OK, so we told you about the great new plug-in that VMware has made available for vCO to work with AMQP, but now what? You'll need a couple things to get started before you can run off and code a bunch of cool workflows so let's step through this initial process...
Get and Install AMQP Server (RabbitMQ)
Configure Publisher (vCloud Director 1.5)
Configure Consumer (vCenter Orchestrator)
Apply Policy Template to create new Policy
How to create new Policy manually
Starting the Policy
Get and install an AMQP server.
Growing interest in vCenter and vCloud Orchestration has led to the creation of a new training course for vCenter Orchestrator.
This three days hands on training is available in classroom, onsite or online. It is aimed at vCenter Orchestrator beginners and requires vSphere administrators and basic scripting skills. Areas covered are installation and configuration, architecture, use of the library workflows and development of custom workflows interacting with external systems.
For knowing some of the folks involved in designing and giving the course (Brian and Jörg) we heartily recommend it.
Download the VMware Press FREE Preview sampler. Containing advance chapters from upcoming VMware Press books and from author Cody Bunch, Mike Laverick, and Mostafa Khalil.
Automating vSphere: With VMware vCenter Orchestrator by Cody Bunch, ISBN: 9780321799913, December 2011
CHAPTER 6: Introduction to Workflow-Fu
Administering VMware Site Recovery Manager 5.0 by Mike Laverick, ISBN: 9780321799920, December, 2011
CHAPTER 9: Configuring the Protected Site
CHAPTER 16: Upgrading from SRM 4.1 to SRM 5.
Quoting the Infoblox press-release:
Today at VMworld® 2011, Infoblox Inc. announced it is delivering a fully integrated plug-in for the VMware vCloud® Orchestrator community. Working with VMware vCloud Director™, the integrated solution provides automated IP addressing and related management capabilities in real-time as virtual machines are created.
As a result, the Infoblox plug-in accelerates private and public cloud deployment, simplifies management and bridges network and virtual IT team silos by enabling automated assignment of IP addresses to virtual machines.
In a previous article we demonstrated how vCenter Orchestrator can leverage the vCloud Director plug-in to automate tasks or create new functionality by combining them. These workflows are initiated by vCenter Orchestrator.
Now if you would like to have vCO triggering workflows based on vCloud Director events (For example an end user task started from the vCloud Director UI, a system event or a task started from the vCloud API) you will be able to leverage the vCloud Director 1.
An article listing the vCenter Orchestrator sessions, demos and hands on labs has been posted on the vCO blog. This year Orchestrator is present and used in the background in a lot more places than in the past.Sessions:
Go to CIM3235 to hear about how customers use vCenter Orchestrator as an automation and integration platform for vCloud Director and how VMware IT did it. Go to TEX2923 to learn about workflow development techniques from one of the most experienced vCenter Orchestrator partner / trainer and from VMware engineering.
A few days ago vCenter Orchestrator 4.2 was released as part of vSphere 5 and as previous releases for no extra cost.
This release focus is on bug fixing and improving documentation and providing it in different formats. 2011 effort was mostly on orchestrating more technologies with releasing a lot more plug-ins (7 listed as of now).
Resources:
vCenter Orchestrator 4.2 release notesvCenter Orchestrator 4.2 documentationvCenter Orchestrator 4.2 download (included in vCenter Server 5.
VMware vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) keeps your last workflows inputs as long as you keep your vCO client open. It is very practical since it avoids filling all the input fields on each subsequent run of the same workflow.
Now if you close your client you have to refill these inputs except if ...
You use the following tip:
When your input are filled. Hold Alt and right click, A contextual menu appear.
VMware released a software development kit allowing the creation of plug-in adapters for vCenter Orchestrator.
For the company having development resources it means that they can develop plug-ins for their private usage or for the 200.000+ vCenter customers. For end users this translates into the future availability of a lot more plug-ins.
Quoting the SDK page:
The VMware vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in SDK 4.2 is designed to jumpstart developers who are new to vCO plug-in development.
With the increasing popularity of VMware vCenter Orchestrator, there is a growing desire to use it over SSL connections. While vCO supports this type of connectivity out of the box, it is not necessarily pre-configured automatically to have a proper SSL certificate. Regardless of how or where you import the default certificate, you are unlikely to get away from warnings such as:
Firefox Warning: Internet Explorer Warning:
After clicking "Continue to this website (not recommended).
