dHCI and Nimble deployment

[J-Philippe]

Hi, I've planed to install (greenfield) a dHCI and Nimble HF with VMWare 6.7.

I'm reading the deployment guide and have two questions :

"ESXi and iLO on the same management subnet
You must provide two contiguous IP address ranges for each server (one for ESXi and one for iLO).


iLO on a dedicated subnet (if the array is running release 5.3.1.0 or later)

When you choose to have iLO on a different subment than the ESXi management interface, you must provide one contiguous IP address range for each server on each subnet (one in the ESXi subnet and one in the iLO subnet)"

Question 1/ Can you provide a sample of IP adressing for both cases ? (same mgt subnet and different)

Is that example correct for the ESXi and iLO in same subnet ?

mgmt_vlan Native 192.168.100.10

ilo_vlan Access 192.168.100.11

Is that example correct for the ESXi and iLO in the different subnet ?

mgmt_vlan Native 192.168.100.10

ilo_vlan Access 192.168.101.11

Question 2/ dHCI magic demo always show that vCenter and ESXi are deployed automatically, but where are the binaries ? Embedded in the Nimble Array or do we assume that ESXi is already installed by HPE on the compliant Proliant server ? Same for vCenter ? At a moment we should indicate what version we want to deploy isn't it ? (I'm more familiar with SimpliVity where we put binaries in a dedicated folder that is used by the deployment manager)

Sample from the deployment guide page 65 :

Configure the solution

1. On the welcome page, carefully read the prerequisites and click Next.

2. Choose the appropriate vCenter Server option: –

Option 1: Create a new vCenter Server:

a. Click Create a new vCenter Server and set the following values: 

vCenter host name: <> 

vCenter IP address: <> 

vCenter root password: <> 

SSO administrator password: <>

b. Read and accept each EULA and then click Next

Thank you for your help,

Best Regards,

Jean-Philippe

[Sheldon Smith · Accepted solution]

If a dHCI Greenfield deployment, the order includes two or more ProLiant servers, each with four 10Gb+ NICs. Each comes with the HPE ESXi image preloaded along with the Nimble Connection Manager VIB.

The vCenter image is bundled with the Nimble dHCI software. If deploying a new vCenter, it will be set up initially on one of the ProLiant servers' local storage. As one of the last steps of the implementation, it is moved to a VMFS datastore on the Nimble.
Depending on what what was loaded at the factory, the vCenter and ESXi servers will be either v6.7 or v7.0.
If deploying a new vCenter, the vCenter FQDN and IP need to be pre-registered in your DNS.

Once the servers have been located on the network and their ESXi environments verified, the setup will ask for the first permanent address for the servers.
Depending on the NimbleOS version, it may ask for one range (two IPs per ProLiant, an iLO and an ESXi) or two ranges, one for the ESXi management addresses and a second range for the ProLiant iLOs.
The servers' two iSCSI address ranges are also requested.

For each range requested, the system will calculate the last permanent address and then check the IPs to make sure nothing else is in that range. 

Once everything is answered and validated, click the FINISH button. After a few minutes, the setup dialog box will appear and it will start the actual deployment. 
NOTE: If a new vCenter is being deployed, it typically takes a little under a half-hour to deploy and start up before going on to the next steps.

[J-Philippe]

Thank You Sheldon for your clear explanation.

The question is now which version of VMWare I'll get

For some reason of compliance with other virtual appliances my customer cannot go to vSphere 7 for the moment.

Is it possible to re-image the ProLiant with HPE custom iso 6.7 if it arrive pre loaded with vSphere 7 ?

Except the Nimble VIB this is a classic ESXi like on other ProLiant ?

Regards,

Jean-Philippe.

[giladzzz]

Hi

In Greenfield installation ESXI servers come pre-installed from HPE with NCM.

I have found that usually it is better to convert the Greenfield installation into 

a Brownfield installation especially if you want to be at a certain ESXI and Vcenter

version. Also until now it always came with ESXI 6.7 and Vcenter 6.7. Which means

that after installation you have to upgrade your environment.

what I do is:

1) Install ESXI to which ever version I want.

2) Define "final" IP addresses FQDN DNS NTP etc.

3) Enable SSH.

4) Install NCM

5) Install Vcenter on one of the servers local disks.

6) create my Cluster ( with out any shared DataStore).

7) Create ISCSI vSwitches for connection to Nimble.

You run DHCI wizard and define this is an existing vcenter with existing cluster.

9) overcome any rejects the wizard gives.

10) after another 15 minutes the DHCI cluster is up an running.

Take into account that in every Brownfield installation DHCI replaces the root

password on the ESXI with DHCI default (Prostack123!).

I know this undocumented but it works perfect and you also gain your hosts appearing

as FQDN which does not happen in a regular installation.

Regards

Give a KUDO if this helps

[Sheldon Smith]

Hi Jean-Philippe,

As I recall, the dHCI Brownfield Deployment Guide describes the process of reimaging an ESXi server.
1. re-image with the HPE ESXi 6.7 image
2. add the Nimble Connection Manager VIB
3. other little steps, like setting the ESXi root password.

On a few recent orders, I thought I saw a line item about ESXi 7.0. Otherwise I have a hunch they shipped with 6.7.

[Ian4]

Currently struggling with dHCI and beginning to wonder what value it is bringing to the party. Just to confirm, are you saying that post a dHCI implemenation, the SSH root password is set to Prostack123! on the ESXi servers? Is that just for the installation or does it need to be that way for dHCI to work? If the latter, our security team are going to have kittens!

[Sheldon Smith]

Absolutely not! To facilitate finding and checking the servers as they first come from the factory, the ESXi root password is Prostack123!.

During the deployment setup, one of the questions is what the new ESXi root password will be. The root passwords are changed during the setup process.

After the setup is complete, within the dHCI plugin menu is the Inventory option with sub-options Servers and Storage.
In the Servers listing, you can select one or more servers and change the ESXi root password again.
Note the ESXI root password must be changed via the dHCI Inventory > Servers screen.

[Ian4]

Phew, that's good. We currently have different passwords for each of our ESXi servers as that is the way our security team like it. It that going to be possible here or do all ESXi servers in the stack need to have the same root password? Second question, we normally disable SSH on the ESXi servers (as per VMware best practice). Does SSH need to be enabled permanently for dHCI to work? 

[Sheldon Smith]

FIrst, SSH does need to be permanently enabled.

As far as ESXi root passwords, you can select which servers you are going to change. I would consider using a good password vault system, generate a password close to the maximum length of the input routine, and set them all.

dHCI also creates an iLO administration user, "prostack_admin". The iLO's original "administrator" is not modified. You set a password for that during setup as well. It is also updated via the dHCI Inventory > Servers page.

[Norbi]

Hi, I am HPE partner and we bought a Himble dHCI solution and I wanted to repeat the installation several times to practice it. But it fails to run the stack setup wizard again.

I tried with the "array --resetup" option, I had to reinput the array settings, but even then the stack-setup wizard does not run again. How can I run the stack-setup wizard again? The /stack-setup wizard says the following: "The array has already been configured. You will be redirected to the HPE Storage array management page." 

Is there a CLI command that can be used to restore the stack wizard so that it can be run multiple times?

Thank you