vCenter Server is installed on.
NOTE: When adequate resources are available on the vCenter Server system, you can install the
application server on the same host as the vCenter Server, but it is not recommended.
After you have downloaded the vCenter Plug-in software, copy the file to the system that will be the
application server. Run the vCenter Plug-in installer to launch the installation wizard. The installation wizard
installs a Jetty application server and the SMI-S provider. After the installation is complete, the installation
wizard registers the vCenter Plug-in with the vCenter Server.
During the installation process, you must provide information about the system components, such as the
storage array names, the IP addresses, and the DNS names, used during the installation.
information required for each component.
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