by Tom Stephens, Senior Technical Marketing Architect, VMware
The easiest way of getting vCloud Director 5.1 up and running quickly for a evaluation is to leverage the virtual appliance. Unlike past versions of the appliance, the version for 5.1 is based off of SLES 11 SP2.
Although the vCloud Director Appliance supports the use of an external Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle database for use as the vCloud Director database, it also includes an internal Oracle XE database that can be used.
There have been a number of changes to the installation of the vCloud Director virtual appliance. One of these is that the default password for the root user is now vmware. This falls in line with other products, such as the vCenter Server Virtual Appliance. Of course, it’s always a good idea to change this password as soon as possible after deploying it for security purposes.
Remember if you use the vCloud Director Virtual Appliance that when installing it, you will be asked for two IP addresses. These are used for the console proxy and the http access. It’s important to note that the lower of the two IP addresses that you give it will automatically be used for http traffic or in other words the IP address that you would use to access the vCloud Director UI.
Although the vCloud Director Virtual Appliance is not supported for production environments, it’s a great way to play with the product and test it out. You can download it by requesting a evaluation at the vCloud Director product page.
