WilliamLam.com

VCF 9.1.1 - Enabling the the new AI Assistant for VCF in VCF Operations

by // 9 Comments

One feature in VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1.1 that I am personally excited about is the new AI Assistant for VCF. It is great to see AI being integrated directly into VCF for infrastructure teams, and while this is just the first release, I think it will open up many interesting possibilities for troubleshooting, reporting, operational insights, and ultimately improving operational efficiency by giving infrastructure teams valuable time back.

More importantly, as we enter a world where AI agents can operate at a scale and speed that humans simply cannot match, these capabilities will become increasingly important. AI will not only help infrastructure teams scale their operations, but also better prepare them to defend against and respond to threats operating at machine speed.

AI Assistant for VCF currently supports both cloud-based and VCF Private AI Services (PAIS) LLM model providers. For ease of setup and to quickly get started with the new capability, I will walk through the configuration using Google Gemini, which is currently the only supported cloud-based LLM provider.

[Read more...]

Quick Tip: Automating PAK Upload & Installation for VCF Operations

by // Leave a Comment

While testing an update workflow, I needed to update VCF Operations directly, which can be performed through the /admin UI and by uploading and then installing the PAK file. Although the process itself is straightforward, the two-step workflow and the waiting between each step make it feel longer than the actual update.


I figured there had to be a way to automate the process, but I was not able to quickly find anything online. After browsing both the VCF Operations API and the VCF Operations Cluster and Slice Administration (CASA) API, I found the APIs needed to automate both the PAK upload and installation.

[Read more...]

VCF 9.1 - Configuring vSphere Supervisor to use VCF Identity Broker (IDB) for External Identity Federation

by // 1 Comment

The majority of VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 components can automatically be configured when enabling VCF Single Sign-On (SSO), with the exception of VCF Operations HCX, Log Management (formally VCF Operations for Logs) and VCF Operations for Networks.

These additional VCF components can still be configured to use VCF SSO, however users must first create a new OIDC Client Application from the VCF Identity Broker before completing the VCF SSO configuration for those respective components.

This ability to create custom OIDC Client Application from the VCF Identity Broker brings up an interesting capability for those using vSphere Supervisor and have not deployed VCF Automation (VCFA). vSphere Supervisor can support external identity federation and you would typically create an OIDC Client from your identity provider (e.g. Keycloak). For simplicity purposes, especially for lab or PoC purposes, you could take advantage of the VCF Identity Broker to simply use it as the IdP for vSphere Supervisor and get the benefit of having a single OIDC Client from your IdP.

Note: When VCFA is deployed and configured to use your vSphere Supervisor, it actually becomes the IdP interface where you would then configure your external IdP within VCFA Tenant Portals and VCF Identity Broker is not involved at all to cleanly separate infrastructure configuration from tenant configurations.

[Read more...]