Automation – vTAM

1 May 2022

vRA 8.8 Custom Names

With the release of vRA 8.8 you can now make use of Custom Names by enabling this feature through the UI. I have written before about vRA Custom Names since the release of version 8.6.1. However, in that version the Custom Names feature was hidden and could only be enabled with some API reverse engineering (hence I had to temporarily...

Automation/vRA Comments: 2

10 February 2022

Using vCenter Content Library with vRealize Automation 8

To speed up vRA VM deployments a common used practice is to copy the “golden” VM templates to each vSphere cluster with a script or via vRealize Orchestrator. In addition for vRA7 environments, the custom property “CloneFrom” [Custom Property] in combination with an Orchestrator Workflow is used to select the template from the cluster that the new VM is deployed...

Automation/vCenter/vRA/vSphere Comments: 0

9 December 2021

Air-gapped Terraform <> vRA integration

As a follow-up to the previous Terraform integration post I will now try to explain how we can complete the integration in a fully air-gapped environment. To achieve this we need to make several resources locally available. Let me first flash back to the non air-gapped situation for which we zoom into the external resources used. Let’s revisit the external...

Automation/Terraform/vRA Comments: 0

6 October 2021

Getting Started with vRA 8 Terraform Runtime Integration

Terraform is gaining a lot of traction in the Infrastructure-as-code space, both from a end-user perspective as within integrations. Let me try to explain what each of these bring with vRA 8! Terraform as end-user For configuring vRA related constructs as Cloud-accounts, Projects, Users, Groups, Cloud-Templates For triggering Cloud-Template deployments Leverages local Terraform executable and provider (vSphere, vRA, NSX, …)...

Automation/Terraform/vRA Comment: 1

2 October 2021

Getting started with vRA SaltStack Config – part 2

If you successfully complete part 1, it is now time to see the integration between vRA and SaltStack in action. To make life a bit easier (but insecure) you can configure SSC to automatically Accept new Minion Keys. To do this, you have to edit the file /etc/salt/master and look for the auto_accept entry. Remove the bracket and set the...

Automation/SaltStack/vRA Comments: 0

2 October 2021

Getting started with vRA SaltStack Config – part 1

I finally got some time to work with vRA Saltstack Config (SSC) and want to share my experience in this blogpost. My starting point is: vRSLCM 8.4.1.1 Patch 2 with VIDM 3.3.5 and vRA 8.5.1 Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver) Cloud ova image on a local webserver (or Content library). You can find the latest [here]: Microsoft CA with generated certificates...

Automation/SaltStack/vRA Comments: 0

14 August 2021

Automated deployment of vRealize Automation 8.x via PowerShell – Part 2

If all went well during Part 1, you should now have a fresh vRSLCM installation. In this part I will use another script to take care of configuring vRSLCM, deploying VIDM and deploying vRA, both as single node. Just like the previous script, some parts of the script may be further optimized and need additional error handling. Also, I did...

Automation/Powershell/VIDM/vRA/vRSLCM Comments: 2

13 August 2021

Automated deployment of vRealize Automation 8.x via Powershell – Part 1

For my work, I regularly need to deploy a fresh vRA Environment, either to test with a specific (older) version or new beta release. Although the Deployment of vRA is relatively easy, it always takes me more time than I like, so I decided to throw in some extra time and automate the deployment of vRSLCM, VIDM and VRA. There...

Automation/Powershell/VIDM/vRA/vRSLCM Comments: 0

31 January 2021

Cumulative Security Update for vRA 7.6

Updated March 9th 2021;March 2021 Platform Security Update, Februari vRA7.6 Hotfix 20. Recently I received a customer question about the installation of a vRA 7.6 Security update. The question was related to the Cumulative Security Update for vRealize Automation 7.6, which is mentioned in VMware KB80044; https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/80044 To be honest I was not even aware of the existence of these...

Automation/Uncategorized/vRA Comment: 1

5 April 2020

vRA8 Infoblox Integration

Update: 04-may-2020; updates links/versions. This article describes the basic setup for the vRA 8 Infoblox integration. Official VMware documentation about this topic can be found at the following link: “Add an external IPAM integration point in vRealize Automation Cloud Assembly” [link]. Infoblox has written a Deployment Guide which can be found here [link]. The new v1.1 vRA Infoblox Plugin can...

Automation/vRA Comments: 3

Category: Automation