Caution: Articles written for technical not grammatical accuracy, If poor grammar offends you proceed with caution ;-)
In my last post I covered how to connect vCAC to Amazon EC2 which I hope was useful for many it appears to have received a lot of attention. In this post I’m going to walk you through how to connect vCAC to vCenter. Be sure that you have completed the steps in the below posts before you connect to vCenter:
- vCloud Automation Center- vCAC 5.1 – What to know before you install!
- vCloud Automation Center- vCAC 5.1 – vCAC Manager Installation
- vCloud Automation Cetner – vCAC 5.1 – DEM Installation
- vCloud Automation Center – vCAC 5.1 – Laying the foundation
What were going to configure
In order to configure vSphere integration we are going to setup some additional components of vCAC as outlined below:
- Credentials -Credentials will be utilized by out endpoints to authenticate us to the infrastructure element managers that we are going to communicate with.
- End Point – Endpoints are how we manage connections from vCAC to other infrastructure elements in the environment. There are endpoints that allow us to communicate with EC2, vCenter, vCloud Director, vCenter Orchestrator, Hyper-V, NetApp Filers, as well as Physical Servers such as HP iLO, Dell iDrac, and Cisco UCS.
- Install the vSphere Proxy Agent – The vSphere proxy agent is like a DEM, only it has pre-programmed workflows that perform a specific function. In this case the function will be to communicate with vCenter. Proxy agents are a bit legacy and will hopefully be ported to the new DEM architecture in the future.
- Enterprise Group – Although we already created an Enterprise Group we are going to add vSphere Compute Resources to the group in this exercise. For more information on what Enterprise Groups are see my earlier article “vCloud Automation Center – Laying the foundation“.
- Reservations – A resource reservation is how we provide available resources to our provisioning groups. Resource Reservation are a one to one mapping to provisioning groups. Resource reservation will get created for any type of resources you want to make available to your groups. In this exercise we will be creating a virtual vSphere reservation.
- Global Blueprints – A Blueprint is really a service definition that details what the consumer can request and all the policies and configuration of that service. We will create a virtual blueprint that a consumer can request through the service catalog in this example. I will cover Blueprints in greater detail in another article.
Watch the video tutorial – Connecting to vCenter!
Watch the video tutorial – Creating a Reservation!
Watch the video tutorial – Creating a vSphere Blueprint!
Create vCenter Credential
1. Under “vCAC Administrator” select “Credentials“, then click “New Credentials” in the upper right corner. Give your credentials a “name” then set the “username” and “password” that you will use to connect to your “vCenter Server“.
Create vCenter EndPoint
2. Under “vCAC Administrator” select “Endpoints” then select “New Endpoint” in the upper right corner and select “vSphere(vCenter)“.
Create vCenter EndPoint
3. Enter a “Name” for your “Endpoint“(I like to use the “name” of the “vCenter server” so I know what the “Endpoint” is talking to), then the “vCenter SDK address“. It should be formatted like “https://FQDN of vCenter/sdk“, you can use IP in place of FQDN if you like. Next click the “Selection Box” next to “Credentials” and select the “Credentials” you just created and select “Ok” when finished.
Install vSphere Proxy Agent
4. Next we need to install the “vSphere proxy agent“. Go to your “Installation Files“, “Right” click “DCAC-Agent-Setup” and select “Run as Administrator“.
Run Install
5. Click “Next“.
Accept Terms
6. “Accept” the terms and click “Next”.
Agent Name
7. Give your agent a “Name“. I like to use the name of the “vCenter” server so I know which “vCenter” the “agent” is for. The input the “hostname” of the “vCAC Server” and the “Model Manager Web Service” If you are installing all components on the same server then “localhost” is fine. Click “Next”
Agent Selection
8. Select the “vSphere Agent“. This should be the default. Click “Next”
Service Account
9. Input the “Username” and “Password” for the “Domain Account” the “Proxy Agent” “Service” should “Run As” Click “Next“.
Model Manager User
10. Input the “Username” and “Password” for the “Domain Account” that has access to the “Model manager“. The may be the “Service Account” the “vCAC Server” is running as. Click “Next”
EndPoint Name
11. Input the “Name” of the “EndPoint” you created in “Step 3“. The name must match exactly as you created. Case matters. Then click “Next“
Install
12. Click “Install”
Finish
13. Click “Finish”
Agent Registration
14. Once the agent starts it will attempt to connect to the vCenter Server with the credentials that you created. If it is able to connect it will then also attempt to connect to the vCAC server. If all goes well it will then do a very high level discovery of the available Clusters and Hosts managed by the vCenter Server.
Verify the Agent
15. To verify the agent is properly communicating there are two things I check. I check the active connections in vCenter as shown in the image above, and I verify the agent id talking to vCAC by going to “vCAC Administrator“, then “Agent Configuration” click the “Drop Down” next to “Proxy Agent Name” and see if the agent name is in the list. You do not need to do any configuration here for the vSphere agent. It is just a handy want to see if it’s properly communicating.
Enterprise Group
16. Next go to “vCAC Administrator” then “Enterprise Groups” and either “Edit” and existing group or “Create” a new one.
Add Clusters
17. Select the “Clusters” and/or “Hosts” you want to manage under “Compute Resources” and click “Ok“.
Deep Discovery
18. Once added to an “Enterprise Group” the “Cluster/Host” will show up under “Enterprise Administrator” -> “Compute Resources“. At this point vCAC initiates a “Discovery Workflow” that will perform a “Deep” discovery of the environments including: Memory, CPU, Storage, Networks, Templates, Resource Pools, VM’s etc. In larger environment this can take some time.
Reservation
19. Next we need to create a “Reservation” we can use. Go to “Enterprise Administrator“, select “Reservations” and then up in the right corner select “New Reservation” then “Virtual“.
Virtual Reservation
20. Next to “Compute Resource” select a “Cluster/Host“.
Virtual Reservation Info
21. Assign the reservation to a “Provisioning Group” set the “Priority” and then click the “Resources Tab”
Virtual Reservation Resources
22. Assign “Memory“, select one or more “DataStores” and input how much of each “selected datastores” to allocate. Select “Networks” you would like to make available and click the “Alerts” tab.
Virtual Reservation Alerts
23. Optionally “Enable Alerts” set your “Thresholds” define “Email” address and select “Ok”
Global Blueprints
24. Go to “Enterprise Administrator” select “Global Blueprints“, then in the top right select “New Blueprint” and then “Virtual”
Blueprint Information
25. Give your “Blueprint” a name, assign it to a “Group/Groups” define the “Archive” days and then select the “Build Information” tab.
Build Information
26. Select the “Platform Type” drop down and select “vSphere(vCenter)” from the list.
Build Information
27. Select “Server” for “Blueprint Type“, “Clone” for “Action“, and “CloneWorkflow” for “Provisioning Workflow“. The click the “Picker” next to “Clone From“.
Build Information
28. Select the “Template” you would like to use and click “Ok“.
Build Information
29. Type in the name of a “vCenter Customization Specification” that you would like to use in “Customization Spec“. Optionally set “Maximum Values“, configure “Lease(Days)” and if you like set the “Max # of volumes” that can be added to the machine and then click the “Properties” tab.
Properties
30. Click “New Property” and add the following “property name” “VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem” and “Value” “windows7Server64Guest” for Windows Server 2008 x64. See the end of this post for property values for other operating systems. The property and it’s values are case sensitive. Click the “green check” and then click the “Security” tab.
Security
31. Here you can determine what “operations” the “owner” can perform against “machines” provisioned from this “blueprint“. Click “Ok” to create the blueprint.
Request Machine
32. Go to “Self-Service” then “Request Machine” In my example I belong to multiple groups. I can “expand” the groups to see the blueprints available for each.
Request Machine
33. Here I have expanded my groups and I can see my “Windows Server 2008 R2 x64” “blueprint” under my “Production Group“. Select the “blueprint” to make a “request“.
Request Information
34. Change any value you would like and then optionally select the “Storage” tab.
Storage
35. If you configured your “blueprint” to “allow additional disk” and you would like add an additional disk and select “Ok” then select “Ok” to “submit” your request.
Provisioning
36. Your machine is now provisioning.
Additional OS Properties
RHEL5x64 – rhel5_64Guest
RHEL5 – rhel5Guest
RHEL6x64 – rhel6_64Guest
RHEL6 – rhel6Guest
SLES9x64 – sles64Guest
SLES9 – slesGuest
SLES10x64 – sles10_64Guest
SLES10 – sles10Guest
SLES11x64 – sles11_64Guest
SLES11 – sles11Guest
Solaris10x64 – solaris10_64Guest
Solaris10 – solaris10Guest
Windows 2003ENTx64 – winNetEnterprise64Guest
Windows 2003ENT – winNetEnterpriseGuest
Windows 2003STDx64 – winNetStandard64Guest
Windows 2003STD – winNetStandardGuest
Windows 7×64 – windows7_64Guest
Windows 7 – windows7Guest
WindowsXP – winXPProGuest
Thanks for your post. It was very helpful.