We all know that vSphere 6.5 was announced by VMware 2 weeks back in VMworld Barcelona. With the release of 6.5 version of vSphere, VMware has done some fantastic work with HA and DRS enhancements. Several folks wrote blogs on the new features and enhancements that are included in this new release.

If you have not read about the new features/enhancements in vSphere 6.5, you can read it from here. Brian has done fantastic job by summing up all that you want to know about vSphere 6.5.

After reading a bit about vSphere 6.5, I decided to deploy and test it in my lab.

Note: The GA and beta version has not been released yet by VMware.

Let’s begin with part 1 of this series where we will see installation/configuration of Esxi host.

vSphere is a sophisticated product with multiple components to install and setup. Typically installing vSphere includes the following tasks:

 

We are starting with deploying Esxi host. The installation process has not changed and its pretty simple as always.

1: Boot your server from the Esxi iso file and select the installaer option from the menu.

2: Let the components load

3: Press Enter to continue installation

4: Press F11 to Accept EULA and continue with installation.

5: Installer will scan for available devices where Esxi can be installed. be patient to let installer discover all devices.

6: Once the devices have been discovered, select the appropriate one where you want to install and hit Enter to continue.

7: Select the keyboard layout and hit Enter to continue.

8: Enter root password and hit enter to continue.

9: Press F11 to begin with installation.

10: Installation is not gonna take more than 5-7 minutes, so sit back and relax. In the meanwhile installation is in progress, you can get a cup of coffee for you or can listen to your favourite music or do anything that pleases you 😉

11: Reboot the server to complete the installation

12: Let the server go through the boot process and load all components.

13: Once Esxi is loaded completely, hit F2 to start configuring it.

14: The very first thing we need is to configure an IP address on which this esxi host can be accessed. From the system customization menu select “Configure Management Network” and hit enter.

15: On the Configure Management Network menu, select IPv4 Configuration and hit Enter

16: Select the 3rd option in the menu and set IP/Netmask and gateway address for this esxi host. Hit Enter to save the IPv4 configuration.

17: If you are not using any Ipv6, you can choose to disable it. Note that it will require a host reboot for change to take effect. Select Disable IPv6 and hit enter to disable it.

18: From the Configure Management Network menu, select DNS Configuration and hit Enter. Enter the DNS server IP and set a hostname for the esxi host.

19: Provide the DNS suffixes for name resolution and hit Enter.

20: From the Configure Management Network menu, press ESC to exit the menu. It will prompt to a host reboot (since we have chose to disable IPv6). Also it will apply all the network configuration which we have done in earlier steps.

21: Post reboot of host, you can chose to test the management network to verify host is good to go.

Thats all for this post. In next post of this series we will look into how to install vcenter 6.5. Stay tuned !!!!

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