William Lam

Automating Deployment & Configuration of vRealize Operations Manager 6.0 Part 2

12.12.2014 by William Lam // 4 Comments

Continuing from Part 1 of this three part series, you should now have a fully deployed vRealize Operations Manager connected on the network. You should see the following "Get Started" page when connecting to vROps via a web browser.

In this article, I will demonstrate how you can perform the initial configuration of your new vROps instance which includes configuring a password for the "admin" account that will be used to access the UI interface afterwards. You will also have the opportunity to configure basic things like NTP settings as well as the role of your vROps instance. If this is your first deployment of vROps 6.0, you will need to create a new Cluster where other "Slices" or vROps Instances can join and contribute different functionality such as Admin, UI, Data, Data Collector and Replica roles. In this example, we will assume the installation will contain all roles within this single instance. In the future, you can easily expand and add other instances that provide specific roles and in a future post, I can show how that can be accomplished using the CLI/API if there is an interest.

To perform the initial configurations, I have created a simple shell script called configurevRops.sh which requires SSH connectivity to the vROps instance. Ensure that during your initial setup, you have either enabled SSH or have gone into the VM Console and enabled SSH access. The script will be using the following four commands found within the appliance:

/usr/lib/vmware-casa/bin/ntp_update.py
/usr/lib/vmware-vcopssuite/utilities/sliceConfiguration/bin/vcopsSetAdminPassword.py
/usr/lib/vmware-vcopssuite/utilities/sliceConfiguration/bin/vcopsConfigureRoles.py
/usr/lib/vmware-vcopssuite/utilities/sliceConfiguration/bin/vcopsClusterManager.py

There is only one mandatory variable VROPS_ADMIN_PASSWORD that needs to be edited prior to running the script which specifies the password for the "admin" account. There is also a CONFIGURE_NTP & NTP_SERVERS variables that can be edited to configure NTP. By default, I have this disabled this because the system will need to validate the NTP Servers. If you do not have valid NTP Servers or be able to reach the ones specified in the script, then you may run into an error.

Once you have saved your changes, you can simply run the script using the following command (please replace the IP Address with the IP of your vROps instance):

ssh [email protected] < configurevRops.sh

Note: If you would like to see more verbose details for each of these steps, you can remove the redirect to /dev/null for reach of the commands and can be useful in case something is not running correctly.

If everything was successfully configured, you should now be able to open a browser to your vROps instance and you should see the following screen asking you to now login:

Please login with the username "admin" and the password that you had set within the script. Once you have successfully login, you should now see the following wizard which will take you through the final steps of setting up your new vROps instance. Unfortunately, these last couple of steps could not be automated and will require some manual interaction before you are ready to start using your new vRealize Operations Manager.

If you do not wish to enable SSH by default and prefer a more programmatic approach on performing the initial configurations, stay tune for Part 3 where I will show you how to use the new vRealize Operations Manager Cluster Mgmt API also known as the CaSA API to perform this exact same configuration.

Automate Deployment & Configuration of vRealize Operations Manager 6.0 Part 1

12.10.2014 by William Lam // 1 Comment

Yesterday was a huge day for VMware's Management BU which released several updates to their product offerings within their vRealize Suite 6.x including some new products like the new vRealize Code Stream mentioned during this years VMware Europe Conference. Prior to GA, I had already received several Automation questions regarding the upcoming vRealize Operations Manager 6.0 (vROps). Luckily, I had a couple of days to play around with the new release before it was made public and I must to say, I am quite impressed at how easy and intuitive it is to deploy and configure the new vRealize Operations Manager 6.0.

To make it even easier for customers to evaluate the new release, I wanted to take a look at how you can easily automate both the deployment and configuration of the new vRealize Operations Manager. I have broken the process down into three parts: deployment using ovftool which will include both a non-Windows as well as a Windows solutions for my PowerCLI buddies, initial configuration using the command-line via a shell script and finally the same identical initial configuration but using the new vRealize Operations Manager Cluster Mgmt API (also known as the CaSA API which stands for Cluster and Slice Administration).

As mentioned already, this first article will focus on deploying the new vRealize Operations Manager OVA using ovftool. Previously, the vCOps VA was deployed as a vApp that contained two Virtual Machines. The new architecture provides a more dynamic approach and a new capability has been brought into the application that allows you to easily scale out the various vROps "roles" such as the Admin, UI, Data, Data Collector and Replica. This greatly simplifies the initial deployment which is always a plus in my book!

Disclaimer: These scripts are provided for informational and educational purposes only. It should be thoroughly tested before attempting to use in a production environment.

I have created a simple shell script called: deployvROps.sh and there are several variables that need to be edited based on your environment including the path to the OVA. Please take a look at the script prior to executing.

To execute the script, you simply just run the following:

./deployvROps.sh

You will be prompted to confirm the configurations you have specified before the OVA is deployed. If everything was successfully deployed, you should see your new vROps VM power up. Next, open a browser to either the IP Address or hostname of your vROps VM and you should see the following landing page as shown in the screenshot below. At this point, you have completed the deployment of vROps 6.0. As for next steps, you can either manually proceed to configure your new vROps instance or stay tune for Part 2 where I will demonstrate how you can easily automate the initial vROps configurations.

Note: There is a hidden OVF property called guestinfo.cis.appliance.ssh.enabled that will allow SSH to be enabled upon deployment. To be able to configure this property, you must add an advanced ovftool option called --X:enableHiddenProperties which the shell script already takes care of. Unfortunately, for PowerCLI's Get-OvfConfiguration cmdlet, these custom options have not been implemented and hence you will not be able to turn on SSH when using the PowerCLI method. I have already filed an FR internally for this and hopefully see this in a future release of PowerCLI.

Here is a Windows solution to deploying the vRealize Operations Manager called Deployment.ps1 using PowerCLI's Get-OvfConfiguration cmdlet and I have contributed a new sample to Alan Renouf's PowerCLI Deployment Repository. Before running the Deployment.ps1 script, you will also need to edit the variables in the script to match your environment.

Here is a screenshot using the Deployment.ps1 script:

Now that you have your new vRealize Operations Manager deployed, you can manually go through the guided wizard for the initial configuration or stay tune for Part 2 where I will demonstrate you how you can easily automate the initial vROps configurations using the command-line.

Handy VCSA (vCenter Server Appliance) Operational KB Resources

12.09.2014 by William Lam // 1 Comment

I am a huge fan of the VCSA (vCenter Server Appliance) for anyone that knows me. From time to time, I see interesting VMware KB articles that contain what I think are valuable tidbits of "Operational" information that could come handy in the future. I normally would bookmark these in my browser since you never know when you might need it. I figured for customers who are currently using the VCSA, having some of these operational tidbits would definitely be helpful, especially during troubleshooting or helping them build out a list of resources they could reference when they need to update, increase capacity or change the configurations for the VCSA. Instead of just keeping this list for myself, I thought I can share what I have for the latest VCSA 5.5.x as well comb through our VMware KB site looking for other handy operational KB's to include.

I have categorized the VCSA KB's into four categories that I felt made the most sense, I am sure you could break it down further but I thought this would make it easier to process. In addition, I have also included articles from virtuallyGhetto (subset from this page) that may also apply to these areas which I have listed at the very bottom in case you were interested in those as well. Hopefully this will be helpful for anyone managing VCSA(s) and if there are any that I have missed or you would like to see get added, feel free to leave a comment.

Deployment:

Configurations:

Logging & Troubleshooting:

Backups & Recovery:

virtuallyGhetto VCSA Operational Resources

Deployment:

Configurations:

Logging & Troubleshooting:

Backups & Recovery:

How to recover VCSA 5.5 from an expired administrator account?

Tips/Tricks: