Deploying the vCenter Appliance

Much like other vendors, VMware has jumped on the appliance bandwagon. Starting with VMware 5.x and continuing on to 6.x, the vSphere vCenter tool has been available as an importable appliance and not just the traditional Windows install. Simple to get up and running, a high-level of the steps needed for deployment can be found below.

1. Download the Appliance from VMware.com for your appropriate version. In this example I will be using 5.5. You can download either the full OVA file or the individual OVF and hard disk files. For all-in-one ease, here we are going with the OVA.
   
2. Next open up your local vSphere Client. Assuming you don't have vCenter in place already, you will need to point to a host for authentication and then select File>Deploy OVF Template.
3. Browse to your download and select next.
4. Review your details to make sure you selected the appropriate template.
   
5. Name your appliance appropriately.
6. Select an appropriate storage datastore.
7. Choose an appropriate disk format (if no one is monitoring storage growth - stick with Thick)
8. Select an appropriate Networking Mapping
9. Finish your deployment and sit back while the appliance imports. (A few minutes typically.)

It was that simple! Once the import is complete you can power it on and use the default combination of root/vmware to log in.