Month: January 2018

Configuring vCenter SSO Federation in vCloud Director 8.20

Manish Jha

There are 3 authentication methods that are supported by vCloud Director:

1: Local: These are the local users which are created at the time of installing vCD or creating any new organization.  If you have configured vCD with default configuration, then the first local account that is created is “administrator” user who is system admin for the vCD.

2: LDAP service: A LDAP service enables the organization to use their own LDAP servers for authentication. Users can then be imported into vCD from the configured LDAP. If you have a multi-tenant based vCD deployment, then each organization can use their own LDAP service for authentication.

I wrote an article in past on how to use LDAP authentication with vCD.

3: SAML Identity Provider: A SAML Identity Provider can be used to authenticate users in an organization. SAML v2.0 metadata is required for the service to be configured. The metadata must include the location of the single sign-on service, the single logout service, and the X.509 certificate for the service.… Read More

Expired vApps preventing Org vDC from deleting

Manish Jha

Yesterday I was trying to delete an Org vDC from vCloud Air portal and it was failing time and again. On checking vCloud Director in backend I was seeing error “Cannot delete VDC“

vdc-not-deleting.PNG

When I tried deleting it directly from vCD, it was bitching about some expired vApp templates and was asking to remove them first.

vdc-2.PNG

On checking the Expired items tab, I found that there were few expired vApps

vdc-3.PNG

When I tried deleting them, the operation failed with error

Similar error I was seeing in vCD UI.

vdc-4.PNG

I tried deleting it via API as GUI was not behaving like a good friend.

Fired below API

# curl -sik -H “Accept:application/*+xml;version=5.6” -H “x-vcloud-authorization:Auth” -X DELETE https://us-california-1-3.vchs.vmware.com/api/compute/api/vApp/vapp-63592b99-fe00-41f3-bfbd-dbe27d3e9258… Read More

DRS/SDRS Affinity & Anti-Affinity Rules

Manish Jha

Although there are 1000 of articles written on this topic, purpose of writing this article is to cover few objectives of VCAP6-Deploy exam. When I published my VCAP6 study guide, few topics I left purposefully as I had planned to write them later when I get some time.

So in this post we will be discussing about DRS & SDRS affinity/anti-affinity rules. 

Affinity Rules – VM to VM

Affinity rules are used by DRS to keep 2 virtual machines always running together. Affinity rules are generally used to keep virtual machines toether which have dependency on each other.

For e.g: You may want to keep an application and a database servers together on same host so that communication between the 2 servers don’t have to traverse a network link. If the VM’s of a multi-tiered application are running on different hosts, then they may generate a lot of network traffic between 2 hosts and can affect performance of VM’s/Hosts.… Read More

vRealize Automation 7.3-Simple Installation: Part 10: Catalog Management

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we learnt how to create and design blueprints. This post will be focussed on catalog management. Once you have created blueprint items, next thing is to associate them with a service and defining the entitlements so that end-user can start requesting items from catalog to which they are entitled for.

If you have landed directly on this page by mistake, then I encourage you to read earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: vRA Lab Setup

2: Installing and Configuring NSX

3: Installing SQL Server for IaaS DB

4: Installing and Configuring vRealize Automation Appliance

5: Tenant and Users Initial Configuration

6: Configuring Endpoints

7: Creating Fabric and Business Groups

8: Creating Network Profiles & Reservations

9: Configuring Blueprints

We will start the discussion with service and then proceed to entitlements.

What is service?

Services are used to organize catalog items into related offerings to make it easier for end users to browse catalog items they needed in an easier and convenient way.… Read More

vRealize Automation 7.3-Simple Installation: Part 9: Configuring Blueprints

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we learnt about Network profiles and Reservations. In this post we will be focussing on how to create blueprints. Blueprints in one thing with which you will be spending a lot of time day in day out. 

If you have landed directly on this page by mistake, then I encourage you to read earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: vRA Lab Setup

2: Installing and Configuring NSX

3: Installing SQL Server for IaaS DB

4: Installing and Configuring vRealize Automation Appliance

5: Tenant and Users Initial Configuration

6: Configuring Endpoints

7: Creating Fabric and Business Groups

8: Creating Network Profiles & Reservations

Lets start the discussion with blueprints.

What is Blueprint?

Blueprints define the resources and attributes associated with the provisioning of a virtual, physical, or cloud machine. vRA supports several type of platforms as endpoint such as vSphere, vCloud, Hyper-V, XEN, Physical, Amazon etc so a unique Blueprint is needed per platform.… Read More

vRealize Automation 7.3-Simple Installation: Part 8: Creating Network Profiles & Reservations

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we covered creation of Fabric groups and Business groups. In this post we will learn about Network Profiles and Reservations.

If you have landed directly on this page by mistake, then I encourage you to read earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: vRA Lab Setup

2: Installing and Configuring NSX

3: Installing SQL Server for IaaS DB

4: Installing and Configuring vRealize Automation Appliance

5: Tenant and Users Initial Configuration

6: Configuring Endpoints

7: Creating Fabric and Business Groups

Lets start the discussion with Network profiles and its significance.

Network profiles

Network profile is needed to configure the network settings of a virtual machine deployed by users of a business group. Creating a network profile provides an administrator capabilities similar to IPAM. vRA have an inbuilt IPAM solution baked with it, but you can also use external IPAM solution such as infoblox.… Read More

vRealize Automation 7.3-Simple Installation: Part 7: Creating Fabric and Business Groups

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we learn how to add various endpoints to vRA so that the endpoints can be consumed by the users. The resources presented by endpoints first needs to be aggregated in fabric groups so that they can be assigned to users. In this post we will learn about fabric groups and business groups and will walk-through how to create them

If you have landed directly on this page by mistake, then I urge you to read earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: vRA Lab Setup

2: Installing and Configuring NSX

3: Installing SQL Server for IaaS DB

4: Installing and Configuring vRealize Automation Appliance

5: Tenant and Users Initial Configuration

6: Configuring Endpoints

So what is a Fabric Group?

The Fabric groups are what enable you to provide access to resources from your physical infrastructure. Fabric includes all the computing resources that are discovered from the added endpoint data collection.… Read More

vRealize Automation 7.3-Simple Installation: Part 6: Configuring Endpoints

Manish Jha

In last post of this series, we performed the initial configuration of the default tenant (vsphere.local) and integrated directory service for centralized authentication. In this post we will learn about configuring endpoints.

If you have landed directly on this page by mistake, then I encourage you to read earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: vRA Lab Setup

2: Installing and Configuring NSX

3: Installing SQL Server for IaaS DB

4: Installing and Configuring vRealize Automation Appliance

5: Tenant and Users Initial Configuration

Lets discuss little bit about endpoints before configuring them,

Endpoints are infrastructure sources that are consumed by vRealize Automation. These endpoints are used by vRA to provision virtual machines,networks etc. vRealize Automation 7.3 supports following endpoints:

  • Cloud: Amazon EC2,Openstack,vCloud Director,vCloud Air
  • Management: vROPS
  • Network and Security: NSX
  • Orchestration: vRO
  • Storage: NetApp ONTAP
  • Virtual: vSphere (vCentetr), Hyper-v, Citrix Xen server

You need to have IaaS Admin role assigned to a user for configuring endpoints.… Read More

vRealize Automation 7.3-Simple Installation: Part 5: Tenant and users Initial Configuration

Manish Jha

In last post of this series, I walked through the vRA appliance deployment and configuration. We verified that deployment was successful and we were able to login to vRA appliance using the SSO user. 

In this post we will learn about default tenant initial configuration and how to associate directory services with vRA.

If you have landed directly on this page by mistake, then I encourage you to read earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Lab Setup

2: Installing and Configuring NSX

3: Installing SQL Server for IaaS DB

4: Installing and Configuring vRealize Automation Appliance

Lets start configuring the default tenant.

Login to vRA appliance by typing https://VRA-FQDN/vcac and use administrator as username and password set during deployment. 

If this is your production deployment, then you might want to use your company branding i.e setting up logo etc.

tenant-0

Once you are done with branding your vRA instance, navigate to Administration -> Tenants.… Read More

vRealize Automation 7.3-Simple Installation: Part 4:Installing and Configuring vRealize Automation Appliance

Manish Jha

In last 3 posts of this series, we learnt how to setup environment and integrate NSX with vSphere etc. There are lot of pre-works which needs to in place before going ahead with vrealize Automation deployment and I tried to cover few of them in earlier posts. Few will be covered in upcoming posts of this series.

If you have landed directly on this page then I encourage you to read earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Lab Setup

2: Installing and Configuring NSX

3: Installing SQL Server for IaaS DB

Lets jump into vRA deployment now. Make sure you  have read VMware documentation and all installation pre-requisites are met before starting deployment.

Deploying vRA is straight forward task and steps can be viewed from below slideshow.

Once the ovf is deployed and appliance is booted, you can login to appliance VAMI. Details of VAMI can be viewed by launching console of the appliance, which is nothing but https://VRA-FQDN:5480

vra-1.PNG

The moment you login to VAMI, vRealize Automation installation wizard will automatically launched.… Read More