Deploying the vCenter Server Virtual Appliance

The vCenter Server virtual appliance is a Linux-based VM that comes prepackaged and preinstalled with vCenter Server. Rather than creating a new VM, installing a guest operating system, and then installing vCenter Server, you only need to deploy the virtual appliance. I discussed the vCenter Server virtual appliance earlier in this chapter in the section “Choosing the Version of vCenter Server.”

The vCenter Server virtual appliance comes as an OVF template. I'll discuss OVF templates in great detail in Chapter 10, but for now I'll simply explain them as an easy way to distribute “prepackaged VMs.”

I'll assume that you've already downloaded the files for the vCenter Server virtual appliance from VMware's website at www.vmware.com. You'll need these files before you can proceed with deploying the vCenter Server virtual appliance.