vSphere Data Protection experience

Hello All!

Today I began examining vSphere Data Protection 5.5.1.356 (because I have a 5.1 vCenter) for our lab environment as it is included in the Enterprise and Enterprise Plus license.  The vDP is based on EMCs Avamar technology and builds a 4 CPU, 4 GB RAM VM for use as the proxy.

The setup is fairly simple with only a couple of issues along the way.
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/vsphere/VMware-vSphere-Data-Protection-Administration-Guide.pdf

  1. Download the Virtual Appliance from the VMware website, and place it in a convenient place for you to install it from.   
  2. Create a DNS entry for this Virtual Appliance as it is very picky about using DNS.
  3. Wait some time to verify the DNS is replicated.
  4. Deploy the OVA for the Virtual Appliance.
  5. Provide the Networking information during the deployment and let it run.  
  6. Once it is running, login to the web interface to configure the VA.  
  7. Although odd you have to specify a 9 digit password w/ a letter and number
  8. Also the account for this appliance also has to have access to the environment and cannot be provided permissions through group membership. 
  9. Once running and pointed to the vCenter, you can only access vDP through the Web Client of vCenter.  So the demise of the VIClient continues.
  10. First run places the vDP interface at the home location within the Web Client and is fairly intuitive on how it lays out the interface. 
I will post more pictures as I make them and post a second part as per usability.

C

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