Our good friend Cody Bunch has just recently released a new book called Automating vSphere with vCenter Orchestrator (available in Kindle and paper back format) that provides administrators with a complete walk through of installing, configuring and automating your vSphere infrastructure using vCenter Orchestrator. This is a must have book for all vSphere administrators looking to further automate and orchestrate your virtual infrastructure!
I still consider myself a beginner in vCO, but I have found that it has been very easy to create some really cool workflows such as this, this and this and you do not even need to be a developer to start using vCO! I am looking forward to reading Cody's new book.
Both Pearson and Cody Bunch was kind enough to provide me with an additional paper back copy of Automating vSphere with vCenter Orchestrator. Since sharing is caring, I will be giving away this copy to one lucky reader of virtuallyGhetto!
How do you win?
Just leave a comment below with the top 5 things you would like/hope to automate using vCO in your vSphere infrastructure. I will randomly select a winner a week from today. Even if you do not win, you should definitely still grab a copy of Cody's book and learn how easy it is to leverage vCO in your vSphere environment.
I would automate QA testing of software for our company - utilizing vCO to deploy new systems with current code from the build server execute the test, and report the findings to Devs.
To qualify, you need to list 5 things you would like/hope to automate in your vSphere environment. Good Luck!
I would automate:
Backup (Avamar)
Cisco UCS Deploy
Storage provisioning
Connect my SNMP devices to vCO
Integrate vCO and vCD
What I'd like to automate the VCO? I do not know at all. At first must read this book to know what is possible. -)
To qualify, you need to list 5 things you would like/hope to automate in your vSphere environment. Good Luck!
I would automate:
Snapshot
workflow clone,delete,power off,power etc.. on virtual machine
upgrade tools
datastore
vm hardware
1). I would like to put a web ui in front of the request process for a vm.
2). I want to call out to other services like request tracker via their rest interface
3). I want to automate vcloud director with automated task like license tracking
4). I want to automate network appliances like load balancers and firewalls when deploying specific templates (like web servers)
5). I want to be able to kick off vco workflows via a soap/rest call to extend current scripts
Bonus: I'd love to configure SRM but I don't think it's integrated yet.
Congrats Chris! You are the winner of Automating vSphere with vCenter Orchestrator Book! Please send an email (http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/p/about.html) with your mailing address.
FYI - http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2012/03/congratulations-to-chris-greer-for.html
wooohoo! email sent
1) Apply vm security hardening guidelines (when v5 comes out) to new & existing VMs
2) upgrade VM / VMtools along side regular patch tuesday upgrades
3) apply all pre-domain join tasks on a VM (things not covered in guest customization)
4) LB API integration when VM's leave or join a load balanced application
5) Discover something with orchestrator that I hadn't even thought of
Just 5? 😉
I would like to:
automate new builds
automate config changes like adding and removing networks
View pool configuration/creation
datastore creation
Nightly dev build automation
1) Attach vCD vApp VM's to its default external organization when being deployed from a catalog in another Organization.
2) Send lease notices and renew vApps for VCD easier, such as is done currently in Lab Manager with a Link in the email.
3) Patch and update vCD and vCenter VM Templates
4) Auto create 30-50 Organizations and deploy 10-12 vApps per Organization for our client conference lab area
5) Collect and report stats on Lab Manager, vCD, vCenter, and View environments
#1 - Self Service Disk, Memory & CPU expansions with approvals
#2 - Self Service OS instance reboot at the Hardware level
#3 - Self Service Checking of some access issues such as "Who is already logged into my server remotely using RDP"
#4 - Workflow to check what clusters have capacity and allocating out new VM instances if capacity is available
#5 - Workflow to do some logic checking if a cluster has hosts in maintenance mode, how long they have been in MM and emailing if longer than 14 days
1. Org Creation
2. vApp Creation
3. AMQP related automation
4. SCSI path enable/disable
5. Add hosts to pvDC
1. Deploy new vSphere infrastrukture for LAB
2. deploy VSA for vSphere from new
3. create DataCenter
4. deploy vCloud Director
5. Deploy required Org for lab
I would like automate:
* Backup
* Automate new builds
* Apply vm security
* Automate network appliances
* Integrate vCO and vCD
Tasks I would like to automate:
# Snapshot reversion for VM's under automated testing
# Update management
# VM cloning
# Backup of critical components
# Load balancing
I want the book badly since I want to automate as below.
I've just fallen in love with VCO and will upload all the workflows as I develop them. I'm already half way through with #1 but am getting stuck with small issues.
1. Portal so that users can request for access to VDC for self creation/deletion and management of VM's post manager approval in our pvt cloud.
2. Bulk deployment/deletion of VM's post manager approval
3. VM reports for users and managers via PowerCLI plugin
4. Cost details via Chargeback plugin
5. Update management
6. Alert management
7. UIM Provisioning.
1 counting deployed vms in lab manager minus v routers
2 report vms with multiple snapshots
3 report vms that have non standars names
4 list over provisioned Luns and the last user who added a vm to it
5 audit ntp, time zone setting on hosts
That's just the start...
1)Deploy three-tier architecture (VM provisionning, DB config via script, etc)
2)Deploy datacenter and dvSwitch
3)Evacuate all vm from a filer (all its datastores)
4)Migrate network adaptater card type from e1000 to vmxnet3 for multiple VMs
5)Migrate VM between datacenters
I would like to automate the below
-backup
-harden
-retrieve config
-health check
-patch
I am currently attempting to Automate the deployment of a Load Balancer on a vShield Edge Device within a vCloud Director vDataCenter using vCenter Orchestrator. This is currently not available as a pre built from VMware, we have VMware on site assisting as they have NO documentation for it yet...
Lots of phone calls to VMware Pacific US time for assistance...
Simon Sparks