Even though the process hasn’t changed much from 7.0, I thought I would post my walkthrough of how I deployed my vSphere Center 8.0 to my home lab on VMware Workstation.

After downloading the VCSA ISO, I first mounted the ISO on my Ubuntu desktop and navigated to the vcsa folder.

Now the next step is one that is unique to deploying to Workstation. We need to expand the OVA in order to edit the OVF file. The ovftool is appropriately placed in the ovftool folder for us to use in expanding the ova.

After the expansion we need to delete the .mf file:

Then we edit the ovf file in a text editor and search for the guestinfo.cis.upgrade.import.directory key. We need to change this key to be user configurable. Fortunately, it is just change it from false to true.

If we don’t follow this process when deploying to Workstation, we will likely see this error later in our deployment:

William Lam also wrote about this process here.

Now we are ready to import the OVF into VMware Workstation. I said import, but in Workstation we will select Open from the File menu, then we choose the ovf file.

Next, we start to see the VCSA deployment screens with which we are familiar.

Choosing the name and location is important as we need to select a location that will have enough storage space for the disks. My Ubuntu desktop has a fairly sizeable drive, so choosing the default home directory works for me.

With my small home lab, I chose the Tiny deployment.

And then we get into more of the configurable settings with networking.

Yes….my home lab domain is Rosalita. Next are the standard SSO and root password

And lastly the domain options:

That’s it for step one, now we hit deploy/finish, and wait for the vCenter to spin up for the next portion.

Once the VM is spun up we connect to the vCenter via its 5480 port and enter the password we created previously

Here we have the four options for how we would like to proceed with our deployment. This is a fresh install, so I am selecting Setup.

The Networking information is carried over from when we entered it earlier, so the next screen is just confirming settings.

Follow that up with our SSO Domain and password.

And deciding whether to join CEIP or not.

Now we just need to review our settings and click Finish

Then we just wait for everything is complete in order to log into our newly deploy vCenter

Enjoy and have fun