So I was recently offered the chance to test drive V-locity 5 to see how it compared against the previous V-locity VM product that I tested nearly two years ago, one of the big differences between the two products is that this time I am using the V-locity Management Console (VMC) as my centralised management and deployment tool.
This post covers the installation and configuration of the VMC and the deployment of agents via it.
One of the first things I noticed after downloading the installation file from the Condusiv Technologies website was that the new package came in quite a lot smaller in size than the previous version, I mean like about 50% smaller, now considering this includes the VMC as well as the V-locity package you have to hand it to the developers with regards to size reduction.
Supported Platforms for the VMC and V-locity agents, as you can see you’re not restricted to either physical or virtual for either the VMC or agents.
VMC Pre-requisites
The first thing to note when installing the VMC package is that like most Windows Server applications it requires an account to use, depending on how you’re going to deploy the agent will determine the permissions that this account will require. if you’re going to deploy via the VMC then you’re going ensure that the account has local admin rights on the machines that you want to install the software to, this can be accomplished by creating the service account and using Group Policy to add that account to the Local Administrators group on pre-defined OUs.
Condusiv Technologies suggest using an account with Domain Admin credentials although state that you can use credentials that are not domain administrator credentials, but that you will only be able to manage systems that the credentials have permission to access.
Additional requirements for ESXi environments is that the hosts are joined to the domain (required so that you can define your hypervisor later on).
VMC Installation
Once you have downloaded the installation files locally double click to launch the installation process.
Click Next
Enter your VMCADMIN password, note that both user name and password are case sensitive.
Click Next
Enter your Domain, User and Password details, click Install
Installation is proceeding as expected.
Click Finish
Installation was really simple and fast.
VMC License Configuration
With the installation complete we have to move the license file to the installation folder before we launch the VMC.
By default the installation path is Program Files\Condusiv Technologies\V-locity VMC
The VMC can be launched via the IP address of the server or if you’re on the box locally then you can use http://localhost instead.
Log in with the credentials mentioned earlier (VMCADMIN and your chosen password) and click Login
You may find that if you have a large Active Directory infrastructure that when you log in your screen tells you that the scan is still on-going, click Next
Although we have saved the license file to the right folder, we still need to apply the license, click OK
The first thing we are going to do is assign the license, click the Manage V-locity Licenses button on the right side of the screen
Click Add / Rename Licenses
Click Add License
Provide a name for the license, click OK
You can see the license has been assigned now. Click OK
Licensing is based on Physical Core and Socket count, only the hypervisor is licensed for VMs
Go back to the main V-locity screen and click Manage Environment and Credentials
On the following screen click Designate Hypervisors
Expand on your domain
Select your hypervisors and click Save Selection
Select your Hypervisor Type, Core and Socket count, click OK
Go back to the main V-locity page and click Manage V-locity Licenses
Select your hypervisors and click Actions and then Assign to License
Select your license, click OK
Deploy and License V-locity agent
Now that we have configured and licensed the VMC it’s time to deploy our agents
Click on Deploy V-locity
Choose which systems to install V-locity 5 on to
In my case I want to install to the B devices as they will be running V-locity 5, whilst the A devices are running V-locity 4 VM, the C devices are those devices with no version of V-locity installed
Click Next
Click Next
We don’t want to start V-locity straight away, click Next
Choose when you want to reboot, click Finish
Define your ports, click OK
Click OK
Click OK
Wait for the deployment to finish, you can see that we now need to assign the VM’s a license.
Click Manage Environment and Credentials
On the dropdown box select Hypervisors
On the selected Hypervisor click the Actions tab and choose View / Edit Associated VMs
I have to inform you that the first time I saw this I thought that this was going to restrict the VM to the specified host, however I have been informed that this isn’t the case, all you’re doing is licensing the VM to a host for licensing purposes only, if it subsequently moves to another licensed hypervisor, then it will stay the full version.
Click Edit Virtual Machines
Select your VMs and click Save Selection
Confirm that they are associated, click OK
Click OK
Click Manage Environment and Credentials
Click on the Site License and you can see that the agents are now licensed.
That concludes the installation and configuration of Condusiv Technologies V-locity 5 VMC and Agent Deployment and Licensing, in my next Condusiv post I will go through the testing of Condusiv V-locity VM (version 4), V-locity 5 and see what kind of improvements they offer over a VM that has neither product installed.
