Quick Start Guide

This section guides you through the end-to-end process of installing vFabric Platform, or more specifically, installing two vFabric components on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) virtual machine in the context of vFabric Platform. In particular, the procedure describes how to perform the following tasks:

Create an ODBC data source on the Windows computer running vCenter Server that connects to either the internal database used by vCenter Server or to a separate database. You will later specify this data source when you install vFabric License Server. vFabric License Server requires that certain properties be set on this data source, which is why you are required to create one specifically for vFabric License Server use.
In this Quick Start Guide, it is assumed you are using a SQL Server database, although can also use other databases such as Oracle.
Install vFabric License Server on the same virtual machine (VM) as your vCenter Server.
Activate a vFabric license.
Install the vfabric-5-repo RPM on the RHEL virtual machine (VM), which makes it easy for you to browse the VMware RPM repository.
Install two vFabric components (vFabric tc Server and vFabric Web Server) on the RHEL VM from the VMware RPM repository.

The procedure shows you how to complete the entire installation process as quickly as possible, with minimal explanation of what each step means. For more details, see Installing vFabric Platform.

Prerequisites

Install and configure vCenter Server and vSphere Client on a Windows 64-bit computer.
See vSphere Installation and Setup.
Create a virtual machine (VM).
See vSphere Virtual Machine Administration.
Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as the guest operating system on the VM.
See Installing a Guest Operating System.
Install VMware Tools on the VM.
See Installing and Upgrading VMware Tools.
Ensure that the Windows computer on which vCenter Server is running has the SQL Server Native Client ODBC driver installed on it; if not, download and install the driver from the Microsoft SQL Server Web site.

Procedure

Create an ODBC data source that connects to either the vCenter database, or an external database.
1. On the Windows computer on which you are running vCenter Server, invoke the ODBC Data Source Administrator window using Start > Programs > Administrative Tools > Data Source (ODBC).
2. Click the System DSN tab.
3. Click the Add... button.
4. Select the SQL Server Native Client driver, then click Finish.
5. Enter a name and description of the data source, then select the SQL Server you want this data source to connect to from the drop-down list. The SQL server can be either the one used by the vCenter Server or a separate one, whichever works best for your environment. Click Next.
6. Specify that you want SQL server to verify the authenticity using a login ID and password entered by the user, then enter the Login ID and password of the SQL Server user.
  Do not specify integrated Windows authentication.
7. Continue clicking Next, and then Finish, taking all default values, until you see a summary of the data source configuration. Optionally test the data source to ensure you have configured it correctly, then click OK.
From the Windows VM on which you are running vCenter Server, download the vFabric License Server installer from the VMware Download Center page and save it to your computer.
The installer program is called vFabric_License_Server-version.exe.
Install the vFabric License Server on the same VM as your vCenter Server.
1. Double-click on the installer from Windows Explorer to start the installation. After preparing the installation, the vFabric Welcome Screen appears.
2. Continue clicking Next to accept the license agreement and view where the installer will install the vFabric License Server.
3. Enter the login and password for the administrator of the vCenter Server installed on the same Windows VM, then click Next.
4. Enter the login ID and password of the database user, and select the ODBC data source (DSN) that you created in a preceding step.
5. Click Install to proceed with the installation.
  The installer program completes successfully when you see the message InstallShield Wizard Completed.
6. To view details of the installation, click Show the Windows Installer Log. Click Finish to complete the installation.
Make a note of the license key that you purchased for vFabric Platform. See VMware Licensing Help Center for additional information about licensing.
VMware license keys consist of groups of characters separated by dashes, such as 15243-E1352-082DK-0TCH2-28D3G.
Activate the vFabric license keys in vCenter Server.
1. Start vSphere Client 5 and log in to the vCenter Server in which you installed vFabric License Server.
2. Select Home>Administration>Licensing to invoke the vCenter Licensing page, then click the Manage vSphere Licenses link in the top-right corner, as shown in the screenshot.
3. Click Add License Keys on the left, then enter the license key in the text window to the right. Enter an optional label.
4. Click the Add License Keys button.
  The license key shows up in the review window.
5. Repeat the preceding step to add any additional license keys.
6. Follow the prompts until you get to the Confirm Changes window, verify changes, and click Finish.
  The license keys are displayed in the main vCenter Licensing window under the name VMware vFabric Standard|Advanced, depending on the vFabric Platform package you purchased.
Install the vfabric-5-repo RPM on the RHEL VM.
1. Log in to the RHEL VM as the root user and start a terminal.
2. Run the rpm command to install the vfabric-5-repo from the VMware repository:
```
prompt# rpm -Uvh http://repo.vmware.com/pub/rhel5/vfabric/5/vfabric-5-repo-5-2.noarch.rpm
```
  You install the vfabric-5-repo RPM on each RHEL VM on which you want to install one or more vFabric components.
Install vFabric tc Server and vFabric Web Server on the RHEL VM.
1. Log in to the VM as the root user and start a terminal.
2. Execute the following yum install command to install vFabric tc Server:
```
prompt# yum install vfabric-tc-server-standard
```
  The yum command displays information about the contents of the installation.
3. Enter y at the prompt to begin the installation.
  If the installation is successful, you will see a Complete! message at the end.
  When the installation is complete:
  - vFabric tc Server is installed in the /opt/vmware/vfabric-tc-server-standard directory.
  - The installation is owned by the root user, but you manage the tc Server installation as tc-server, which is a non-interactive user created by the RPM install.
4. Execute the following yum install command to install vFabric Web Server:
```
prompt# yum install vfabric-web-server
```
  When the installation is complete:
  - vFabric Web Server is installed in the /opt/vmware/vfabric-web-server directory
  - The installation is owned by the root user.

What to do next

Install a JDK or JVM on the RHEL VM on which you installed vFabric tc Server.
Update the JAVA_HOME and PATH environment variables of the tc-server user.
For example, to set the environment variables in a Linux profile after installing the JDK in /opt/java/jdk1.6.0_24:
```
export JAVA_HOME=/opt/java/jdk1.6.0_24
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
```
Optionally enable EM4J in the VM on which you installed vFabric tc Server and create a tc Runtime instance that uses the elastic-memory template.
See the Using Elastic Memory for Java (EM4J) section of the vFabric tc Server Administration Guide.
After you start the instance and deploy a Web application to it, the memory management of the Java workload will be greatly improved as compared to using a non-EM4J enabled tc Runtime instance.
Create and start a vFabric Web Server instance.
See the vFabric Web Server Installation and Configuration.
Install additional vFabric components on the RHEL VM, such as vFabric Hyperic or vFabric RabbitMQ. See Installing vFabric Platform.
Monitor the vFabric Platform license usage by querying the vFabric License Server. See Monitor vFabric License Usage.