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Using vRO REST API to execute a workflow with SDK objects

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I was working on something last week which involved vRealize Orchestrator and I wanted to execute a vRO worklfow but rather than using the UI, I wanted to use the vRO REST API. Although there are a couple of blog posts such as this one which demonstrates how to use the vRO REST API, they all use a very simple workflow that only contains string inputs. In my opinion, this does not actually reflect practical workflows which usually contains a mix of strings but also SDK-based objects like vSphere VMs, ESXi hosts, Networks, etc.

It actually took me awhile to wrap my head around how to call these more complex workflows using the vRO REST API and after a ton of trial/error and some help from Kasey Linden and one of the vRO Engineers, I now have a method in which users can follow to identify the required payload for a given vRO workflow when using the vRO REST API. The instructions below is using the latest vRO 8.0.1 release which has a new HMTL5 UI, it has been awhile and I am not sure when this new UI was introduced but the instructions may work for older clients but I would recommend standing up the latest version for developing your automation.

Step 1 - Retrieve the vRO workflow ID by selecting the workflow in the vRO UI. In the example below, my Tag a VM workflow ID is 9d95c7f5-a563-413f-af42-fd7e09275216

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Sonnet Solo5G Multi-Gig (1G/2.5G/5G) USB Adapter works with ESXi

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Last week I caught this tweet from Blake Garner who is an active VMware Community member that I follow and I came to learn that Sonnet just launched their first Multi-Gigabit (1GbE, 2.5GbE & 5GbE) USB Network Adapter called the Solo5G.

https://twitter.com/trodemaster/status/1234999442991800320

This of course piqued my interest for VMware Homelabs as last year we had just enabled the first Multi-Gigabit USB Network Adapter from QNAP supporting ESXi using the popular USB Native Driver Fling for ESXi. The QNAP device uses an Aquantia chipset and I had a funny suspicion that the Sonnet device might be using either the exact same or simliar chipset.

To confirm my theory, I reached out to the folks over at Sonnet and they were kind enough to send me a unit for validation which just arrived earlier this week. I had an Intel NUC 10 (Frost Canyon) already running and I just plugged it in and to my surprise it worked immediately since it already had the USB Native Driver Fling installed.


So there you have it, same chipset as the QNAP and best of all this device is only $79.99 USD which be purchased directly from Sonnet here. As of writing this blog post, the Solo5G is much cheaper than the QNAP. In fact, it seems the price of the QNAP has significantly increased since I had first blogged about it. I think multi-gig NICs both USB-based but also PCIe and respective switches is starting to become more mainstream, at least in the consumer markets and this is certainly an easy way to add additional bandwidth without breaking the bank. Big thanks to the folks at Sonnet and Blake for sharing the news!

Big updates to the vCenter Event Broker Appliance (VEBA) Fling

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The vCenter Event Broker Appliance (VEBA) team has been working hard over the last couple of months on some pretty exciting enhancements and today we are pleased to announce the release of VEBA v0.3 which can be download from the VMware Fling site. Although this is a "dot" release, do not let that fool you as this release contains a large number updates including a major re-architecture in how events are consumed and processed at the core of VEBA.

While this re-architecture does introduce some breaking changes, it does unlock a number of new capabilities that our current users have been asking for. It also provides us with a solid foundation for delivering on future enhancements such as multi-vCenter Server support and additional event sources from NSX-T, vSAN and other VMware Cloud Services to just name a few. Today, the "V" in VEBA stands for vCenter, but in the future, I do see it changing to just "VMware" as it can support so many other solutions.

Having said that, some of the breaking changes also improves the overall user experience, especially as it relates to defining and consuming vCenter Server events as well as troubleshooting and debugging. The team is super excited to get this release in the hands of our community and we look forward to hearing your feedback!

What's New:

  • Introduction of the VMware Event Router which provides a modular and flexible architecture for decoupling the stream "Providers" such as vCenter Server from the actual stream "Processors" like OpenFaaS. More details including its architecture and design can be found here

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