Fr

ee

vRealize Automation 6.2 orchestrates the provisioning

of infrastructure, applications, and customized services
delivered from a self-service web portal. Administrators
can create Blueprints that deploy VMs on demand.
This ensures uniformity in the VMs and timeliness in
their delivery.
The book opens with an overview of vRealize
Automation and moves into the basic components
required to set up vRA. You are guided through the steps
to design your vRealize Automation environment and
introduced to integration points, including SCCM and
Kickstart deployments. You will learn about Approval
Policies, how to set them up and how to integrate
other products, such as vRealize Operations Manager
and Orchestrator.
Finally, the book provides a valuable list of references to
enhance your knowledge of vRealize Automation 6.2.

Who this book is written for

This book is intended for readers who already have
advanced knowledge of vCenter and want to utilize
automation and orchestration. If you want to design
your environment with best practices and real
world configuration examples, this book will be the
perfect companion.

What you will learn from this book

Master the installation, configuration, and
customization of vRealize Automation 6.2
Integrate SCCM, Kickstart, and WIM
deployment servers with vRealize Automation
Easy-to-follow integration steps for using
vRealize Orchestrator, Operations Manager,
and Application Services with vRealize
Automation 6.2
Avoid common pitfalls during the
configuration and customization processes
Deep dive into configuring workflows
within vRealize Orchestrator

pl
e

P r o f e s s i o n a l

E x p e r t i s e

D i s t i l l e d

Mastering vRealize
Automation 6.2

Create Approval Policies to govern the

amount of resources end users can consume
when provisioning infrastructure
Create multiple machine blueprints to
leverage the existing deployment methods
in your environment

J. Powell

professional expertise distilled

Sa

vRealize Automation design concepts and

best practices for small, medium, or large
enterprise environments

$ 49.99 US
31.99 UK

P U B L I S H I N G

Mastering vRealize Automation 6.2

Mastering vRealize
Automation 6.2

Enable virtualization, automation, and efficient cloud management

in your environment with vRealize Automation 6.2

Prices do not include

local sales tax or VAT
where applicable

Visit [Link] for books, eBooks,

code, downloads, and PacktLib.

J. Powell

professional expertise distilled

P U B L I S H I N G

In this package, you will find:

The author biography

A preview chapter from the book, Chapter 1 'Introducing vRealize
Automation 6.2'
A synopsis of the books content
More information on Mastering vRealize Automation 6.2

About the Author

J. Powell is an active proponent of VMware's virtualization technologies for

small businesses and nonprofits, with a focus on Horizon View and vCenter.
He is a senior system engineer at Nine Virtual Technologies (for more information,
visit [Link]
He has over a decade of IT experience in enterprise infrastructure design,
implementation, and administration. He holds certifications from VMware
and is active on their community forums.
He has previously worked for Packt Publishing in the capacity of technical
reviewer for the book, VMware Horizon View Essentials, which was published
in October 2014.
In addition to his IT experience, he has owned and operated a fine dining restaurant
in North Carolina, Fifty Fifty Lounge and Grill. He currently resides in Indianapolis,
IN, with his beautiful wife, Dena, and their daughter, Parker.

Preface
Working with virtualization technologies like the ones under the VMware umbrella
provide IT Administrators with the ability to manage more with less. What used to
take many hours and hands now can be done in a fraction of the time and with less
hands. As technology advances, we will enter an exciting time of convergence. This
means we will have multiple services, applications, systems, and networks coming
together and managed through a single pane of glass. vRealize Automation is the
leading product in this field.
Before its Fall 2014 rebranding, vRealize Automation was known as vCloud
Automation Center (vCAC). Its origins are based in a financial services company
named Credit Suisse. The software was developed in 2005 to help the company
roll out its virtualization strategy, while maintaining a focus on governance and
operational control. After a few years of using the software in-house, to maintain
thousands of virtual machines, Credit Suisse formed a separate company named
DynamicOps to continue the development and innovation behind the software.
DynamicOps was launched at the beginning of 2008 in Burlington, Massachusetts.
Leslie Muller, who led the charge in developing what would be known as vCAC,
was the founder and CTO of DynamicOps. The company was acquired in 2012
by VMware.
The latest version of vRealize Automation is 6.2 and it will be the focus of this book.
The product's strengths are also its weakness: Versatility. vRealize Automation has
a lot of moving parts and components. It also takes a lot of time and consideration
to configure all of the pieces. Throughout the book, you may question the casesensitivity and spacing in the examples. They are not type-o's. Also, you will see
references to DynamicOps as well as vCAC throughout the examples. Once you
understand the basics, as well as some of the more advanced integration points,
you will be well on your way to Mastering vRealize Automation.

Preface

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introducing vRealize Automation 6.2, defines vRealize Automation with
a history of the product leading up to its current version, which is 6.2. It will also
mention where the product is heading.
Chapter 2, vRealize Automation Architecture and Feature Overview, discusses the
features and different servers that comprise vRealize Automation.
Chapter 3, Designing and Building a vRealize Automation 6.2 Infrastructure, discusses
everything from POC to Production.
Chapter 4, Installing and Configuring vRealize Automation 6.2, including tips for a
successful deployment.
Chapter 5, Mastering Blueprints, shows you how to master the creation of blueprints.
An intimate deep dive into successful creation of Kickstart, SCCM, WIM, and
Cloned blueprints.
Chapter 6, Creating Approval Policies, in this chapter, we will demonstrate step-by-step
the creation and implementation of approval policies.
Chapter 7, Installing and Configuring vRealize Automation Application Services 6.2, how
to integrate services such as LAMP stacks and SQL to the vRealize Automation
user portal.
Chapter 8, REST API and vRealize Orchestrator, defines REST and covers the creation
of workflows with the vRealize Orchestrator, as well as integrating the workflows
with vRealize Automation.
Chapter 9, Integrating vRealize Operations Manager, provides an overview of vRealize
Operations Manager 6.0, as well as exploring the benefits of integrating it with
vRealize Automation.
Chapter 10, Customizing the End User Portal Experience, teaches you how to customize
the end user portal, including services, catalog items, icons, entitlements, and
business groups.
Chapter 11, Troubleshooting vRealize Automation 6.2, gives you information on some
of the common errors and pitfalls that occur during installation and maintenance,
as well as how to resolve them.
Chapter 12, References for vRealize Automation 6.2, gives you information on where
to go to get deeper knowledge about certain topics and self-help resources.

Introducing vRealize
Automation 6.2
In the first chapter, we are going to start by briefly explaining vRealize Automation
6.2, as well as cover some of the necessary fundamentals that play a part of the
vRealize Automation universe. This includes defining Infrastructure as a Service
(IaaS), Everything as a Service (XaaS), as well as the different editions of vRealize
Automation that are available.

Introduction to vRealize Automation

At its most basic definition, vRealize Automation (known as vRA, pronounced
as "vee are ") is a self-service web portal that provides XaaS. Not only in the strict
XaaS definition, but everything as a service as a catch all includes IaaS, Database as
a Service (DBaaS), IT as a Service (ITaaS), among other emerging services. vRA
includes policy-based governance, and automatic delivery of user requests through a
single web portal. It provides flexibility by allowing users to provision multi-vendor
infrastructure and applications. vRA also provides business agility by automating
processes that users normally depend (and wait) on their system administrators
to take care of for them. End users no longer have to wait for their IT team to spin
up physical or virtual servers, and install appropriate applications for them, along
with all the hardening and compliance that a business demands. This can now be
performed by the user with the orchestration of different workflows, all conducted
by you, the IT professional.

[1]

Introducing vRealize Automation 6.2

The following figure shows an overview of vRA:

vRealize Automation
Self - Service
Policy Based Governance with Automated Delivery
Application Release Automation
Application
Services

Infrastructure
Services

Physical

Linux

Custom
Services

Virtual

Cloud

VM VM VM

VM VM VM

VM VM VM

VM VM VM

VM VM VM

VM VM VM

vSphere

Hyper-V

XenServer

vCloud
Hybrid
Service

Windows
Cloud Providers
R

CLOUD SOFTWARE

Benefits of vRA
Agility and versatility are two of vRA's greatest benefits. Business users and
developers can spin up and consume services, applications, and infrastructure
that is needed to suit business demands. This leads to a faster life cycle of product
development. Developers can design, test, and deploy new software much faster
than using traditional methods, which includes an IT department, manually (or
semi-automate) the deployment of foundational technologies needed in the product
life cycle. Also, after a product has been deployed, developers can use the same
self-service process to create an infrastructure for testing bugs in their code and
resolving issues in the product as bug reports are filed by the consumer.
VMware's vRealize Automation provides a wealth of versatility. So much, in fact,
it is quite an overwhelming product. In this book, we will delve into some of the
more interesting points of vRA, such as workflow orchestration and integration
with existing systems that may already be in your environment. These include:

System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM)

Kickstart

vRealize Operations

[2]

Chapter 1

Governance is one of the most difficult aspects of running a large, publicly traded
company. Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and Payment Card Industry (PCI) audits are
lengthy and take away hours from maintaining the foundational technologies
necessary to keep a business running. This task would be a lot easier if you had
a way to show an auditor a virtual paper trail of workflows and logs, detailing
each event that occurs in your environment. Out of the box, vRealize Automation
maintains detailed audit logs of what each user does while operating in the web
portal. For example, user requests within the portal are logged under the Items tab
(We will explore this more in Chapter 4, Installing and Configuring vRealize Automation
6.2). These items cannot be deleted without manually deleting tables out of the SQL
database that controls the vRA IaaS services. Additionally, e-mails are sent to the
users' designated manager for approval, if you configure vRA to do so. Also, we
can tightly control our software and server licenses by limiting how many of these
resources can be deployed in our environment.
Operational costs when it comes to compute, software, and power are often difficult
to track. What if we could associate a per day cost of running a Red Hat Enterprise
Linux (RHEL) virtual machine? Also, what if your business department has a fixed
budget for your project or a limitation to what can be spent on infrastructure during
a 30-day cycle? We can easily assign costs to all the aspects of the infrastructure from
storage, networking, CPU, and memory, as well as applications. This gives us strict
control over the amount of compute we provide to our customers or coworkers.

Beginning of vRealize Automation 6.2

vRealize Automation 6.2 is the latest version of VMware's self-service web portal that
is used to provide IaaS and XaaS to users on demand. The genesis of this product
began in 2005, when a global financial services company called Credit Suisse had a
need to roll out their virtualization strategy, which was comprised of thousands of
virtual machines. Since they are a private and investment bank, they would be
subject to all types of compliances, regulations, and governance.
After a few years of using the software they developed to maintain the wealth
of virtual machines in their infrastructure, they formed a separate company named
DynamicOps.
Launched in January 2008, DynamicOps was founded by Leslie Muller, who led
the charge in developing what was then called DynamicOps Cloud Suite. The suite
included DynamicOps Cloud Automation Center, which provided the foundation
of what vRA is today. VMware bought DynamicOps in 2012 and shortly after
renamed the product vCloud Automation Center (vCAC).

[3]

Introducing vRealize Automation 6.2

vCAC was developed through major versions, such as 4, 5, and 6. Each version
featured significant code changes under the hood, as VMware developers begin to
remove the legacy DynamicOps code and make it their own. They also began to
integrate with multiple vendors in an effort to offer everything as a service (XaaS).
In the fall of 2014, vCAC was rebranded again to the version we know today,
vRealize Automation.
Why would VMware rebrand an already well-know product? According to their
FAQ, Realize describes the power their management software gives customers to
gain insights, make decisions, and take action across the entire IT landscape.
vRealize Automation 6.2 is now integrated with vRealize Operations (vROps).
It was formally known as vCenter Operations (vCOps). You can read about the
former version of vROps from Packt vCenter Operations Manager 5.6.2.
Integration means you will be able to view the health as well as
operational trends through a single pane of glass, the vRA portal.

Available editions of vRealize

Automation 6.2
At the time of writing, vRA comes in three different flavors: Standard, Advanced, and
Enterprise. Since the Standard edition is not available as a stand-alone product, we will
not cover it beyond the next chapter. However, it is available as part of the vRealize
Suite, which includes vRealize Operations Manager 6, among other products. For
the examples used in this book, we will be focusing on the vRealize Automation 6.2
Enterprise edition. This means some of the examples used here may not be for your
version. The most up-to-date information can be found at [Link]
products/vrealize-automation/compare.
The editions are explained in more detail in the sections coming later. However, take
a look at these charts for a detailed comparison of the three different editions of vRA:
Features

Standard

Advanced

Enterprise

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

vRealize Automation
VMware infrastructure services, cloning only,
vRO integration
Multi-vendor, multi-cloud infrastructure, and
multi-vendor SW provisioning

[4]

Yes

Chapter 1

Features

Standard

Custom services (XaaS), approvals,

reclamation, chargeback, multi-tenancy

Advanced

Enterprise

Yes

Yes

Application services

Yes
Services Provisioned and Managed

Import existing virtual machines

Yes

Yes

Yes

Infrastructure services (vSphere and vCloud

only)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Day 2 operations for infrastructure:

reconfigure and snapshot

Yes

Yes

Yes

Infrastructure services (multi-vendor virtual,

physical, and public Cloud)

Yes

Yes

Custom services

Yes

Yes

Application services (virtual, public, and

public Cloud)

Yes

Day 2 operations for applications: update,

rollback, scale-in, and scale-out

Yes

Software Deployment Mechanisms

Hypervisor and vApp cloning

Yes

Multi-vendor software deployment tools

(Puppet, Chef, Kickstart, SaltStack, and so on)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Deploy integrated multi-tier applications

Yes

Leverage existing services in new application

deployments

Yes

Governance and Controls

Business rule, resource allocation, and
infrastructure service definition policies

Yes

Multi-tenancy and approvals

Yes
Yes

Application definition

Yes
Yes
Yes

Business Management
Chargeback and cost display throughout the
product

Yes

Yes

Integration with VMware vRealize Business

Standard Edition

Yes

Yes

Solution Extensibility
vRealize Orchestra Integration

Yes

Yes

Yes

Optional vRealize Automation Development

Kit (SDK)

Yes

Yes

Yes

[5]

Introducing vRealize Automation 6.2

Features

Standard

Advanced

Enterprise

VMware Cloud Management Marketplace

solutions

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Advanced Service Designer

vRealize Automation Standard edition

This is the entry point into vRA. It supports a singular level of infrastructure services.
This means it is limited to supporting vSphere and vCloud only. The Standard edition
includes support for snapshots and vRealize Orchestrator (vRO). (It was formally
referred to as vCenter Orchestrator (vCO)). Also, it only supports server and Virtual
Appliance (vApp) cloning to deploy new infrastructure.
Since the Standard edition is the entry point, you do not get any of the business
management components, such as charge back capabilities and integration with the
vRealize Business Standard edition, which is an IT cost management program. You
also do not get multi-tenancy support and approvals, and all of the multi-vendor
software deployment tools, such as Windows Image Management (WIM),
Kickstart, and System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM).

vRealize Automation Advanced edition

The Advanced edition includes the limited features of the Standard edition, but
also adds a wealth of additional features, making it more appropriate for larger
IT landscapes.
Multi-vendor, Cloud, and software provisioning are included, as well as the ability
to provision and manage physical, virtual, and public Cloud infrastructures. This is
also the first edition that introduces the multi-vendor software deployment tools we
eluded to earlier in the chapter.
We also get multi-tenancy and approvals, as well as the chargeback and the
vRealize Business integration.
Finally, you get access to the Advanced Service Designer (ASD), which allows
vRA to use an external vRO server and add the vRO plugins as endpoints.

[6]

Chapter 1

vRealize Automation Enterprise edition

Last, but not least is the most powerful edition of vRA. With the Enterprise edition,
you get all of the features included in the Advanced edition. Additionally, you get
gems, such as integration with Puppet, Chef and SaltStack. When it comes to compliance
and governance, you get the added ability to create application definitions and release
automation policies. The Enterprise edition allows you to deploy integrated multitier
applications and leverage existing services in new application deployments.
Also, there is a big feature difference between Advanced and Enterprise application
services. Only the Enterprise edition gives you the capability of provisioning
applications across virtual, private, and public Cloud spaces.

Summary
In this chapter, we defined vRealize Automation 6.2. We discussed the benefits
of vRA and its associated features. We also discussed a bit of the history behind
the product.
The final sections covered the three different editions: vRA Standard, vRA
Advanced, and vRA Enterprise, as well as what's included in each edition.
In the next chapter we are going to dive into the technology a little deeper and
look at how some of the technology features included with vRA fit together and
how they work.

[7]

Get more information Mastering vRealize Automation 6.2

Where to buy this book

You can buy Mastering vRealize Automation 6.2 from the Packt Publishing website.
Alternatively, you can buy the book from Amazon, [Link], Computer Manuals and most internet
book retailers.
Click here for ordering and shipping details.

[Link]

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