1.4 What You Need

Before you start rebuilding Forge, ensure that you have the following prerequisites:

A Forge Appliance Rebuild Kit, containing:

  • Forge Appliance installation program

    • forge-esx6.5-11.3.0.xxx-provider.iso

  • Forge Management VM files

    • The template files for the VM:

      • PLATESPINFORGE01.ovf
      • PLATESPINFORGE01.mf
      • PLATESPINFORGE01-file1.flp

    • The .vmdk files needed by the VM:

      • PLATESPINFORGE01-disk1.vmdk
      • PLATESPINFORGE01-disk2.vmdk

  • This Forge Field Rebuild guide.

The files for the PlateSpin Forge Appliance Rebuild Kit are available for download on Micro Focus Patch Finder. Expand PlateSpin Forge 11.3, then select the patch listed as PlateSpin Forge 11.3 Appliance Rebuild Kit. When you are prompted for your Customer Care user identity, log in with user account that has the email address associated with the product purchase.

NOTE:Download the files to a USB drive that you can mount as needed on different computers.

You will burn the ISO file to a blank unformatted recordable CD or DVD disc by using software and an optical drive that are designed for the task. The size is about 350 MB.

VMware ESXi 6.5 license for the Forge hypervisor

Contact Customer Care for help to retrieve your VMware 6.5 license.

For upgrades, this license replaces your VMware 5.5 license that you use with your Forge Appliance 3.

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 license for the Forge Management VM

A Certificate of Authority (CoA) sticker with a product key for Windows Server 2012 R2 is attached to every PlateSpin Forge Appliance and is located on the bottom cover of the appliance.

For upgrades, your will reuse the Windows Server 2012 R2 license for your existing appliance.

Microsoft SQL Server 2014 license for the Forge Management VM

A Windows Product Key sticker is attached to every PlateSpin Forge Appliance and is located on the top cover of the appliance. Contact Customer Care if the sticker is missing.

For upgrades, your will reuse the SQL Server license for your existing appliance.

PlateSpin Forge license

After the rebuild, you must have a valid Forge license to unlock the product’s business functionality.

For upgrades, your will reuse the Forge license for your existing appliance.

After the rebuild, you must reactivate the license. See Activating Your Product License in the PlateSpin Forge User Guide.

Supported Dell PowerEdge server hardware

See Table 1-2, Supported Forge Models for Upgrade or Rebuild.

Ability to configure the server

You must connect a keyboard and a monitor to the server hardware to configure the hardware and device settings.

Ability to burn the ISO image file to a CD or DVD disc

You must have an independent Windows computer with ISO burning software, an optical drive capable of burning a bootable CD or DVD disc, and a blank unformatted recordable disc (CD-R or DVD-R).

See Creating the Forge 11.3 Installation Disc.

Ability to play the Installation disc

The Dell PowerEdge R730xd and R740xd hardware does not have an internal CD/DVD drive. During the installation process, you must attach an external CD or DVD drive that is capable of playing the PlateSpin Forge 11.3 Installation disc. Use any available USB port on the hardware.

See Installing VMware ESXi 6.5 U1 to the Appliance.

Administrative computer

To install and configure required PlateSpin Forge components, you must connect directly to the Forge hardware appliance through another computer, the PlateSpin administrative computer. You should consider using a Windows laptop for this purpose because of its flexibility and mobility. You must configure the administrative computer with a static IP address in the same subnet as Forge, then connect it to the Forge Appliance.

See Preparing a PlateSpin Administrative Computer.

TLS Protocol

PlateSpin Forge requires Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.0 and higher to be enabled on the Forge VM.