Tag Archives: Data Management

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Data Management For VMware Tanzu API Postman Collection

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Whilst working with the “Data Management for VMware Tanzu” product, I decided to have a stab at working with the API as well.

Using my favourite API tool, Postman, I created an easy-to-use collection.

I’ve posted this here:

The commands in this collection are built from the Swagger API, which can be accessed from the following URL:

The official documentation for the API can be found here.

So far, I’ve created the following areas/use cases:

Operations Covered in this Collection:

    Login
    Get Provider Health
    Get Organsation
    Users
        Get Users
        Create Users
        Change Password for Current User
    Databases
        Get Databases
            Specific Database
            Get Root & Admin User Passwords
            Get Database Alerts
            Get Database Version
        Create Database
        Delete Database
        Backup
            Create & Restore (inc. Point in Time Restore)
        Logs
            Create, Download, Delete
    Get Environment
    Get Templates
    Instance Plans
        Get All, Create and Delete
    Get Tasks, Events and Alarms
    Get All Backups
    Get Audit Logs
Variables inside the collection

The main variables you will need to set before use are:

  • baseUrl
  • userName
  • Password

Data Management for Tanzu - API Postman Collection - Variables

Getting Started

Under the login folder, run the “Get Access Token” request. This has a test configured, so that from the returned data, it will copy the Bearer Token and OrgId for the User Account to the Environment Variable collection that is active.

Data Management for Tanzu - API Postman Collection - Get Access Token

Some API requests are only valid for certain Authenticated role types, such as creating Databases can only be successful with a user role of Org_Admin or Org_User.

How did I create this?

Continue reading Data Management For VMware Tanzu API Postman Collection →

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Data Management for VMware Tanzu – Self-Service DBaaS

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In my first blog post, I covered the prerequisites and how to deploy the components for the Data Management for VMware Tanzu platform.

In this blog post we will cover using this new infrastructure for Self-Service Database-as-a-Service deployment and configuration.

Configure Database Templates and Instance Plans
  • Log into your Provider Appliance as the Provider administrator account.

The last actions to configure are publishing the database templates and configuring Instance Plans. (If you have setup your Organisation to use instance plans).

  • Click Templates from the left-hand navigation pane
  • Select your Template which has been sync’d from the Tanzu Net (Or repo as air-gap configuration).
  • Publish the Template

Data Management for Tanzu - Publish Template

  • Click Instance Plans from the left-hand navigation pane
  • Click “Add New Plan”
  • Configure as necessary

Data Management for Tanzu Instance Plans

Configure additional Org Users

Continue reading Data Management for VMware Tanzu – Self-Service DBaaS →

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Data Management for VMware Tanzu – Getting Started

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This blog post will cover deploying the infrastructure and components for Data Management for VMware Tanzu.

My second blog post will cover using this infrastructure for Self-Service Database-as-a-Service.

What is Data Management for VMware Tanzu?

Data Management for VMware Tanzu (DMS) is a newly released solution from VMware (July 2021) providing data-as-a-service toolkit for on-demand provisioning & automated management of MySQL and PostreSQL databases on vSphere platforms.

DMS is accessible as both a Graphical UI and via REST API, to meet the needs of administrators and developers and their consumption needs.

With DMS, it provides the ability to create and manage data services through a centralized platform in a self-service fashion, with the following features:

  • Simplified management for admins, acting as a Database fleet management tool; presenting a view of the organization’s database instances running on multi-cloud infrastructure.
  • Database users have the ability to consume self-service capabilities to create new database instances, or to operate on existing instances safely and securely, without requiring infrastructure or database expertise.
  • DMS also provides full automation for provisioning data service instances, backups, security patches, and periodic updates of the data service engine.

Data Management for Tanzu Provider Home Page

Data Management for Tanzu Provider Create Database Page

Understanding the components

DMS is made up of the following architectural components:

  • Provider – this is the core appliance you will deploy, which offers the central UI and API for all users to interact with the Data services and functions. It acts as the control plane to the other components.
  • Agent – These appliances are deployed to extend the control plan into the various vSphere environments, providing a point of presence for provisioning and management operations of the Services deployed.
  • Service – These are photon appliances which host the deployed instance of the data service (database). They communicate with the Agent that deployed them, via a private API. DMS supports the deployment of MySQL and PostgreSQL currently.
  • Template Repo – publishes a set of Data Management for VMware Tanzu Database Templates on Tanzu Network. The provider will poll the Tanzu Network periodically for new templates. There is also a method to handle air-gap environments.

S3 storage is required to be used for several items such as location to store the templates, database configurations and database backups.

Full deployment models for the components can be found here.

Data Management for Tanzu Architecture

Understanding Organisations and User Access

DMS implements the concept of Organisations to provide a logical grouping of users. There are two types:

  • Provider Org – A type of organization to which one or more Provider Administrator user belongs.
    • One provider org can exist in a single DMS installation.
    • This is automatically created during the deployment of the Provider Appliance
    • The Provider Org name is the company name specified at deployment.
  • Agent Org – A type of organization with one or more Organization Administrator or Organization User members.
    • These orgs are created via the DMS UI/API once the Provider appliance has been deployed and can be created at any time.

DMS pre-defines these three user roles:

  • Provider Administrator
    • This is the single Provider Role in the installation
    • Among other tasks, users in this role can import additional Provider Administrator users, create organizations, and create and import organization users
  • Organization Administrator
  • Organization User

The Provider Administrator user will assign a role to each DMS user that they create or import in an organization.

A user that is assigned the Organization Administrator role can manage all services in the organization to which they belong. A user assigned the Organization User can manage only the services that they provision.

More detailed information on the User roles and responsibilities can be found here.

Getting Started

Now first and foremost, I’ll point you towards the official documentation to use as a reference to review alongside this blog post.

Prerequisites

There are always several things to get sorted before you ever dive right in! The official requirements are detailed here, I’m going to call out some of the more finicky pieces you need to be aware of. Continue reading Data Management for VMware Tanzu – Getting Started →