Tag Archives: Integration

Tanzu Observability vRealize Operations Cloud Header

Tanzu Observability – Configuring vRealize Operations Cloud Integration

In this blog post, I am going to cover the configuration and consumption of the Tanzu Observability integration with vRealize Operations Cloud.

  • As this is blog post is released during VMware Explore, under the announcement of the VMware Aria brand for Cloud Management tooling, these products will become
    • vRealize Operations Cloud > VMware Aria Operations
    • Tanzu Observability > VMware Aria Operations for Applications
Recording

Below is a recording I put together, covering the same content as this blog post in 10 minutes or less.

Create a Cloud Services Portal API Token

The official documentation for this integration can be found here.

First, we need to create an API token that provides the following access:

  • Organisation Member
  • vRealize Operations Cloud > vROPs ReadOnly

Go to My Account in the CSP by clicking on your name in the top right-hand corner, then My Account. Select the API Tokens tab and generate an API token.

Save the API Token to a safe space for use in the next step. Continue reading Tanzu Observability – Configuring vRealize Operations Cloud Integration

CloudHealth vRealize Operations Header

CloudHealth – Configuring vRealize Operations cost visibility for your private datacenters

In this blog post, we are going to synchronise our vRealize Operations costing information with CloudHealth, to provide the ability to have true multi-cloud cost reporting, that includes our on-premises VMware Datacenter.

Configuring the CloudHeath Integration
Pre-Requisites

Your vRealize Operations instance will need to have the basic cost settings configured, I have written a deep dive post on this here.

  • vROPs no longer has to be set to USD for this integration
    • If you are integrating multiple vROPs instances, and they all have the same currency, this is also supported for non-USD
    • If you are integrating multiple vROPs instances, and they have differing currencies settings, CH will default the platform to the instance that was first configured for integration.
  • vROPs must be version 8.2 of higher
  • vROPS FIPs mode is not supported

Ensure that the vROPs instance (or collector) can reach CloudHealth Graphql endpoint:

You can find the official documentation here and the vROPS Integration FAQ here.

In the CloudHealth interface, when you go to the vRealize Operations Accounts page under setup, you’ll see that this page points you to the documentation and the VMware Marketplace. As this configuration is initiated by the vRealize Operations Management Pack.

  • Data Center Tab > Setup > Accounts > vRealize Operations

vRealize Operations - CloudHealth Integration - CloudHealth vRealize Operations Account Page

Download the Management Pack

Start by downloading the management pack from the VMware Marketplace.

vRealize Operations - CloudHealth Integration - Download Management Pack

  • Accept the EULA

vRealize Operations - CloudHealth Integration - Download Management Pack - Accept EULA

Your download will start.

Generating a CloudHealth API Key

We need to generate an API key from our CloudHealth account, that will be used by vROPs to send data to CloudHealth. These APIs are generated against your account.

  • Log into your CloudHealth Account.
  • Click your username in the top right-hand corner
  • Click your username on the navigation pane that appears
  • At the bottom of your profile information, copy the API Access Key for later use
    • by default an API key will not be present, they can generate one (or a new key) by clicking Generate New API Key

Continue reading CloudHealth – Configuring vRealize Operations cost visibility for your private datacenters

vRealize Automation Header

vRealize Automation – Active Directory Integration – Configure LDAPS

In this blog post, I am going to cover the setup of the Active Directory integration with vRealize Automation using LDAPS.

Cloud Assembly supports integration with Active Directory servers to provide out of the box creation of computer accounts in a specified Organizational Unit (OU) within an Active Directory server prior to provisioning a virtual machine.

Note: to join to AD within the Guest OS, you can use CloudConfig properties or vSphere CustomizationSpec.

The VMware official documentation doesn’t really call out LDAPS configuration, only LDAP. So after helping a customer configure this, I thought I’d quickly write something up.

To get started, login into vRealize Automation and select Cloud Assembly.

  • Select the Infrastructure Tab
  • Select Integrations under the Connections header
  • Click the Add Integration button
  • Select Active Directory

vRealize Automation - Configure LDAPS - Cloud Assembly - Integrations - Active Directory Continue reading vRealize Automation – Active Directory Integration – Configure LDAPS

Red Hat OpenShift + VMware Header

OpenShift on VMware – Integrating with vSphere Storage, Networking and Monitoring.

I was honoured to be a guest on the “Ask an OpenShift Admin” webinar recently. Where I had the chance to talk about OpenShift on VMware, always a hot topic, and how we co-innovate and work together on solutions.

You can watch the full session below. Keep reading to see the content I didn’t get to cover on a separate recording I’ve produced.

Ask an OpenShift Admin (Ep 54): OpenShift on VMware and the vSphere Kubernetes Drivers Operator

However, I had a number of topics and demo’s planned, that we never got time to visit. So here is the full content I had prepared.

Some of the areas in this webinar and my additional session we covered were:

  • Answering questions live from the views (anything on the table)
  • OpenShift together with VMware
  • Common issues and best practices for deploying OpenShift on VMware vSphere
  • Consuming your vSphere Storage in OpenShift
  • Integrating with the VMware Network stack
  • Infrastructure Up Monitoring
OpenShift on VMware – Integrating with vSphere Storage, Networking and Monitoring

Resources

Regards

Dean Lewis

vRealize Operations Tanzu Mission Control Header

vRealize Operations integration with Tanzu Mission Control for auto cluster discovery

A while ago I wrote about the vRealize Operations Kubernetes Management pack which works for all CNCF conformant Kubernetes platforms.

One of the best features of this management pack is the Tanzu Mission Control (TMC) integration it offers with vRealize Operations (vROPs).

This means when you use TMC to provision Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) clusters, currently on AWS or on vSphere, they will be automatically registered within vROPs as well.

Install the Management Pack
  1. Download the management pack pak file.
  2. Within vROPs go to Administration
  3. Click on Repository
  4. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and select “Add/Upgrade”
  5. Select the pak file for installation and follow the wizard.
Create a CSP API Token

For the vROPs management pack adapter to be able to communicate with TMC, we need an API token.

  1. Log into https://console.cloud.vmware.com
  2. Change to correct organisation that contains your TMC instance
  3. Click your name in the top right hand corner and select “My Account”vROps TMC Integration - creating a CSP Token - Select my account
  4. Select the “API Tokens” tab, and then “Generate a new API Token” button.vROps TMC Integration - creating a CSP Token - API Tokens
  5. Set your API Token name, expiry, and access control as required. Then click the generate button. vROps TMC Integration - creating a CSP Token - Generate a new api token
  6. You will be shown a dialog box with your generated token. Save this in a safe space we will use it later on. vROps TMC Integration - creating a CSP Token - Token Generated
Connect vRealize Operations management pack adapter to Tanzu Mission Control
  1. In vROPs UI go to Administration > Under Solutions, choose “Other Accounts” and click the “Add account” button. vROps TMC Integration - Add Account in vROPs
  2. From the account type list, choose Tanzu Mission Control. vROps TMC Integration - Add Account in vROPs - Account Type Tanzu Mission Control
  3. Fill out the necessary details on the New Account screen.
    1. For the credential click the + symbol, add in a name for the credential, and the CSP token you created earlier.
    2. Select your newly created credential.
  4. Select the validate button.vROps TMC Integration - Add Account in vROPs - New Account
  5. Hopefully you get a successful message. vROps TMC Integration - Add Account in vROPs - New Account - Test Connection Successful
  6. You will see the account object in the Other Accounts view. vROps TMC Integration - Add Account in vROPs - New Account - Newly created account
Auto-Discovering Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Clusters

Now you have your account added, whenever you provision a new cluster using Tanzu Mission Control, cAdvisor will be configured in the Kubernetes cluster and a Kubernetes account type will be created in vROps automatically for you.

Below I’ve created a cluster in AWS, and we can see the object has been created in vROPs.

vROps TMC Integration - Provisioned cluster auto discovered

And finally, here is my cluster showing in the one of the Kubernetes Dashboards. vROps TMC Integration - Kubernetes Dashboard

This is a simple to implement feature but can make a massive difference in your ability to monitor your TKG clusters from the infrastructure view that vROPs provides. As your users create clusters via TMC, they don’t need to interact with the monitoring platform to ensure visibility.

Regards