My VMworld Sessions: A Shameless Plug

Automation, Management, VMware, VMworld, vRA

A blog would not be complete this time of year without plugging one’s own VMworld sessions, so here it goes!…

I am incredibly excited to be a part of 3 sessions that were selected for VMworld 2015 Breakouts.  The recurring theme here should be of no surprise!

Becoming a vRealize Automagician: Why Automation isn’t Automatic – MGT5318

Get a peek into how these VMware customers and exceptional technologists — Steve Kaplan, Alan Keeler, and Trent TeSelle —  have leveraged vRealize Automation to fundamentally change how IT happens within their organizations. We’ll discuss vRA’s extensibility engine alongside vRO, why it matters, and how it can transform IT as you know it.

When: 9/1/15 (Tuesday) 2:00 PM
Abstract & Register: https://t.co/S9MsvF6Qze

Organizational Change Management and SDDC: Why Getting Your Organization and People Aligned Are the Key Ingredient in Ensuring Maximum Value from You – OPT5793

What originally started as the “Software-Defined People Problem” has slightly shifted to discuss the overall organizational alignments required in order to successfully pull a cloud transformation off. I joined forces with VMware transformation advocate and guru, Brad Wolfe, to deliver a must-attend session for anyone who has struggled breaking through legacy silos and fiefdoms.…

A Quick Lesson on vRA Entitlements

Automation, Cloud, VMware, vRA1 Comment

vRealize Automation provides a ton of granularity for roles and permissions, service availability, lifecycle management (e.g. day-2 operations). It essentially boils down to a set of logic that defines who can see and do any given task on any given resource. This can be as simple as a handful of configurations, or get as complex as you want it to be.

vRA’s Entitlements feature is just one of many ways to add governance and additional controls to your environment. Entitlements allow admins to create a set of policies that determine which services any given consumer can deploy and how they can [lifecycle] manage their services post-provisioning. The following entitlement options are available per Business Group User or Group.

  • IaaS Blueprints
  • PaaS / AppServices Blueprints
  • XaaS Services
  • Actions / Custom Actions (Day 2 Operations)
  • Service Catalogs
  • Approval Policies

Entitlements are created and managed under Catalog Management (Administration tab -> Catalog Management -> Entitlements) for all available services. It is important to note that entitlements are a REQUIRED function for service delivery (e.g. all services must be entitled at some level before they are available for consumption). Since this isn’t a HOW-TO post (see the vRA Live Install and Config videos and/or the vRA 6.0 POC Guide for a detailed how-to), here’s a summary of how to get from here to there…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once an Entitlement is created, there are several options that will help you fine-tune exactly what gets entitled, who this entitlement effects, which actions are available, and whether or not component-level approval policies are in the mix.…

Increasing vRA’s Concurrent Provisioning Operations

Automation, Cloud, VMware, vRA2 Comments

I get this question on a weekly basis (at least) – how many concurrent provisioning operations can vRA handle?
…and as soon as I say “2”, i get the [expected] follow up – how can I change that to something ridiculous?

Here’s how:

But first, let’s revisit the blanket statements above because they’re missing a lot of details. The REAL answer is “it depends”. Concurrency primarily depends on which Endpoint is configured, whether or not a proxy agent is used, and what the endpoint itself can handle. The vast majority of vRA customers have at least 1 vSphere Endpoint — which leverages a proxy agent — so I can confidently divulge the default concurrency of 2. Here’s a glimpse of those defaults…

  • Proxy Agent-based (vSphere, XEN, Hyper-V) – 2 per agent
  • DEM-based (all other supported endpoints) – no fixed limit (sort of, see below)

There are a few additional considerations:

  • The number of concurrent workflows per DEM instance. That number is 15 (per DEM).
  • While DEM-based endpoints have no theoretical limit, the DEM workflow concurrency of 15 (per DEM) does apply.
  • Endpoint limits are at play (that is, the endpoints themselves). For example, vSphere 6 can handle 8 concurrent operations by default.
…

ProTip – Changing a Provisioned Machine’s Owner in vRA

ProTip, VMware, vRA7 Comments

This one comes up all the time…a Business Group Manager (see prereqs) requests an entitled machine, does XYZ configuration on it post-provisioning, then wants to transfer it on to someone else for ownership (whatever the reason that may be).

There are a couple of options for changing the Machine Owner in vRA — during Request, during a Bulk Import (using the Infrastructure Organizer, or by Reconfiguring the machine. You can also allow an Approver to change ownership mid-flight, but that’s a bit more involved.

To change a provisioned [IaaS] machine’s owner by using the “Reconfigure” Day-2 operation…

Some Prerequisites:

  • you must be a Business Group Manager to make the change
  • you must have “Reconfigure” action enabled (via entitlements)
  • the NEW owner must be a Business Group User

Steps:

  1. Log in to vRA with using an account with “Business Group Manager” role
  2. Navigate to the Items tab
  3. Click to open the desired Machine from the list (NOTE: Business Group Managers can manage machines from all users within the business group and can change change the owner of any visible machine.
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VMworld 2015 Abstracts – Vote Now!

Cloud, VMware

VMworld 2015 is right around the corner (relatively speaking) and it’s that time again when anyone who has submitted an abstract is out promoting their sessions for the promise of presenting their topics and speaking their minds in front of a captured VMworld audience. While the fine individuals of the VMworld voting committee are out placing their votes, the public has an opportunity to contribute to the cause. So, get out and vote!

https://vmworld2015.lanyonevents.com/scheduler/publicVoting.do

This year I have submitted 4 abstracts and included in a 5th, all of which I’m quite passionate about. If any of these resonate with you, please take a moment to give a “thumbs up”……

vRA Live! – Extensibility Videos Published

Automation, Install Guide, VMware, vRA1 Comment
In the second act of vRA Live!, we took a dive into extensibility and uncovered many of the ways in which vRealize Automation can be incorporated into a broader ecosystem of tools and extensions, largely leveraging vRA’s BFF, vRealize Orchestrator (vRO). This session was part of an ongoing series of vRA deep-dives and a follow up to the inaugural session, vRA Live! – Install and Configure. With more than 350 RSVP’s and ~140 hanging out for 3 1/2 hours, I’d say this was another success…so thanks to all that attended!These sessions wouldn’t be what they are without the awesome panel. A ton of thanks and a huge shout-out goes to this crew, who presented their own use cases (live), etched an epic vRO whiteboard on the fly, and answered more than 110 attendee questions throughout the session…
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vRA Live!, Session 2 – Extensibility

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** Update 12/31/14: Videos have been posted! – https://www.virtualjad.com/2015/05/vra-live-extensibility-videos-published.html

As a much overdue follow-up to vRA Live! – Install and Configure, I will be hosting the next session on April 17th @ 1:00PM EST.  vRA Live! – Extensibility will focus on extending vRealize Automation through vRA’s extensibility tools.

Extensibility is used to unlock the power of vRA’s integration and automation of the cloud ecosystem, deliver custom services, and help bridge the gap between what is available “out of the box” vs. the reality that is an enterprise’s high-customized and often complex environment. While vRA can deliver basic IaaS services with relatively little effort, the real value for enterprises and those leveraging vRA for managing a software-defined datacenter is delivered by the ability for it to integrate, automate, and orchestrate the surrounding environment.…

vRealize Automation End-to-End Install in 4 Minutes

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I have installed VMware vRealize Automation MANY times…

I’ve done it in private, I’ve done it in public, I have installed vRA for many a POC, I’ve installed vRA for training and enablement. I’ve done it remotely, I’ve done it locally.

I’ve installed vRA from a United club lounge, I’ve installed vRA from a Horizon desktop while crossing the country at 44,000 ft.

I’ve done small and isolated installs, I’ve done highly-available and distributed installs……