Installing the Traffic Manager Virtual Appliance on VMware

This chapter describes how to install the Traffic Manager Virtual Appliance on VMware.

System Requirements

The Traffic Manager virtual appliance is supported for production use on VMware vSphere.

For a full list of the supported platforms and versions, see the release notes included with your virtual appliance package.

CAUTION If you are upgrading your virtual appliance from a previous Traffic Manager version, you can find information specific to VMware users in Upgrading Your Traffic Manager.

Ivanti provides a Traffic Manager virtual machine package conforming to the VMware OVF (Open Virtualization Format) standard in a ZIP archive file.

The minimum resource requirements for the virtual appliance are:

Allocated Memory (RAM): 2 GB

Disk allocation: 16 GB

For instances intended to include Virtual Web Application Firewall (vWAF), use a minimum allocated memory (RAM) of 4 GB.

To ensure the full performance of your deployment, Ivanti recommends you set the memory resource reservation for your new virtual machine at least equal to its allocated RAM. To achieve this, configure the "Reservation" setting on the Resources > Memory tab of your Virtual Machine settings.

The Traffic Manager supports the VMware hot-plug capability for RAM and CPU allocation. This provides the ability to dynamically adjust these resources whilst the virtual machine is powered on. Certain limitations might apply depending on the version you are running. For more information, see the release notes, or contact your support provider for assistance.

ATTENTION A newly-created, but un-configured, Traffic Manager virtual appliance can be vulnerable to hijacking or malicious use if not deployed in a secure environment. For pre-deployment security considerations, see Network Architecture.

Cloning and Guest OS Customization

The Traffic Manager supports vSphere Client cloning, which provides a mechanism to create and deploy new instances of a previously installed virtual machine. These new instances are configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original.

This capability includes Guest Operating System (OS) Customization, which can help prevent conflicts in cloned virtual machines by allowing you to specify unique settings such as name and network configuration. It also enables the automation of virtual machine provisioning.

To use Guest OS Customization

Deploy a Traffic Manager OVF in vSphere Client to be used as a template.

Navigate to the Admin UI and complete the Initial Configuration Wizard. For more information, see Configuring the Traffic Manager Virtual Appliance

If you are unable to successfully complete the Initial Configuration Wizard, incorrect network settings might be applied to any cloned virtual machines based on this template.

CAUTION The Guest OS Customization process does not support bonded network interfaces within the Traffic Manager virtual machine to be cloned. If you use such a setup, you must manually check and set the network configuration for each cloned virtual machine.

CAUTION The Guest OS Customization process causes the Traffic Manager to disable use of the nameip feature. In situations where your DNS system cannot successfully resolve your Traffic Manager hostname, nameip allows you to configure the Traffic Manager to instead use it’s IP address to identify itself to other cluster members.

CAUTION If you are using Guest OS Customizations to clone a virtual appliance with a management interface configured, the management interface settings are cleared to ensure that the cloned appliance is accessible.

For further information on cloning and Guest OS Customization, see the VMware documentation Web site:http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs.