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Preparing Your Environment for vRealize Automation Management
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Preparing Your Environment for vRealize Automation Management

Owned by Jyothi KP
Last updated: Jul 28, 2022
4 min read

You need to prepare some elements outside of vRealize Automation to support VM provisioning. To prepare your environment, complete the following:

  • Configure VMware vCenter server with a customization specification, as described in the Creating a Customization Specification in the vCenter Server section.

  • Ensure that required services are up and running in vRealize Automation, as described in the Ensuring Required Services are Up and Running section.

  • If you use external vRealize Orchestrator, configure the vRealize Orchestrator authentication provider, as described in the Configuring the Authentication Provider section.

Note

Procedures detailed in this topic may vary depending on the version of vRA that you are using. For version-specific instructions, refer to the VMware documentation links listed in the Resources section.

Creating a Customization Specification in the vCenter Server

You need to have a VM template and a customization specification in the VMware vCenter server to create VMs in vSphere using vRealize Automation. Customization specifications are XML files containing guest operating system settings for virtual machines. Specifications are handy for defining global features such as the guest OS host’s name, domain name, and other settings in guest operating systems.
To create a customization specification complete the following steps:

  1. In vCenter, choose the vCenter and go to Inventory –> Management –> Customization Specifications Manager.

  2. Click New.

  3. Select the Target Virtual Machine OS type.
    The New Customization Specification wizard opens.

  4. In the Name field, enter the name for the new specification and click Next.

  5. Select Use the virtual machine name and at the lower end of the pane, enter the domain name in the Domain Name field, and then click Next.
    The Use the virtual machine name setting allows the VM to use the same name as that used for the guest operating system. This makes locating VMs easier for administrative purposes.

  6. Select Area, Location, and Hardware Clock Set, and then click Next.

  7. Keep the Typical settings selected by default and click Next.

  8. Enter the DNS Search Path (such as testrollout.infobloxIPAMdemo.com), click Add, and then click Next.

  9. Click Finish. The vSphere client appears, showing your new customization specification in the table.

Ensuring Required Services are Up and Running

Note

Before you proceed, make sure NIOS is operational and all necessary licenses are installed on it.

You can use vRealize Orchestrator embedded to your vRealize Automation or a standalone vRealize Orchestrator. The following instructions apply to the embedded vRealize Orchestrator.

Complete the following steps::

  1. Log in to the vRealize Automation Appliance console as the root user.

  2. Run the following command:
    service vco-configurator start

  3. Enable the vRealize Orchestrator configurator to start when the vRealize Automation Appliance starts:
    chkconfig vco-configurator on

  4. In the vRealize Automation Appliance window, click VMware vRealize Appliance management.

  5. Click the Services tab.

  6. Make sure that all services are registered. If few services are not registered, wait for some time, and then click Refresh to see whether all services are registered.

Configuring the Authentication Provider

To work properly and manage user permissions, external vRealize Orchestrator requires a method of authentication. When you log in to the Orchestrator Control Center for the first time, you have to specify the authentication provider.
To configure the authentication provider complete the following steps:

  1. Log in to the vRealize Orchestrator Control Center.

  2. On the Configure Authentication Provider page, select an authentication mode:

    • vRealize Automation: Orchestrator is authenticated through the vRealize Automation component registry.

    • vSphere: Orchestrator is authenticated through Platform Services Controller.

  3. In the Host address field, enter your vRealize Automation or Platform Services Controller host address, and then click Connect.

  4. Click Accept Certificate.

  5. In the User name and Password fields, enter the credentials of the vRealize Automation or vCenter Single Sign-On administrator account.

  6. In the Default tenant field, enter the default domain to authenticate a user who logs in without a domain name. The default value is vsphere.local.

  7. Click Register.

  8. In the Admin group field, enter an administrators group and click Search.

  9. Select an administrators group.

  10. Click Save Changes.

You can test the defined authentication provider on the Test Login tab. After you finish configuring the authentication provider, you can proceed to the next steps using the vRealize Orchestrator Control Center.