Install Actifio in Oracle Cloud VMware Solution

Both Actifio Sky Appliance and Actifio Global Manager (AGM) are available in an open virtualization appliance (OVA) format. To deploy them in the Oracle Cloud VMware Solution environment, we deploy them as VMs within vSphere. Download the Sky Appliance and AGM from the URLs provided by Actifio support.

Note:

Deploying Actifio Sky Appliance in Oracle Cloud VMware Solution is the same as deploying it in an on-premises VMware environment. The only change is creating the Primary Storage Pool from the vSAN datastore.

Deploy the Actifio Sky Appliance

The following steps provide an overview of the installation of Actifio Sky Appliance for Oracle Cloud VMware Solution:

1. Verify that the OVF template for Sky Appliance provided by Actifio is downloaded on the server.
2. In the vSphere Client, create a Thick Provisioning Policy, as detailed in the installation guide. This policy will be used for provisioning the Primary Storage Pool, as discussed in the “Storage Pools” section.
3. Go to Hosts and Clusters.
4. Right-click the Management resource pool and select Deploy OVF Template.
5. For the source, select Local File, browse to the Sky Appliance OVF, and then click Open. Click Next.
6. Enter a name for the VM (for example, Actifio-OCVS-Sky), and click Next.
7. Verify that the compatibility check succeeds, review the details, and then click Next.
8. On the Select storage page, select the vSAN datastore with the Thick Provisioning Policy, and then click Next.
9. On the Select networks page, select vds01-vSphere to deploy in the vSphere VLAN. The explanation for deploying in vSphere VLAN was provided in the “Create External Access IP Addresses” section.
10. Customize the template by providing the external access IP address that you created for the Sky Appliance. Also specify the input default gateway, DNS, and subnet mask. Click Next.
11. After the VM has been deployed, select it and edit the settings as described in the Installing an Actifio Sky Appliance on a VMware Server guide. You can get the link to the installation guide in the Before you Begin section.
    1. Edit the CPU and memory values to meet your deployment needs.
    2. Ensure that the cores per socket match the CPU as recommended by Actifio.
    3. Under Memory, select Reserve all guest memory (All locked), as recommended.
    4. Add new SCSI controllers as required
    5. Click OK.
12. Edit the VM again to add new disks for the Primary, Snapshot, and Dedup pools, according to the recommendations from the sizing tool.
    1. Add a hard disk for the Primary Pool. Select Thick Provisioning for the policy and select vSAN datastore for the location. For the virtual device node, select the appropriate SCSI controller according to the recommendation of a separate SCSI controller.
    2. Add another hard disk for the Snapshot Pool, but select Datastore Default as the storage policy. For the location, select as the NFS datastore created from Files Storage. Also, choose a new SCSI controller, as recommended.
    3. Similarly, add another disk for the Dedup Pool. Because we’re not using the Dedup functionality in this deployment, we’ve sized it to the lowest required capacity. Size your solution appropriately before deploying.
       If you use the Dedup feature, Actifio recommends using a separate SCSI controller.
    To summarize, after editing the VM, you should have four hard disks (OS, Primary, Snapshot, and Dedup disks).
13. After confirming the settings, power on the VM. Wait for the web console to show the “The console is now active” message. As the message appears, use a browser to reach the IP address of the Sky Appliance.
14. After the Appliance Installer opens, enter values on the Setup Network Configuration tab.
    1. Enter an appropriate appliance name, DNS server, and NTP server.
    2. Choose VMware as the infrastructure and select the appropriate time zone.
    3. Copy the system UUID, which is required to acquire a license from Actifio.
    4. Provide a password, and then click Next.
15. On the Setup Storage Configuration tab, drag the available disks to the pools on the left according to your plan for each disk.
16. Click Validate Installation.
17. Click Complete Installation.
    This process takes from 15 to 30 minutes (maximum). To validate that the appliance is ready, navigate back to the Web Console of the VM in vCenter and wait for a message at the end “The console is now active.”

    Note:

    If you see some error messages, you can ignore them.
18. Repeat these steps to deploy the Sky Appliance on each vSphere instance for which you want to use Actifio.

Deploy Actifio Global Manager

To deploy the AGM, follow the steps for deploying Actifio Sky Appliance from an OVF template in the previous section. Use the Actifio installation guide for a step-by-step process for deploying the AGM. Note the following settings specific to Oracle Cloud VMware Solution.

• In this example of installation, we used the AGM Only option. Select the option that meets your requirements.
• During customization, be sure to use the static IP address that you created for AGM in the “Create External Access IP Addresses” section.
• Configure the CPU and memory according to your design.
• Power on the VM and access the AGM from a web browser.