Category : VMware
Written by Christopher Lewis on August 19, 2016 .
Just got confirmation that I’ve been selected to be included in the vExpert Class of 2016.
I am truly humbled that my contribution to the wider VMware community has been recognised by my peers. I have only had the opportunity to share my thoughts, tips, tricks and experiences for the last 9 months but look forward to maintaining this for many years to come.
In becoming recognised as a vExpert, I will be listed amongst some giants of the industry and community!
Written by Christopher Lewis on August 16, 2016 .
I thought I would share a quick script to create a vCenter User Role with all the appropriate permissions for use with vRealize Automation (6.x or 7.x).
The script creates a new User Role within vCenter called vRealize Automation User.
Note: if you don’t like the name you can change the $role property to anything you like.
The script prompts for following information:
- vCenter Server FQDN
- the vCenter/SSO User with rights to create the role
- the vCenter/SSO User password
- the vRealize Automation Service account (that you want to assign to the permission)
And then automagically creates the new vCenter role with the required privileges and assigns permissions to the vRealize Automation service account from the root of the vCenter Server and propagates down.
Written by Christopher Lewis on August 11, 2016 .
This is the final post in a series of post on automating the deployment of the Platform Services Controller (PSC). To be honest I didn’t expect these posts to turn into a series but as I like to share.
The previous two articles in this series can be found here:
- HOWTO: Automate the installation of the External Platform Services Controller using PowerCLI & JSON - Part 1
- How to Automate the installation of the External Platform Services Controller using PowerCLI & JSON - Part 2
Within this final post, I will tackling the automated deployment of a two node PSC Cluster and will be sharing the script I use.
Written by Christopher Lewis on July 29, 2016 .
Over the last few months I have been designing and building a solution for vRealize Automation 6 for a customer. (I know, I know, its not the latest and greatest version with all the whiz-bang features of vRA7 - but the only solace I take is that the VCAP-CMA exams are currently based on vRA 6 - so hopefully it is good practice).
You will have noticed that the last few posts I have created are concerning the VMware vSphere Platform Services Controller (PSC) and how to install it (and automate it). This is because I am using the PSC as the SSO solution instead of the Identity Appliance (which not highly available and therefore not suitable for production environments) or the vSphere 5.5 SSO (out dated and replaced with the vSphere PSC).
VMware Platform Services Controller vRealize Automation vSphere
Written by Christopher Lewis on July 25, 2016 .
As a follow on to my previous article, HOWTO: Automate the installation of the External Platform Service Controller using PowerCLI & JSON - Part 1 , I had a new customer requirement to deploy the Platform Service Controller as the identity solution for vRealize Automation 6.x, but this time directly onto a VMware vCenter Server rather than an VMware vSphere ESXi host.
I can hear you all screaming at the article about vRealize Automation 7, how it is much cooler and has its own highly available vIDM - but this project started when vRA7 had only just come out and the customer didn’t want to take the risk.
Platform Services Controller PowerCLI PowerShell PSC VMware vSphere
Written by Christopher Lewis on July 3, 2016 .
As a follow on to my previous article on how to deploy HOWTO: Deploy the VMware vSphere 6.0 Platform Services Controlle r, I thought I would share a way to automate the delivery of the vSphere Platform Services Controller using PowerCLI/Powershell.
The main credit for this article goes to the information in the brilliant PowerCLI Reference 2nd Edition (see my review here ) of which my colleague Jonathan Medd ( www.jonathanmedd.net / @JonathanMedd ) was a co-author.
Platform Services Controller PowerCLI PowerShell PSC VMware vSphere
Written by Christopher Lewis on May 23, 2016 .
The following instructions will help you deploy a standalone VMware vSphere Platform Service Controller.
Instructions
In the software installer directory, double-click vcsa-setup.html.
Wait for the browser to detect the Client Integration Plug-in and allow the plug-in to run on the browser when prompted.
On the Home page, click Install to start the vCenter Server Appliance deployment wizard.
At the End User License Agreement screen, check the “I accept the terms of the license agreement checkbox”, and click Next.
Written by Christopher Lewis on April 25, 2016 .
Being able to Power on a Virtual Machine is a PowerCLI 101 subject (right after the Connect-VIServer).
Start-VM -VM "VM Name" -Server "vCenter/ESX Server Name"
However, how about being able to choose what to do with a Virtual Machine based on its current Power Status? That is where (amongst other ways) the PowerShell Switch command comes in.
Firstly we get the
Virtual Machine Object
using Get-VM into an object called (funnily enough) $VM.
HOWTO: Monitor a Process in Linux using vRealize Operations - Endpoint Operation Management - Part 4
Written by Christopher Lewis on April 21, 2016 .
This is Part 4 of a series on Monitoring Processes in Linux using VMware vRealize Operations Endpoint Operations Management (EPOPS).
- Creating the MultiProcess Object for a single Linux Machine
- Creating a MultiProcess Object for a Linux Machine (via Inventory Explorer)
- Creating Object Relationships
- Identifying the correct process.query string
Firstly I would highly recommend the following steps are taken within a test/lab environment. Within my lab environment I had numerous instances of core CentOS7, so if you have a more feature rich installation of Linux some of the steps may not be necessary.
Endpoint Operations Management EPOPS Linux VMware vRealize Operations
Written by Christopher Lewis on April 21, 2016 .
The main prerequisite information for installing the EPOPS agent is information required to populate the agent.properties file once installation is completed (but not started), this includes:
- IP or hostname of the vROps Server (
agent.setup.serverIP) - SSL Port to be used (default is 443) (
agent.setup.serverSSLPort) - Account used to register the agent in vROps (
agent.setup.serverLogin) - Password for the Registration Account (
agent.setup.serverPword) - The Certificate Thumbprint of the vROps Server (
agent.setup.serverCertificateThumbprint) - (optional) Agent Listen Port (default is 2144) if you are deploying VMware vRealize Hyperic as well (
agent.listenPort)
Note: The Certificate Thumbprint is available from the vRealize Operations Admin portal (https://vrops-server/admin) just click the gold medal icon!
Endpoint Operations Management EPOPS Linux VMware vRealize Operations
- Operating a Private Cloud - Part 3: Creating a Pricing Card in VMware Aria Automation
- Operating a Private Cloud - Part 2: Creating a Pricing Card in VMware Aria Operations
- Operating a Private Cloud - Part 1: Understanding Pricing Cards in VMware Aria
- Zero2Hero - Using Aria Automation to Deploy Multiple Machines with Multiple Disks - Part 5
- Zero2Hero - Using Aria Automation to Deploy Multiple Machines with Multiple Disks - Part 4