vRealize Automation 7 – Part 1.1, Spotlight Overview and Demo

Automation, VMware, vRA3 Comments

As a follow up to the vRealize Automation 7 – Part 1, What’s New – Spotlight Features, I have just published a YouTube video that walks through vRA 7.0’s Spotlights and jumps into an 18-minute demo that dives a little deeper in each feature…

  • Logging in, Service Catalog, Overview
  • VMware Identity Manager (vIDM) – Federated Identity Management
  • Converged Blueprints – Unified Service Design
    • App Authoring
    • NSX Networking
  • Event Broker

The video below has been published in VMware Cloud Management’s YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to the vRealize Automation Playlist!

 

This is the complete 35-min video (demo starts at 17:30). I will publish just the demo portion as a separate video shortly.

 

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@virtualjad…

vRealize Automation 7.0 (GA) is LIVE!

Automation, VMware, vRA7 Comments

Well, here it is folks…the wait is over for one of the most anticipated releases from VMware’s Cloud Management BU — vRealize Automation 7.0 is officially GA as of this writing!!

vRealize Automation is the centerpiece of vRealize Suite, VMware’s Cloud Management Platform (CMP). With the release of vRA 7.0, VMware clearly demonstrates it’s leadership in the CMP market by delivering a platform loaded with several enhancements, killer features and industry-first innovations. vRA 7 also redefines the user experience by following through on the commitment to take the complexity out of hybrid cloud management without “dumbing down” the product.

I’ve had the privilege to work very closely with several teams within the cloud management BU while gearing up for this launch, most notably my friends and peers in the go-to-market team. In my 6 years at VMware, I can honestly say I have never seen so many smart people work so closely together on a common goal — deliver a solid product, set the standard. Needless to say, I’m incredibly proud and honored to be a part of this release.

Let’s get to the goodies.

I foolishly set a goal to have a full library of vRA 7 content completed by GA.…

vRealize Automation 7 – Part 5, Identity Management

Automation, Cloud, VMware, vRA10 Comments

Moving right along with the next spotlight feature in vRealize Automation 7 — a totally revamped access control and authentication system brought to you by VMware Identity Manager (vIDM). What may appear as an insignificant move from 6.x’s standalone Identity Appliance (IDVA aka vCenter SSO/PSC) is actually one of the most important additions to the new platform. Allow me to elaborate…

vIDM is the result of VMware’s acquisition of TriCipher about 5 years ago (August 2010), which has gone through several iterations and has become — or will become — the de facto policy-based identity platform across VMware broader portfolio (beyond vCenter, of course). Today, it is most notably leveraged by the Horizon suite and, more recently, as a stand-alone Identity Management solution available as an on-prem or SaaS offering. Out of the gate, vIDM brings scalability, performance, and policy-based management and access controls to whichever solution it is natively integrated with. This is especially true (re: performance/scaleability) when access into said solution is extended to the entire enterprise. And with that, it was almost a no-brainer that VMware’s Cloud Management BU has chosen vIDM as it’s standard for the next-gen CMP solution, starting with vRA 7.0.

The Identity Problem

To get a better understanding of why this was a critical move for vRA, we need to understand some of current limitations and restrictions brought on by the IDVA.…

vRealize Automation 7 – Part 3.1, Deployment Wizard Video

Automation, Cloud, Management, VMware, vRA3 Comments

In part 3 of this series I provided an overview of vRA 7’s new deployment wizard – an addition that will significantly increase the time-to-value (TTV) by aiming to quickly deploy vRA regardless if it’s for a minimal (monolithic) or enterprise (distributed) implementation.  I cannot emphasize enough how critical the deployment wizard (along with the new deployment architecture) will be for removing the perceived complexity of getting vRA stood up.  Competitively, this sets a new standard for how to implement any enterprise solution and will certainly allow vRA to shine above the rest (but enough about that).

Below is a video of the deployment wizard walking through a minimal implementation.  It is important to note that vRA 7 has yet to GA, so some of the automation options and the UI itself can be tweaked between the current beta code and eventual GA builds.

(The screen capture is sped up 2.5X and some long wait periods have been clipped)

vRA 7 Deployment Wizard – FAST from @virtualjad on Vimeo.

The wizard will provide a choice of a minimal (POC, small) or enterprise (HA, distributed) deployment then, based on the desired deployment type, walks the admin through a series of configuration details needed for the various working parts of vRA, including all the windows-based IaaS components and dependencies.…

vRealize Automation 7 – Part 1, What’s New – Spotlight Features

Automation, Cloud, VMware, vRA9 Comments

This was a big week in Barcelona — not just because VMworld EMEA broke attendance records, but also thanks to the announcement of one of the most anticipated updates to the VMware vRealize family, vRealize Automation 7.0 (vRA 7).  I had the opportunity to hosts and co-host several vRA sessions throughout the week, including a couple exclusive ad-hoc deep dive workshops for vExperts.  Now it’s finally time to share with all of you the cloud management goodness that’s been brewing at VMware.  This is the first of many in a series that will cover all the new innovations and features of vRealize Automation 7.0 and dig deep into several advanced use cases.  So let’s get started…

Spotlight #1 – Deployment and Initial Configuration

vRA 7 focuses a lot on the user experience (UX), starting with one of the most critical — Deploying the solution — then the second most critical, configuring it.  Following through with the promise of a more streamlined deployment experience, we made a huge splash at VMworld Barcelona with the debut of the wizard-driven and completely automated installation of the entire platform and automated initial configuration.  And all of this in a significantly reduced deployment architecture.

Deployment Architecture – The overall footprint of vRA 7 has been drastically reduced.  …

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

Uncategorized2 Comments

** 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.…

Installing the vROps Management Pack for vRealize Automation

Automation, Management, VMware, vRA, vROPS6 Comments

Following the general availability of vRealize Operations (vROps) 6.0 and vRealize Automation (vRA) 6.2, VMware has released several integration and management packs that bring the solutions together to help streamline management between consumption and operations. These management packs connect external sources and “solutions” into vROps to provide a more holistic view of the ecosystem. vROps has provided this capability for a small set external sources for quite some time, but not until vROps 6 has that included more of VMware’s own cloud management solutions. Considering the number of VMware customers that purchase these products together (e.g. vCloud Suite or vRealize Suite), these integrations add a ton of overall value. One great example is the vROps Management Pack for vRealize Automation.…