VCAP5-DCD Objective 4.3 – Create an Installation Guide

Identify standard resources required to construct an installation guide

If you are within an organization which has pre-made templates for this, then definitely check them out. Other than that, VMware provides a lot of evaluation guides which has a step by step process of how to install certain VMware products. Here are a few:

• VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide Volume One
• VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide Volume Two – Advanced Storage Features
• VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide Volume Three – Advanced Networking Features
• VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide Volume Four – Auto Deploy
• VMware vCloud Director 1.5 Evaluation Guide
• VMware Data Protection Evaluation Guide
• VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager  5.0 Evaluation Guide

Consider multiple product installation dependencies to create a validated configuration

Order of installation definitely matters. You can’t install vCenter without installing a database server first.

Recognize opportunities to utilize automated procedures to optimize installation

Check out Objective 3.6 on how to setup a scripted install for ESXi.

Create installation documentation specific to the design

Here is how it would look like:

Installing the ESXi Host To install an ESXi host

1. Configure the host server disk boot order to enable boot from CD.
2. Boot the ESXi Installer from CD to install ESXi.
3. Press Enter to start the installer.

And the instructions keep going :)