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vCloud Automation Center – vCAC 6.0 – Creating a Fabric Group

Fabric groups are important in vCAC.  The Fabric groups are what enable you to provide access to resources from your physical infrastructure.  Within a fabric group you add users or groups that are responsible for managing infrastructure resources and add the resources they are responsible for.  For example you may select clusters that are managed from vCenter and assign the user/groups that are responsible for managing those resources.

Creating a Fabric Group

  1. From the Infrastructure menu select Group form the left menu.

    2. VCAC6FG-1
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vCloud Automation Center – vCAC 6.0 – Adding Tenants

After vCAC 6 is initially installed you have only the default tenant that was created during the configuration of the Identity Appliance. The administrator user for the default tenant will allow you to login to the vCAC UI and created additional tenants and configure default branding.

It is highly recommended that you do not utilize the default tenant for anything other than tenant management. You can add a directory service such as AD to the default tenant to assign other administrators, however beyond that it is not recommended that you utilize the default tenant to provide any additional service. This post will walk you through creating a new tenant in vCAC 6.0 that can be used to publish services.

Creating a new tenant

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vCloud Automation Center – vCAC 6.0 – Installing the vCAC 6.0 IaaS Server

Now that we have installed and configured the vCAC 6.0 Identity Appliance and the vCAC 6.0 Virtual Appliance we now need to install the vCAC 6.0 IaaS Server. The IaaS server is all the former vCAC 5.x and earlier components. The vCAC 6.0 IaaS Server includes the following components:

  • IaaS Reopsitory
  • IaaS Server Service
  • IaaS DEM’s – Orchestrator and Worker
  • IaaS Proxy Agents

If you are familiar with vCAC 5.2 and earlier you will notice the architecture for the IaaS server is the same. There are some important changes to functionality that this component provides however. The IaaS server no longer handles the following:

  • vCAC Admin Portal – Now in the vCAC 6.0 VA
  • vCAC Self Service Portal – Now in the vCAC 6.0 VA
  • Cost Profiles – Now in the vCAC 6.0 VA
  • Approvals – Now in the vCAC 6.0 VA
  • Authentication – Now in the vCAC 6.0 VA

From an integration perspective the vCAC IaaS server still supports state transition workflows and the same Windows Workflow Foundation workflow system as well as the custom machine menu operation workflows. You however won’t be using the custom machine menu operation workflows much with the new day two operations that leverage vCO. No longer are you limited to 4 custom actions and they are completely vCO driven.

Installing the vCAC 6.0 IaaS Server

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vCloud Automation Center – vCAC 6.0 – Installting the vCAC 6.0 Virtal Appliance

The vCAC 6.0 Virtual appliance(VA) is your gateway into vCAC 6.0. The vCAC VA packs a punch with lots of new capabilities including:

  • Multi-Tenancy
  • New Self-Service Portal
  • Catalog Brand-able per tenant
  • Ultra flexible advanced approvals
  • Custom service offerings (XaaS)
  • Custom Day 2 operations
  • Built-In vCO Server
  • Lots more….

The vCAC 6.0 VA is the second of three required components for vCAC 6.0. The First component the vCAC 6.0 Identity Appliance handles SSO authentication for the architecture, the vCAC VA handles the web interface for administration, self-service, and API. The vCAC IaaS Server which we will be installing next is what was formerly known as vCAC.

The appliance is delivered as an ova or ovf whichever you prefer. I will be walking through the installation using the ova version. In this tutorial we will do the following:

  • Import the vCAC 6.0 Virtual Appliance OVA to vCenter
  • Configure the vCAC 6.0 Virtual Appliance for use

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vCloud Automation Center – vCAC 6.0 – Installing the vCAC 6.0 Identity Server Appliance

The vCAC 6.0 Identity Appliance (IA) is an integral component of vCAC and a very welcomed addition. The vCAC 6.0 IA will be the first component of the new vCAC 6.0 Suite that is deployed in your environment. If you don’t already have the vCAC 6.0 Identity Appliance you can download from the VMware Downloads page.

Identify Appliance Features

The identity appliance gives vCAC some newly added benefits and features that with regards to authentication and supporting multiple directory services. Some of these features include:,/p>

  • Multiple AD Provider Support per tenant
  • Multiple LDAP Service Providers per tenant
  • Single Sign-On Capabilities
  • Allows for the portal to now have the much sought after logout button

The appliance is delivered as an ova or ovf whichever you prefer. I will be walking through the installation using the ova version. In this tutorial we will do the following:

  • Import the vCAC 6.0 Identity Appliance OVA to vCenter
  • Configure the vCAC 6.0 Identity Appliance for use

Continue reading “vCloud Automation Center – vCAC 6.0 – Installing the vCAC 6.0 Identity Server Appliance”