ProTip – Importing and Exporting ASD Content Between vRA Instances

ProTip, VMware, vRA1 Comment

Many customers have asked for the ability to move Blueprints built in the Advanced Services Designer (ASD) between environments. Up until vRA 6.2 this wasn’t possible – but now this capability will make moving content in and out of vRA instances significantly easier. Use the Import/Export wizards to move ASD Blueprints from a Test/Dev environment to a Production instance, across regions, or even across Tenants.


“Content” refers to any logic that supports the ASD Blueprint, including vRO workflows, custom resources, resource mappings, resource actions, and the service blueprint itself.


The wizards are located at Administration -> Advanced Services -> Import (or Export) Content.

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@virtualjad…

ProTip – vCAC Storage Tiering

ProTip, VMware, vRA1 Comment

A Storage Reservation Policy is created in Infrastructure -> Reservations -> Reservation Policies within vCAC. You can create any number of Storage Reservation Policies and assign them to an accessible Storage Path (one that is accessible to the Business Group’s Resource Reservation).  SRP’s are assigned per storage volume, meaning you can assign different volumes (VMDK’s) to different policies for multi-tiering within an application.


– Step 1: Ensure all desired Storage Paths are enabled in the Reservation
– Step 2: Create the Storage Reservation Policy
– Step 3: Edit the Cluster Configuration (Infrastructure -> Compute Resources -> Compute Resources -> Configuration tab) to the assign a Storage Reservation Policy for each Storage Path
– Step 4: Enable the SRP by editing the Blueprint’s storage volumes. You can also select “Allow user to see and change storage reservation policies” to allow users to change this setting during provisioning.

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@virtualjad…

ProTip – Specifying a vCAC Provisioning Folder

Uncategorized2 Comments

Using the custom property “VMware.VirtualCenter.Folder” will allow you to save provisioned machines to a folder other than the default “VRM” folder that is automatically created. Better yet, this custom property can be added to the Blueprint or Business Group level resulting in per-Blueprint or per-BG provisioning to a given folder.

You can also get a little more sophisticated and create a drop-down (or free text) field to allow users to select (or manually type) the desired folder by using a combination of this property and some Property Dictionary wizardry.

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@virtualjad…

ProTip – Scheduling Tasks in vSphere Web Client

ProTip, vCenter, VMware

There are many hidden gems in the vSphere Web Client that are intended to make managing the environment much more efficient. This is one of my favorites. You can quickly schedule any of the supported tasks for a one-time shot or repeating.

On a Windows machine, hold the CTRL button *after* right-clicking on a VM object. Continue to hold the button until you select the [supported] task to schedule.  On an OSX machine, i noticed the schedule icon will appear while pressing CTRL but only function with COMMAND instead (bug will be filed).

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@virtualjad…

ProTip – vCAC Snapshot Policies

ProTip, VMware, vRA

Snapshots are configured per-Blueprint in the Actions tab (this is not a typical Entitlement like most other actions). The UI allows you to specify whether or not to allow users to take and delete snapshots for machines provisioned off the blueprint. To add a bit more control, you can use the “Snapshot.Policy.Limit” and “Snapshot.Policy.AgeLimit” custom properties.

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@virtualjad…

ProTip – vCAC 6.1 and NSX 6.1 Integration

NSX, ProTip, VMware, vRA
vCAC 6.1 added a ton of integration with NSX 6.1 using a series of vCO Workflows, UI’s, and API integration. Although the logic is in the code, there are a few steps needed to get things going…

For starters, be sure to configure a vCO Endpoint (Infrastructure tab -> Endpoints -> Endpoints). In a POC or small environment you can point to the embedded vCO instances that ships with the vCAC VA. Otherwise point to an external vCO instance (note: if using an external instance, be sure to install the NSX 6.1 vCO plugin first).

Once the vCO Endpoint is configured, it’s time to add NSX support to the vSphere (vCenter) Endpoint. In vSphere (vCenter) Endpoint configuration, check the “Specify manager for network and security platform” box and enter the appropriate address / credentials for NSX. Be sure the account used has admin permissions (you can use the default admin account, or any account that has been added as NSX Admin users.

Check the logs to make sure no errors exist. You can also check data collection status (Compute Resources -> hover over appropriate cluster -> select Data Collection) and ensure “Network and Security Inventory” shows a successful collection.
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