Category Archives: VMware

DMS - vRA Header

Data Management for VMware Tanzu with vRealize Automation as Custom Resources

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In this blog post, we will cover the technical configuration to import the packages that myself and Katherine Skilling (Twitter, LinkedIn, Blog) have created.

This work is to show the possibility of creating custom workflows to integrate other products that are not natively supported within vRA, by exploiting Dynamic Types. A further write-up will detail the technical configurations of how this integration was created.

You can read this blog post on how to create Dynamic Types in vRealize Orchestrator to be used as custom resources in vRealize Automation:

Updated Feb 2022 - Includes edits needed to enable compatability with Data Management for VMware Tanzu v1.1
High-Level Overview

This blog post focuses on integrating “Data Management for VMware Tanzu”, you can read more here about this product:

These packages offer the following capabilities:

  • vRA Cloud Assembly Custom Resource for Data Management with VMware Tanzu
    • Create a database instance
    • Delete a database instance (clean up when a deployment is deleted)
    • Day 2 actions for database instance
      • Scale database instance resources
      • Point in Time Backup of database instance
      • Power-On database instance
      • Power-Off database instance
Pre-Requisites
  • Data Management for VMware Tanzu platform deployed and configured
    • Agent appliance deployed and environment configured.
    • Organisation configured with Org Admin user account.
  • vRealize Automation deployed and configured
    • Using embedded vRO will be fine
    • vRA needs to be able to connect to the DMS system over HTTPs, so appropriate routes and firewalls configured.
  • Grab the files from this location
Recording

Below is a 25 minute recording showing you how to implement the documented steps that follow in this blog post.

Importing & Configuring the vRealize Orchestrator packages

From the downloaded files under the folder “vRealize Orchestrator” there is two files:

  • com.vmware.dms.backup.package
  • dms-dynamictypes-config.package

Open the vRealize Orchestrator UI (https://{vro-url}/orchestration-ui)

  • Left-hand navigation pane > Assets > Packages > Import

DMS - vRO import package

  • Select the file name “com.vmware.dms.backup.package”
  • Select to trust the package and click import

Continue reading Data Management for VMware Tanzu with vRealize Automation as Custom Resources →

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vRealize Automation 8.5 – Code Stream – Unexpected character (‘\\’ (code 92))

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The Issue

When running certain REST Tasks in Code Stream, the pipeline execution fails on this task with:

Unexpected character ('\\' (code 92)): was expecting double-quote to start field name \n at [Source: (io.netty.buffer.ByteBufInputStream); line: X, colume: X]"
vRA 8.5 Code Stream - Unexpected character was expecting double-quote to start field name - Error
The Workaround

Continue reading vRealize Automation 8.5 – Code Stream – Unexpected character (‘\\’ (code 92)) →

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vRealize Operations – Creating interactions between separate dashboards

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Whilst reading some of the older vRealize Operations documentation, I stumbled on something I didn’t think was possible.

  • The ability to create interactions between separate dashboards.

At first, I thought could not be correct? I don’t remember seeing this option. But sure enough it’s there. So, I thought I’d write a quick blog about it and share to the world.

  • You can apply sections or context from one dashboard to another. You can connect widgets and views to widgets and views in the same dashboard or to other dashboards to investigate problems or better analyze the provided information.
Configuring Interactions between Dashboards

First, I’ve created two dashboards, which are based on the old troubleshooting dashboards. Both dashboards have an Object Picker List to filter the various related objects on each dashboard.

  • Dashboard-1 – Troubleshoot Cluster
  • Dashboard-2 – Troubleshoot VM

The premise is simple, when I select a Cluster object from Dashboard-1, I want the list of VMs to be filtered in Dashboard-2, to those only in the selected Cluster.

vROPs - Dashboard Interaction - example dashboards Continue reading vRealize Operations – Creating interactions between separate dashboards →

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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

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