Platform Services Controller (PSC)

With a Platform Services Controller appliance deployed as part of a vCenter Server installation, either integrated as part of the vCSA or as a separate PSC appliance, you can easily join the PSC to an Active Directory domain using the Web Client. When you’ve deployed the PSC as the single sign on layer of a distributed vRealize Automation deployment, you don’t have the vSphere Web Client to configure it in the same way.

Note: This falls under the “I don’t think this is supported” category – use this method at your own peril! As part of some testing I’ve been doing for vRealize Automation DR scenarios, I wanted to test changing the IP address of a HA PSC pair using a script (think SRM failover to a new subnet). What I didn’t want to do was simply edit the connections directly – quite often with the VMware appliances there are scripts on start-up to ensure the configuration is correct and consistent – what I wanted was to be able to find a more supported and reliable way.

I’m not sure how supported this is, but this process can recover a vSphere 6 vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller when you’ve lost the root password. Download the OpenSUSE Rescue CD - http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/13.2/iso/ Mount the CD to the PSC Appliance Reboot the appliance and enter the BIOS setup using F2, configure the CD-ROM as first-boot device. Save and exit to reboot into the SUSE Live-CD. Once the Live-CD has booted to a desktop, you’ll see a 12GB volume at the top – that’s your PSC appliance root.

vSphere 6 HA SSO (PSC) with NetScaler VPX Load Balancer for vRealize Automation Deploying vRealize Automation 6.2 Appliance Cluster with Postgres Replication Deploying fully distributed vRealize Automation IaaS components - Part 1: Pre-requisites Deploying fully distributed vRealize Automation IaaS components - Part 2: Database, Web and Manager services Deploying fully distributed vRealize Automation instance - Configuring NetScaler Monitors Providing a highly available single sign on for vRealize Automation is a fundamental part of ensuring the availability of the platform.

After deploying a new vSphere 6 vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) and configuring the Platform Services Controller (PSC) to act as a subordinate Certificate Authority (CS), I was unable to register the NSX Manager to the Lookup Service. Try saying that fast after a pint or two!? Attempting to register NSX to the Lookup Service would result in the following error: NSX Management Service operation failed.( Initialization of Admin Registration Service Provider failed.