Automating deployment of vSAN Data Protection OVA with PowerCLI

vSphere 8.0 Update 3 introduces a new vSAN Data Protection capability for the vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) and it is currently delivered as a standalone VMware OVA (see Duncan's post in case you are wondering where to download) which, once deployed and configures, enables a new vSphere UI plugin as shown in screenshot below.

After going through the manual (vSphere UI) deployment workflow, which also included some non-traditional input like requiring the raw vCenter Server TLS certificate, I was interested in automating the deployment using PowerCLI.

Step 1 - Download deploy_vsan_data_protection_ova.ps1 PowerCLI script and update the variables based on your intended deployment.

Step 2 - Use the Connect-VIServer cmdlet to establish a connection which is needed before you can deploy the vSAN Data Protection OVA.

Step 3 - Run the deployment script by running the following command:

./deploy_vsan_data_protection_ova.ps1

In addition to populating the required OVF properties to deploy the vSAN Data Protection OVA, it also retrieves the TLS certificate for the vCenter Server that you intend to configure vSAN Data Protection and lastly powers on the VM for the configuration to begin.

If everything was configured correctly, you should see a notification banner shortly in the vSphere UI that the vSAN Data Protection vSphere UI Plugin has been deployed and simply reload with a browser refresh. To access the new vSAN Data Protection UI, navigate to vSAN ESA-enabled Cluster under Configure->vSAN->Data Protection.