It’s been wonderful news for vSphere administrators that New fling “PowerActions for vSphere Web Client” has been released recently from VMware Labs. Power Actions integrates with vSphere web Client and PowerCLI to enable the automation can be created or executed from within vSphere Web CLient. With the help of PowerActions, we can now run PowerShell/PowerCLI scripts from the Web Client!!!

What is interesting with PowerActions?

PowerActions commands are sent to a separate machines which runs PowerCLI and PowerActions software. It simplify the overhead of installing PowerCLI software on user desktop or laptop. You will need only single machine with PowerCLI and Power Actions installed to unlock your automation skills. It allows you to execute your PowerCLI scripts simply from web Console (i.e vSphere Web Client)

 Pre-Requisite for installing Power Actions

• VMware vSphere 5.1 or later (Earlier than 5.1 has not been tested)
• PowerShell Host Machine
• Windows 2003 Server or newer (*)/Vista or newer
• ***.NET framework 4.0*** <— 4.0 IS REQUIRED. Newer versions currently do not work
• PowerCLI version supporting your current VMware vSphere version
• Administrative privileges (registering a service with VMware Lookup Service and creating a user for SSO) are required for installation, but not for use of the product.
• Prior to installation, ensure that the PowerShell Host machine and the machine hosting the VMware Lookup Service are synced via the same time source, otherwise cryptic error messages may appear.

Download Power Actions for vSphere Web Client

You can download the Power Actions for vSphere Web Client just in few click from VMware Flings site. It allows you to download without any login formalities or Registration.

Download Power Actions for vSphere Web Client

How to Install Power Actions for vSphere Web Client

As similar to all windows installer. You simply need to follow the wizard by Next each time.  I will bring only important steps which needs to considered during the Power Actions installation.

On the below page, You will need to add the FQDN of the machine where you have installed PowerCLI and PowerActions software

Enter the Lookup Service URL, SSO username, and SSO Password. The Lookup Service URL will be

https://yourvcenter:7444/lookupservice/sdk

Once installed is completed, PowerActions for vSphere Web Client integrates as a plugin into a web based vSphere client.

You will be able to execute the the PowerCLI script which is already created against to vSphere objects, Simply by right-click on the object and “Execute Script”

I hope PowerActions for vSphere Web Client will be very useful for all of us and this post is informative for you. Thanks for Reading!!!. Be Social and share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

In this post, I am not going to discuss about any technical stuffs or troubleshooting. This Post is purely to easy of vSphere Admins who want to download the VMware vSphere Client. I have athered the Download link of all versions of vSphere Client starting from vSphere Client v4.1 Update 1 to the latest release vSphere Client v5.5 Update 2. Just click on the vSphere Client Image in the below table to directly download the respective vSphere Client version.

vSphere Client Version	Installer File Name	Download  Link (Click on the Image to Download)
VMware vSphere Client v4.1 Update 1	VMware-viclient-all-4.1.0-345043.exe
VMware vSphere Client v4.1 Update 2	VMware-viclient-all-4.1.0-491557.exe
VMware vSphere Client v4.1 Update 3	VMware-viclient-all-4.1.0-799345.exe
VMware vSphere Client v5.0	VMware-viclient-all-5.0.0-455964.exe
VMware vSphere Client v5.0 Update 1	VMware-viclient-all-5.0.0-623373.exe
VMware vSphere Client v5.0 Update 2	VMware-viclient-all-5.0.0-913577.exe
VMware vSphere Client v5.0 Update 3	VMware-viclient-all-5.0.0-1300600.exe
VMware vSphere Client v5.1	VMware-viclient-all-5.1.0-786111.exe
VMware vSphere Client 5.1.0a	VMware-viclient-all-5.1.0-860230.exe
VMware vSphere Client 5.1.0b	VMware-viclient-all-5.1.0-941893.exe
VMware vSphere Client 5.1 Update 1	VMware-viclient-all-5.1.0-1064113.exe
VMware vSphere Client 5.1 Update 1b	VMware-viclient-all-5.1.0-1235233.exe
VMware vSphere Client 5.1 Update 2	VMware-viclient-all-5.1.0-11471691.exe
VMware vSphere Client 5.5	VMware-viclient-all-5.5.0-1281650.exe
VMware vSphere Client 5.5 Update 1	VMware-viclient-all-5.5.0-1618071.exe
VMware vSphere Client 5.5 Update 2	VMware-viclient-all-5.5.0-1993072.exe

I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for reading!!. Be Social and share it in social media,if you feel worth sharing it.

Almost everyone will be interesting to learn the shortcuts of your day to day tasks. This post is going ot list few of the Keyboard shortcuts of vSphere Web Client.  I verified the key board shortcuts of vSphere Web Client and it is really nice to have shortcuts which move towards different inventory items in vSphere Web Client. I believe it helps to switch between inventory items in Web client simply by Keyboard shortcuts without your Mouse clicks. Below are the list of Keyboard Combination and action related to the keyboard combination. Try to remember the shortcuts which helps to switch quickly between vSphere Web Client.

I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading !!!. Be Social and share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

In this Modern Enterprise environment, Datacenters are occupied by hardware and software components from multiple vendors. Even some companies have hardware from multiple vendors like HP, DELL,Cisco etc and even mutli vendor hypervisors like vSphere, Hyper-V, Cirtix ZEN, Redhat KVM. How do you manage and provision using all this platform. It is real pain of using multiple admin portals to manage and provision.

vCloud Automation Center provides a secure portal where authorized administrators, developers or business users can request new IT services and manage specific cloud and IT resources, while ensuring compliance with business policies. Requests for IT service, including infrastructure, applications, desktops,and many others, are processed through a common service catalog to provide a consistent user experience. VMware vCloud Automation Center™ is a cloud management platform that reduces the complexity of provisioning virtual, cloud,and physical machines. VMware vCloud Automation Center (vCAC)™ is used to create and manage a multivendor cloud infrastructure.  Below are the inbuilt  endpoints which are available as part of vCAC 6.0:

Hardware:

• HP
• Dell
• Cisco

Hypervisors:

• VMware vSphere
• Microsoft Hyper-V
• Citrix Xen Server
• Redhat KVM

Cloud Platforms:

• vCloud Director
• vCloud Hybrid Service
• Amazon Web Services(AWS)
• OpenStack
• Windows Azure

Orchestration

• VMware Orchestrator

Storage Endpoint:

• Netapp ONTAP

Application Endpoint:

• vCloud APP Director

Apart from the above list, You will be able to manage various custom endpoints like Active directory. vCloud Automation Center enables IT administrators to extend out-of-the-box capabilities. IT administrators can either integrate these capabilities with existing tools and infrastructure or new IT services by leveraging VMware vCenter Orchestrator library workflows and partner-provided plug-ins.

Graphic Thanks to VMware.com

vCloud Automation Center accelerates the deployment and management of applications and compute services, thereby improving business agility and operational efficiency. The following capabilities empower IT to quickly demonstrate the value of deploying an automated, on-demand cloud infrastructure:

Comprehensive Purpose-Built Functionality
vCloud Automation Center is a purpose-built, enterprise-proven solution for the delivery and ongoing management of private and hybrid cloud services, based on a broad range of deployment use cases from the world’s most demanding environments.

Personalized, Business-Aware Governance
Enable IT administrators to apply their own way of doing business to the cloud without changing organizational processes or policies. Enterprises gain the flexibility needed for business units to have different service levels, policies and automation processes, as appropriate for their needs.

Provision and Manage Application Services
Accelerate application deployment by streamlining the deployment process and by eliminating duplication of work using reusable components and blueprints.

Infrastructure Delivery and Life-Cycle Management
Automates the end-to-end deployment of multi-vendor infrastructure, breaking down internal organizational silos that slow down IT service delivery.

Extensible by Design
vCloud Automation Center provides a full spectrum of extensibility options that empower IT personnel to enable, adapt and extend their cloud to work within their existing IT infrastructure and processes, thereby eliminating expensive service engagements while reducing risk.

Graphic Thanks to VMware.com

Take a look at the VMware’s Official Video “Introduction to vCloud Automation Center 6.0″

 I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading!!! Be Social and Share it in Social media, If you feel worth sharing it

You might have heard above the Bash ShellShock Vulnerability from few days back. It is really more vulnerable than Heartbleed because Heartbleed was all about sniffing the system memory but Shellshock has opened the door so widely by allowing attackers can take the system control remotely. Millions of computers are using bash shell (command interpreter ). New security flaw has been found on bash(Bash Code Injection Vulnerability (CVE-2014-6271 & CVE-2014-7169) BASH(Bourne-Again SHell) is the default shell in all the Linux flavors(Redhat Linux,Open SUSE,Ubuntu etc.. Some of the other operating systems also shipped with bash shell but not a default shell. Almost all the vendors are in process of releasing the Patches for the Bash ShellShock vulnerability. As It’s already a question raised whether VMware Products are affected?. Please find the update from VMware about the Bash Code (ShellShock) Injection Vulnerability.

VMware Products:

• vSphere ESXi/ESX Hypervisor

  ESXi 4.0, 4.1, 5.0, 5.1, and 5.5 are not affected because these versions use the Ash shell (through busybox), which is not affected by the vulnerability reported for the Bash shell.

  ESX 4.0 and 4.1 have a vulnerable version of the Bash shell.

  Note: After careful consideration, VMware will make VMware ESX 4.0 and 4.1 security patches available for the Bash Shell vulnerability.  This security patch release is an exception to the existing VMware lifecycle policy. VMware is making this exception because of the reported critical severity of the Bash vulnerability and because the product passed the end of general support within the last four months.  We encourage you to upgrade to our most current releases. The VMware Global Services teams are available to assist you in any way.

• Products that run on Windows

  Windows-based products, including all versions of vCenter Server running on Windows, are not affected.

• Products that are shipped as a virtual appliance or as an appliance

  The (virtual) appliances listed below ship with an affected version of Bash. While VMware has not demonstrated that the Bash vulnerability can be leveraged on these appliances, VMware will take the cautionary measure of re-releasing them.

  VMware (Virtual) Appliances

  • EVO:RAIL 1.x
  • Horizon DaaS Platform 6.x
  • Horizon Workspace 1.x, 2.0
  • IT Business Management Suite 1.x
  • NSX for Multi-Hypervisor 4.x
  • NSX for vSphere 6.x
  • NVP 3.x
  • vCenter Chargeback 2.x
  • vCenter Hyperic Server 5.x
  • vCenter Infrastructure Navigator 5.x
  • vCenter Log Insight 1.0, 2.0
  • vCenter Operations Manager 5.x
  • vCenter Orchestrator Appliance 4.x, 5.x
  • vCenter Server Appliance 5.x
  • vCenter Support Assistant 5.x
  • vCloud Automation Center 6.x Note: vCloud Automation Center 5.x is not a virtual appliance
  • vCloud Automation Center Application Services 6.x
  • vCloud Connector 2.x
  • vCloud Networking and Security 5.x
  • vCloud Usage Meter 3.x
  • vFabric Application Director 5.x, 6.x
  • vFabric Postgres 9.x
  • Viewplanner 3.x
  • VMware Application Dependency Planner
  • VMware HealthAnalyzer 5.x
  • VMware Studio 2.x
  • VMware TAM Data Manager
  • VMware Workbench 3.x
  • vSphere App HA 1.x
  • vSphere Big Data Extensions 1.x, 2.x
  • vSphere Data Protection 5.x
  • vSphere Management Assistant 5.x
  • vSphere Replication 5.x
  • vSphere Storage Appliance 5.x

  Important: VMware encourages restricting access to appliances through firewall rules and other network layer controls to only trusted IP addresses. This measure will greatly reduce any risk to these appliances.

• Products that run on Linux, Android, Mac OS or iOS (excluding virtual appliances)
  Products that run on Linux, Android, Mac OS or iOS (excluding virtual appliances) might use the Bash shell that is part of the operating system. In case the operating system has a vulnerable version of Bash, the Bash security vulnerability might be exploited through the product. VMware recommends that customers contact their operating system vendor for a patch.Examples of products in this category include VMware Workstation, VMware Fusion, and AirWatch MDM software.

For more information, Please take a look at the VMware KB Article 2090740. I hope this is really informative for you. Stay tuned to get more information about the patch release on Bash Vulnerability from affected products. I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading!!. Be Social and share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

vCloud Automation Center vCAC 6.0 required 3 important components. We should install and configure the below 3 components  and its sub components properly to make use of vCAC website to provision and manage the cloud services along with authoring, administration and governance. ITBM and vCloud Application Director are add-on optional components. ITBM(IT Business Management) helps you to examine the financial data of your infrastructure. vCloud Application Director delivers the application services.

Graphic Thanks to VMware.com

It should be installed and configured in the below order:

1.Identity Appliance – The Identity Appliance is a pre-configured virtual appliance that provides single sign-on for vCloud Automation Center. It is delivered as an open virtualization format (OVF) template. You can also use the SSO services from VMware vCenter Deployment If you are running vSphere 5.5 Update 1

2. vCloud Automation Center Appliance – The vCloud Automation Center Appliance is a pre-configured virtual appliance(OVF) that deploys the vCloud Automation Center Appliance server. It provides the Single portal for self-service provisioning and management of cloud services , as well as authoring,administration and governance. For High Availbality of Portal,you can deploy multiple instances of vCloud Automation Center appliance behind Load balancers

3. Iaas Components Server (Should be installed on Windows Server and MS SQL Database is Mandatory) : Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas)enables the rapid modeling and provisioning of servers and desktops across virtual and physical,private and public, or hybrid cloud infrastructures. Iaas Components of vCAC includes multiple component:

 Graphic Thanks to VMware.com

• IaaS Website
• Distributed Execution Managers(DEM)
• Agents
• Model Manager
• Manager Service
• Database

IaaS Website : provides the infrastructure administration and service authoring capabilities to the vCloud Automation Center console. The Website component communicates with the Model Manager, which provides it with updates from the Distributed Execution Manager (DEM), proxy agents and database.

Model Manager : The Model Manager communicates and integrates with external systems and databases. Models included in the Model Manager implement business logic that is executed by a DEM. The ModelManager provides services and utilities for persisting, versioning,securing, and distributing model elements. The Model Manager communicates with a Microsoft SQL Server database, the DEMs, and the console Web site.

Graphic Thanks to VMwareMine.com

Distributed Execution Managers :DEM executes the business logic of custom models, interacting with the IaaS database andexternal databases.

Proxy agents – virtualization, integration and WMI agents that communicate with infrastructure resources

DEM instances can be deployed in one of two forms:
DEM Orchestrator

• • Preprocesses workflows, schedules workflows, and monitors DEM Worker instances.
• • Only one DEM Orchestrator is active at a given time. A standby should be deployed for redundancy.

DEM Worker

• • Communicates with the external systems
• • Responsible for executing workflows

Manager Service : The Manager Service coordinates communication between agents,the IaaS database, Active Directory (or LDAP), and SMTP. The Manager Service communicates with the console Web site through the Model Manager.

Agents: Agents, like DEMs, are used to integrate vCloud Automation Center with external systems:

• Virtualization proxy agents are used to collect data from and provision virtual machines on virtualization hosts, for example, a Hyper-V agent,a vSphere agent, or a Xen agent.
• Integration agents provide vCloud Automation Center integration with virtual desktop systems, for example, an EPI Windows PowerShell agent, or a VDI Windows PowerShell agent.
• Windows Management Instrumentation agents enable data collection from Windows machines managed by vCloud Automation Center.

I hope this is informative for You. Thanks For Reading!!!. Be Social and share it in Media, if you feel worth sharing it.

Capturing Networking Traffic is very important task when you run into Connectivity or network issues. We all are good at capturing network traffic in Guest OS level. What if you do when troubleshooting connectivity issues on your Virtulization enviornment. This post will help you to capture Network traffic on ESXi host using pktcap-uw tool.

The pktcap-uw tool is an enhanced packet capture and analysis tool that can be used in place of the legacy tcpdump-uw tool. The pktcap-uw tool is included by default in ESXi 5.5. This article provides information on using the pktcap-uw tool for packet capture and analysis.The tcpdump-uw tool can only capture packets/frames at the vmkernel interface level and cannot capture frames at the uplinks, or vSwitch, or virtual port levels. The new pktcap-uw tool allows traffic to be captured at all points within the hypervisor for greater flexibility and improved troubleshooting. It provides more options to capture the packets. Lets take a look how to use pktcap-uw tool to capture the network traffic.

Get help and Syntax information:

pktcap-uw -h |more

To View the live Capture of VMKernel Interface Traffic

pktcap-uw –vmk vmk0

Save the Capture to a output file:

To capture the output to a file, use -o option:

pktcap-uw –vmk vmk0 -o /tmp/vmk0capture.pcap

To limit the data being captured

you can limit the data being captured using the ‘-c’ option, which allows you to specify the number of packets you wish to capture

pktcap-uw –vmk vmk0 -c 1

Capture Traffic of a specific physical network card(vmnic) on ESXi Host:

pktcap-uw –uplink vmnic0

Capture traffic from a virtual switchport on a dvSwitch:

pktcap-uw –switchport switchportnumber

Ex, pktcap-uw –switchport 33554433

To get the Switch port ID

esxtop -> Press n -> PORT-ID

To Capture packets for multiple points simultaneously

Capture Packets of  both Switch port and physical adapter at same time using the below command

pktcap-uw –switchport 33554433 -o /tmp/33554433.pcap & pktcap-uw –uplink vmnic0 -o /tmp/vmnic0.pcap &

Stop pktcap-uw tracing with the kill command:

kill $(lsof |grep pktcap-uw |awk ‘{print $1}’| sort -u)

 To check that all pktcap-uw traces are stopped:

lsof |grep pktcap-uw |awk ‘{print $1}’| sort -u

Captured packets can be viewed in Sniffer tools such as Wireshark.

I hope this post is informative for you. Thanks For Reading!!!. Be Social and share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

vCloud Automation Center has been  excellently designed with various User Roles to perform various operations  to distributed the various operations and also to limit the roles and responsibility of each User Role. We may face bit difficult in understanding each user role and responsibility. I personally faced difficulty in understanding each roles and responsibility . To Simplify, I have created  Flowchart starting from deploying the SSO appliance till End user requesting for the Virtual Machines in Self-Signed vCAC portal. This flow chart will help you to understand the each process and user role responsible to perform each action at various level.

Download the PDF Version of vCAC 6.0 FlowChart  vCAC-Flowchart _VMwareArena

I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading!!!. Be Social and share it in Social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

It is a BIG Billion offer for all VMware Admin’s is nothing but getting discounts on VMware Certifications including all VCP & VCAP certifications. VMware Certifications really help administrator to stand out in the crowd. It’s been a definitely good news for the VMware aspirants who are looking to write the VMware certifications like VCP & VCAP. VMware Announces 50 % offer for all VMWare Certifications. As per VMware mylearn post, This offer is only valid from Oct 27 and Dec 19, 2014.This promotion is only applicable to Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore,Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and Korea. Basically this kind of offers where only declared by VMware during VMworld sessions. It is really the right time to register for your certification now with this wonderful offer.

Below are some of Terms & Conditions:

• This promotion is only applicable to Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore,Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and Korea
• TThe promotion code must be redeemed at a Pearson Vue testing center when one self-registers for the exam at http://www.pearsonvue.com/vmware/ between Oct 27 till Dec 19, 2014
• The exam promotion code is valid for multiple use per person.
• The promotion requires a customer to register and take the exam between Oct 27 till Dec 19, 2014
• This promotion cannot be combined with any other promotions or discounts.
• Prices exclude GST of eligible courses vary by country
• VMware reserves the right to change or cancel this promotion at any time with or without notice.

Take a look at the official VMware announcement about the 50% Discount offer on VMware Certifications. I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading!!!. Be social and share it in social media to help your friends to get benefited of this offer.

First Step before deploying vCloud automation Center vCAC (6.0) is deploying VMware Identity Appliance.VMware Identity Appliance provides single sign-on (SSO) for vCloud Automation Center. Multiple instances of Identity appliance can be deployed for availability purposes.You can use the SSO services from the VMware vCenter ™deployment, if you are running vSphere 5.5 Update 1. Identity appliance is not a mandatory requirement. You can use the existing SSO which should be vSphere 5.5 Update 1.With single sign-on (SSO), Active Directory users who are granted access to the vCloud Automation Center portal can log in l with their AD credentials.The Identity Appliance can be deployed using OVA (Open Virtualization Format).

Ensure you have downloaded  vCAC ID Virtual Appliance (SSO) from VMware Website. Connect your vCenter Server using vSphere Web Client. Right-Click on the Cluster where you want to deploy the vCAC ID appliance and Select “Deploy OVF Template”.  and browse towards the directory of vCAC ID appliance OVA file.

Verify the Product name and Version to ensure you are deploying the appropriate version of VMware Identity Appliance and Click on Next.

Click on “Accept” to accept the end user license agreements and click on Next to continue.

Specify the Name and Location for the Identity Appliance and Click on Next.

Select the  Virtual Disk Format and Datastore location to place the identity appliance. Click on Next.

Select the PortGroup from the Drop-down to connect the network for the identity appliance and Click on Next.

Enter the Below details to customize the deployment properties of Identity appliance and Click on Finish to start the  Identity Appliance deployment.

• Enter Root Password
•  Hostname
• Default Gateway
• DNS
• IP Addresss
• IP NetMask

Once Identity Appliance Deployment is completed. You will be able to see the Identity appliance VM under the specified cluster with IP address and hostname configured during the deployment.

Open the VM Console of the Identity Appliance VM to ensure it is properly booted and note down the URL of the Identity appliance admin page URL. Default URL is https://<IP of ID Appliance>:5480

Access the Identity appliance Admin Page using the URL “ https://<IP of ID Appliance>:5480 “ and Login with root and credentials specified during the OVF deployment.

Click on Admin tab and Select Time Settings. It is recommended to keep your time synced with NTP server.  Enter the Time server details and click on Save Settings.

Click on System and Select the System Time Zone from the drop down and click on Save settings.

Configure the SSO by entering the password for the SSO system domain “vsphere.local” and click on Apply. Ensure that SSO status is changed to “Running”.

In the host settings tab, type FQDN of identity appliance and append SSO port 7444 to host name, In My case, vcac-id.vmwarearena.com:7444 and click on Apply.Generate the Self signed Certificate or import the Signed Certificate. Select General Self Signed Certificate from the Choose Action drop down menu and click on Replace Certificate. Ensure Status is changed to SSL Certificate is replaced successfully.

Configure the Active Directory authentication  under SSO Tab -> Active Directory. Enter the Domain Name , Domain credentials and click on “Join AD Domain” to join the VMware Identity appliance to Active Directory.

Thats’it. We are done with configuring VMware Identity Appliance and we are now ready to deploy vCAC appliance. I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading !!!. Be Social and Share it in Social Media, if you feel worth sharing it.

It is the time to upgrade to vSphere 5.5 Update 2. When i was performing the vCenter server upgrade from 5.5 U1 to vCenter 5.5 U2. It was failed during the upgrade with the error “Error applying transforms. Verify that the specified transform paths are valid”. I was just unaware about this kind of error during upgrade and i never faced this issue before I was just going through the installer logs of vCenter, The same error message was logged in the log entry. One thing i noticed was error message pointing towards one of the file which was pointing to the temp profile. My vCenter Server was already facing issue with Temporary profile. Whenever user logs in . It was pointing to the temp profile. SO we suspect to resolve the temporary profile issue. Even after the Temporary profile issue was resolved, I was getting the same issue during the Upgrade . Then  I came across a VMware KB article 1023938. This issue occurs if an incorrect transforms path is specified in registry.

How to Troubleshoot Error Applying Transforms issue:

Log into the Windows Server with administrative Credentials. Click Start -> Run ->Regedit

Click on File -> Export to backup the current registry

Browse towards the registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products. 

1. Right-click Products and click Find. The Find dialog box appears.
2. In the Find what field, type VMware vSphere Client or VMware vCenter Server or name of the product which you are facing this issue. 

3.Double-click the Transforms. In the Edit String window, delete the information listed in the Value Data field and click on ok.

That’s it. We are done with it. Exit from the registry editor. Restart your vSphere Upgrade without any issues. I have successfully finished my upgrade. I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading!!!. Be Social and share it in social media,if you feel worth sharing it.

vCloud Automation Center appliance (vCAC) appliance OVF needs to be downloaded from the VMware website. This pre-configured virtual appliance that is deployed from an Open Virtualization Format (OVF) template. vCAC appliance includes the Web console, which provides a single portal for self-service provisioning and management of cloud services, as well as authoring, administration, and governance.  You need to deploy atleast one vCloud Automation Center(vCAC) appliance. You can deploy multiple instances of vCloud Automation Center behind a load balancer to achieve the greater level of availability. Let’s take a step by step look to deploy and configure vCAC appliance.

Download the vCAC appliance from the VMware Website and save it in your local disk. Connect to your vCenter using vSphere web Client. Select the Cluster or Host to deploy this virtual appliance. Right-click the ESXi host and Select “Deploy OVF Template”. Click on Browse to browse towards the location of vCAC appliance OVF file and click on Next.

Review the OVF template details and Click on Next.

Accept the end user license agreement and click on next.

Specify the name and location for the deployed OVF template and Click on Next.

Select the Datastore to deploy the vCAC appliance and click on Next.

Select the PortGroup to connect for the vCAC appliance and Click on Next.

Specify the deployment properties like Password and  IP settings for the vCAC appliance. Click on Next.

Review your settings selection and click on finish to start the OVF deployment.

Once OVF deployment is sucessfull, you will be able to see the vCAC virtual appliance VM ruining under your cluster.

Access your vCAC (vCloud Automation Center) appliance admin page using the below URL

https://<IP or Hostname of vCAC appliance>:5480 

login with username ‘root’ and the password that was specified during OVF deployment.

Click on Admin Tab, then go to Time Settings. Change the Time Sync mode to ‘Use Time Server’ and update the NTP server details and  click on Save Settings.

Under System Tab, Click on Time Zone and update your Time Zone information.

Navigate towards the vCAC Settings tab -> Host Settings, and click on Resolve Hostname. *make sure the hostname is all lowercase*. Click on Save settings.

Click on the SSL tab under vCAC settings  and you can  import a SSL certificate. As this is the lab environment, I will be using self-signed certificate here. Select  Generate Self-Signed Certificate  from Chose Action dropdown.

1.. Type a common name for the certificate in the Common Name text box. You can use the fully qualified domain name of the virtual appliance. Make sure the FQDN is EXACTLY the same as the CAFE Host Settings in the previous step. *make sure the hostname is all lowercase.

2. Type in a company name or organization name

3. Type in your organizational unit

4. Type in your country code

5. Click on Replace Certificate

Click on the SSO tab to configure SSO settings of vCAC appliance

1.. Type the FQDN of the Identity Appliance (vcac-id.vmwarearena.com:7444) in the SSO Host and Port option. Leave the default Tenant name.

2. Type the default administrator name administrator@vsphere.local in SSO Admin User option

c. Type the SSO administrator password in the SSO Admin Password text box.

d. Click Save

Internal PostgreSQL database is used by default. This settings needs to be modified, If you want to use an external database. Since this is my lab environment, I am going to use the default embedded PostgresSQL database.

Update the License information under ->vCAC settings -> Licensing tab

That’s it , we are done with configuring vCAC appliance settings. Verify that you will be able to access the vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) console using the below URL

https://vcac-appliance-hostname.domain.name/shell-ui-app

In my case, https://vcac-01.vmwarearena.com/shell-ui-app. Login with your SSO credentials.

That’s it. I am able to successfully login to  vCAC console.

We are done!!!. We have successfully deployed and Configured vCAC appliance. We will see how to utilize the vCAC in upcoming posts. I hope this is informative for you. Thaks for Reading!!!. Be Social and share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas) enables the rapid modeling and provisioning of servers and desktops across virtual and physical,private and public, or hybrid cloud infrastructures. Iaas Components of vCAC includes multiple component:

• IaaS Website
• Distributed Execution Managers(DEM)
• Agents
• Model Manager
• Manager Service
• Database

IaaS Website : provides the infrastructure administration and service authoring capabilities to the vCloud Automation Center console. The Website component communicates with the Model Manager, which provides it with updates from the Distributed Execution Manager (DEM), proxy agents and database.

Model Manager : The Model Manager communicates and integrates with external systems and databases. Models included in the Model Manager implement business logic that is executed by a DEM. The ModelManager provides services and utilities for persisting, versioning,securing, and distributing model elements. The Model Manager communicates with a Microsoft SQL Server database, the DEMs, and the console Web site.

Distributed Execution Managers :DEM executes the business logic of custom models, interacting with the IaaS database andexternal databases.

Proxy agents – virtualization, integration and WMI agents that communicate with infrastructure resources

DEM instances can be deployed in one of two forms:
DEM Orchestrator

• • Preprocesses workflows, schedules workflows, and monitors DEM Worker instances.
• • Only one DEM Orchestrator is active at a given time. A standby should be deployed for redundancy.

DEM Worker

• • Communicates with the external systems
• • Responsible for executing workflows

Manager Service : The Manager Service coordinates communication between agents,the IaaS database, Active Directory (or LDAP), and SMTP. The Manager Service communicates with the console Web site through the Model Manager.

Agents: Agents, like DEMs, are used to integrate vCloud Automation Center with external systems:

• Virtualization proxy agents are used to collect data from and provision virtual machines on virtualization hosts, for example, a Hyper-V agent,a vSphere agent, or a Xen agent.
• Integration agents provide vCloud Automation Center integration with virtual desktop systems, for example, an EPI Windows PowerShell agent, or a VDI Windows PowerShell agent.
• Windows Management Instrumentation agents enable data collection from Windows machines managed by vCloud Automation Center.

Pre-Requisite for vCAC IaaS Component :

Lets’ take detailed step by step procedure to install vCAC Iaas Components. Below are mandatory requirement before proceed with the vCAC Iaas componenet.

1. You need Windows Server to install vCAC Iaas components. (Windows 2008 R2 Sp1 or later or Windows 2012)

2..NET framework 4.5 . you can install .NET frmaework 4.5 for windows 2008 R2 using the below URL

https://vcac-va-hostname.domain.name:5480/installer/ and download the .NET 4.5 framework installer. .NET framework 4.5 is included as part of windows 2012. Apart from .NET framework 4.5, There are around  38 total pre-reqs involved in configuring the IAAS server. The prerequisites mainly consist of:

• Server Roles
• Server Features
• Firewall Rules
• MSDTC Settings
• Batch Logon Rights

Ohh I am sure !!!, You are shocked now.  Don’t worry. You will have vCAC Prerequisite PowerShell script to configure the pre-requisites for vCAC IaaS installation.

Download vCAC6-PreReq-Automation script 

Open the PowerShell command prompt and before you execute the pre-requisites powershell script. Change you Execution Poliy using the below command

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy remotesignedExecute the vCAC6-PreReq-Automation.ps1 script using below command

.\vCAC6-PreReq-Automation.ps1

Once vCAC Pre-Req settings have been completed. You are ready for the installation of vCAC Iaas installation. You can download the Iaas “setup.exe” file from the below URL

 https://vcac-va-hostname.domain.name:5480/installer/

Right click on the setup file and “Run As Administrator” and click on Next to start the installation.

Accept the End-User License agreement and click on Next.

Provide the administrative credentials for the VMware vCloud Automation Center Appliance and click on Next

I am going to choose Complete install. It installs all components on the current machine.Click on Next.

Verify all are green. If any warning, Click Bypass. Then Click Next

The Server and account settings page needs a few different inputs:

1. Enter a User name and Password  under Server Installation Information

2. Type a phrase in Passphrase. The passphrase is a series of words that generates the encryption key used to secure database data. You can use some standard password also for this.

3. No need to create a database on your server. Below step will create it for you.

Click on Next.

You can choose to accept the defaults and click next or you can change the vSphere Agent name  to your actual vCenter name. Since I have only one vCenter, I kept it as “vCenter”.  Please note down this name and This name will be used again during the IaaS Configuration

Register the IaaS Components in Component Registry section:

1.  Don’t change the Server name. Keep the default one.

2. Click Load to populate the value of SSO Default Tenant (vsphere.local)

3.  Click Download to retrieve the certificate from the vCloud Automation Center Appliance and Select the checkbox “Accept” to accept the certificate.

4. In the SSO Administrator panel, type administrator@vsphere.local in  the User name and the password . This was configured during SSO configuration and accept the default of the IaaS server.

Review the components which is going to install on this server and Click on Install.

 Once Installation is completed, Click on  Finish to complete the installation.

Once vCAC IaaS installation is completed, Verify that the following services were installed and started.

• VMware DEM-Orchestrator – DEO
• VMware DEM-Worker – DEM
• VMware vCloud Automation Center Agent – vSphereAgent
• VMware vCloud Automation Center Service

That’s it. We are done with Iaas installation. I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading !!!. Be social and share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

A tenant is like an organizational unit in a vCloud Automation Center. A tenant can represent a business unit in an enterprise or a company that subscribes to cloud services from a service provider:

• Each tenant has its own dedicated configuration, although some system-level configuration is shared across tenants.
• The default tenant which created during the vCAC deployement is vsphere.local.
• You can add additional tenants using the system administrator account (administrator@vsphere.local)

The system administrator can manage system-wide configurations in the default tenant. These configurations include global system defaults for branding and notifications, and monitoring system logs.The default tenant (vSphere.local) is the only tenant that supports native Active Directory (AD) authentication. All other tenants must use AD over Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) or OpenLDAP.

Each tenant has a unique URL to the vCloud Automation Center console where the default has been specified above, while mutli-tenant resources will be given a URL such as https://vcac-appliance-hostname.domain.name/shell-ui-app/org/mydepartment .

Before we start to configuring the Tenant, It is very important to understand certain roles and functions within vCAC. We have Many system wide roles available in the vCAC. At this Tenant configuration, it is necessary to understand the below 3 roles.

System Administrator: performs the initial configuration of single sign-on and basic tenant setup, including designating at least one identity store and a tenant administrator for each tenant

Infrastructure Administrator: The Infrastructure administrator is responsible for managing endpoints and endpoint credentials, and creating fabric groups.

Tenant Administrator: create custom groups within their own tenant and add both users and groups defined in the identity store to custom groups.

Default Tenant Configuration:

Open up the web browser and type  https://vcac-appliance-hostname.domain.name/shell-ui-app (in my case https://vcac-01.vmwarearena.c0m/shell-ui-app) and log in with system administrator account administrator@vsphere.local and the SSO password

Once Logged-in, you will be able to see the default tenant (vsphere.local) under Tenants. you can click on + symbol to add the new tenant. I am going to use the default tenant as my tenant. Click on the tenanat vsphere.local

You are not allowed to edit any existing values under General option for the default tenant.

Click on Identity Stores tab and click on + symbol to add the identity stores. Each tenant must be associated with at least one identity store.Identity stores can be OpenLDAP or Active Directory (AD). For a default tenant, you can also use AD in native mode.

Provide the below active directory related information.  I used AD Explorer from Microsoft Tools to identify the distinguished name for the administrator user account because you can’t use the User name. you need to use the distinguished name.

Once identity sources has been added, you can assign the vCAC system wide roles like Infrastructure administrator and Tenant administrators to your Active Directory users or Groups. I have already  created 2 groups (infrastructure administrators and Tenant administrators) in my active directory domain VMwarearena.com.  Click on Administrators Tab, type in your group name under Tenant and Infrastructure administrator role. Click on Update.

To test the assigned role , login to your vCAC portal using infra-admin credentials.  Infra-admin@vmwarearena.com is the user account which is part of AD group Infrastructure Administrators

I am able to login successfully with the infra admin privileges.

That’sit. We are done with configuring Default tenant. Let’s take look at configuring endpoint, fabric groups and other stuffs in upcoming posts. I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading !!!. Be Social and share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

ESXTOP is one of my favorite tool which comes in handy when i troubleshoot the ESXi  performance issues. One of the difficulty in using ESXTOP is to connect to each ESXi host to access the performance of the ESXi server. So don’t worry VMware Flings brought a new Plugin called  ”ESXtopNGC Plugin”.ESXtopNGC Plugin is an enhanced, plugin-version of ESXtop for the vSphere Web Client. The plugin displays ESX server stats in new and more powerful ways by tapping into the GUI capabilities of the Web Client. It supports only on vCSA 5.5  (vCenter Center Server Linux Appliance) not on windows version of vCenter Server.

Features of ESXtopNGC Plugin:

• Separate tabs for CPU, memory, network and disk performance statistics
• Flexible batch output
• Flexible counter selection
• Advanced data grid for displaying stats (sortable columns, expandable rows, etc.)
• Configurable refresh rate
• VM-only stats
• Embedded tooltip for counter description

How to Install ESXtopNGC Plugin:

Installation of ESXtopNGC plugin is pretty simple. It can be done with 3 simple steps:

Step 1:

Upload ESXtopNGCPlugin.zip  downloaded from VMware Flings website and upload it to the root of VCSA using Winscp.

Step 2:

Connect to vCSA appliance using Putty. and execute the below command :

Unzip ESXtopNGCPlugin.zip -d /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-client/plugin-packages/esxtop-plugin;/etc/init.d/vsphere-client restart

Step 3:

The above command restarts the vSphere web client automatically, so wait and when it’s completed you can access the vSphere Web Client, select a host and then Monitor tab >TOP. Data will appear after few seconds.

That’s it. We are Done. I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for reading!!!. Be Social and Share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

Endpoints are infrastructure sources that are consumed by vCloud Automation Center. There are various types of endpoints like vCenter, vCloud Director, Hyper-v, Citrix Xen server, Physical servers like HP,DELL and Cisco, cloud platforms like Openstack, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and many more. Endpoints can be created and managed only by users with Infrastructure  Administrator role privileges. vCloud Automation Center uses DEMs or agents to communicate with and manage endpoints.

Distributed Execution Managers (DEM) :

DEM executes the business logic of custom models, interacting with the IaaS database and external databases.

DEM instances can be deployed in one of two forms:

DEM Orchestrator

• • Preprocesses workflows, schedules workflows, and monitors DEM Worker instances.
• • Only one DEM Orchestrator is active at a given time. A standby should be deployed for redundancy.

DEM Worker

• • Communicates with the external systems
• • Responsible for executing workflows

Agents: 

Agents, like DEMs, are used to integrate vCloud Automation Center with external systems:

• Virtualization proxy agents are used to collect data from and provision virtual machines on virtualization hosts, for example, a Hyper-V agent,a vSphere agent, or a Xen agent.
• Integration agents provide vCloud Automation Center integration with virtual desktop systems, for example, an EPI Windows PowerShell agent, or a VDI Windows PowerShell agent.
• Windows Management Instrumentation agents enable data collection from Windows machines managed by vCloud Automation Center.

During the vCAC Iaas Install process as discussed on Part 5 of this vCAC installation Series, we already installed a vSphere agent and named a vSphere agent and Endpoint name as “vCenter”.  We are going to use the same endpoint name here. If you have more than 1 vCenter in your environment, then you need to install an additional vSphere Agent on the IaaS Components VM. There is a 1:1 mapping.

Specify User Credentials for Endpoints:

Administrator-level credentials for your endpoints must be stored as separate objects:

• Credentials are managed separately from endpoints because the same credentials can be used for multiple endpoints. May be you will have all the vCenter’s in your environment configured with same administrator username and password. It simplifies by specifying only once in credentials and use the same while creating multiple endpoints.
• Credentials are associated with an endpoint during or after endpoint creation.

Let’s take a look at how to create Endpoint credentials. Endpoints can be created and managed only by users with Infrastructure  Administrator role privileges. So login with your Infrastructure administrator credentials.

Configure the valid license for vCloud Automation Center before performing Endpoint configuration.

Login with infrastructure administrator credentials and navigate to Infrastructure -> Endpoints -> Credentials. Specify the name and description for the endpoint credentials. I am going to add my vCenter Server as the endpoint. I am using my SSO administrator authentication. If you have configured AD authentication for your vCenter,You can use the same. Click the Green Check Mark to save the credentials.

Create EndPoints:

Navigate to Infrastructure -> Endpoints -> New Endpoint -> Virtual -> vSphere(vCenter)

1. Type the same name which is specified as Endpoint during Agent installation.

2. Enter the description for this endpoint.

3. Type the name of the vCenter sdk instance such as“https://vcentername.mycompany.com/sdk”

4. Select the credentials which you have configured in the previous step to use as credentials to authenticate this endpoint.

5. you can Choose Select the checkbox “Specify manager for network and security platform” ,if you have NSX or vCloud Networking and Security (vShield).

6. Click OK to create the endpoint.

That’s is your vCenter Endpoint will be created and appear under the Endpoints list.

We are done with configuring Endpoint credentials and Endpoint.  Let take a look at Fabric Configuration in upcoming posts. I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading!!!. Be Social and share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

The fabric includes all the computing resources that are discovered from the added endpoint data collection. This fabric is organized into fabric groups for provisioning. Fabric groups are created in a specific tenant and map compute resources to the fabric administrators who can manage those resources.Fabric administrators are responsible for creating reservations on the compute resources within their groups to allocate fabric to specific business groups.Fabric groups are created in a specific tenant, but their resources are available to users who belong to business groups in all tenants. In addition to managing physical machines and compute resources in a fabric group, fabric administrators also manage cross-tenant configuration such as machine prefixes.

Graphic Thanks to VMware.com

Create Fabric Group:

Login to vCAC using Infrastructure administrator credentials. Navigate to Infrastructure  -> Group -> Fabric Groups ->New Fabric Groups

1. Provide the name and description for the fabric group

2. Assign the group or user account for Fabric administrator role. I have assigned user fabric-admin@vmwarearea.com to fabric administrator role.

3. All the Clusters which are under added vSphere endpoint will appear under Compute resources. You can select the cluster which can be part of this fabric group. I have 2 cluster in my vCenter server and i have selected both to be part of this fabric group. Click on Ok.

Your Fabric group will list under Fabric Groups.

Create Machine Prefixes:

Machine prefixes are used to generate names of provisioned machines and are shared across all tenants. Machine prefixes are created by Fabric administrators.The prefix consists of a base name followed by a counter. The counter can start at a number other than 1 and be of a specified length.If a machine prefix is IT-VCAC, the number of digits is 3, and the next number is 1, the machines that are provisioned are named:   IT-VCAC001, IT-VCAC002, and so on.

Login to vCAC console using Fabric Administrator credentials.

Navigate to Infrastructure -> Blueprints -> Machine Prefixes -> New Machine Prefix

Enter Machine Prefix, Number of Digits and Next number. The prefix consists of a base name followed by a counter. The counter can start at a number other than 1 and be of a specified length.If a machine prefix is IT-VCAC, the number of digits is 3, and the next number is 1, the machines that are provisioned are named:   IT-VCAC001, IT-VCAC002, and so on. Click on Green Check Mark.

Create Reservation Policy:

A reservation policy is a set of reservations that can be selected in a machine blueprints to restrict provisioning to those reservations only. Add a reservation to a policy when creating or editing the reservation. A storage reservation policy is a set of virtual datastores that can be selected on a machine blueprint to restrict disk provisioning to only those datastores. A new machine might be provisioned on any reservation that has sufficient capacity. Applying a reservation policy to a blueprint restricts the machine provisioned from that blueprint to a subset of available reservations.

Navigate to Infrastructure -> Reservations -> Reservation Policies -> New Reservation Policy & New Storage Reservation Policy.

Enter the Name for Reservation policies and click on Green Check Mark to save.

Create Network Profiles:

You can create a network profiles which can be assigned to particular reservation policy. This network profiles can be used to assign IP address to the provisioned virtual machines. Navigate to Infrastructure -> Reservation -> Network Profiles. 

Under Network Profile information tab ,Provide the Name, description, Subnet mask, gateway and DNS information

Under IP Ranges Tab, Click New Network Range

Provide the Name, Starting and Ending IP address for this Network Range and Click on Ok

You can see the list of IP address assigned to this network range.

Newly created network profiles will appear under  Network Profiles.We are done. Let’s take a look at creating Reservation and Business group in upcoming posts. I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading!!!. Be Social and share it in social media, if you feel worth share it.

A Business group associates a set of services and resources to a set of users, such as a line of business, department, or other organizational unit.A business group is created in a tenant by the tenant administrator. To request machines, a vCloud Automation Center user must either belong to at least one business group or have different roles in different groups. Each Tenant may have different Business group in their organization like HR, Finance, IT,etc. You need to login to vCAC console using Tenant administrator credentials to create a Business Group Navigate towards Infrastructure -> Groups -> Business Groups -> New Business Group 1. Provide the name for your Business Groups like “IT” or “engineering”. I am part of IT, So i choosed “IT” 2. Choose a default prefix to use for this Business group. We have created a machine prefix in part 8 of this vCAC Service. We are going to use this machine prefix here. 3. You can assign the business Group manager, Support and user roles to the respective AD groups for this Business group. 4. Specify the send manager emails. This will be used for approval process and workflow related tasks and click on Ok. Your Business Group will appear under the Business groups.

Create Reservation for the Business Group:

A reservation is a share of provisioning resources allocated by the fabric administrator from a fabric group and reserved for use by a particular business group. vCloud Automation Center reservations have no relationship to vSphere reservations. Navigate to Infrastructure -> Reservations -> Reservation and click on New Reservation -> Virtual -> vSphere(vCenter) 1. Select a compute resource from the drop-down. 2. Provide the name for this Reservation. Select the Tenant and Businessgroup from the drop-down. We only have one Tenant and Business group. So it populated automatically 3. We have configured the reservation policy in previous step. We are going to use the same. 4. Set the priority. The higher the priority, the faster this group will get access to spin up their virtual machines. Click on Ok. Click on Resource Tab -> Specify the amount of RAM for this Business group and datastores to use. Specify the reservation and priority for each datastore. Under  network tab.,Select the network which you want it to available to end user during provisioning and assign the Network profile which we have created for IP assignment. Click on Ok.That’s it. Your reservation will appear under Reservations list.We are done with creating Business group and reservation for Business group. In upcoming posts , we will discuss about Blueprints. Thanks for Reading!!!. I hope this is informative for you. Be Social and share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

Blueprints define the resources and attributes associated with the provisioning of a virtual, physical, or cloud machine. Blueprints are configured for any machine (VM, vApp, Physical, Cloud) or a combination (multi machine blueprint) that will be available for provisioning in the portal. A unique Blueprint has to be created per platform (vSphere, vCloud, EC2, Hyper-V, XEN, Physical, etc). Here we will create a vSphere (Virtual) blueprint.Blue print will be visible as item in the service catalog to end users. where they can use to request virtual machine, physical machine, application or anything else. Let’s take a step by step look at creating and publishing Blueprints.

Log in to the vCloud Automation Center Console as tenant administrator or business group manager.

Navigate to Infrastructure ->Blueprints -> Blueprints. Click on New Blueprint -> Virtual -> vSphere (vCenter)

Provide the Below information to create the blueprint

a. Enter the name and description for the blueprint

b. You can Select the Options of your choice for Blueprint options (Master, Display Location on Request and share Blueprint). The display location will make a user choose a datacenter instance of where to deploy the application.

c. Select the Reservation Policy and Machine Prefix for this Blueprint

d. Enter the maximum number of Per User setting. Specify a number for the max provisioning amount will only allow a single user to provision from this blueprint

e. specify the number of days to archive machines provisioned from this blueprint.

f. Enter the additional costs for chargeback purposes. These costs will be Added to anything that is set in a cost profile.

Click on the ‘build information’ tab,  I am going to Use LinkedClone. So select LinkedClone form the action menu.Select the Clone Workflow from the provisioning workflow. You need the Select the VM to clone from. Click on … Icon.Select the Virtual Machine to clone and Click on NextSince I have Selected LinkedClone as action. I  have to Select the Snapshot of the virtual Machine. You need have atleast one snapshot to be used as linked Clone VM. Select the Snapshot and click on Finish.Verify the snapshot selection and Click on Ok.if you have a customization specification already created in vCenter Server, Type the exact name of the customization specification and also Specify the Minimum and Maximum of Machine Resources like CPU, Memory,storage and Lease that can be assigned to this blueprint. Click on Ok to create this blueprint.

This is the Customization Specification i have created for  Win2k3.

Right Click the newly created Blueprint and Click on Publish.Click on Ok to confirm the Blueprint Publish.

That’s it. We are done with Creating and publish the Blueprint. We will take a look at detailed step about Adding this published item to Catalog and deploy VM from it in upcoming posts. Thanks for reading. I hope this is informative for you !!. Be Social and share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

Service categories organize catalog items into related offerings to make it easier for users to browse for the catalog items they need.In vCAC 6.0 Blueprints are published which enables them to be assigned to users and groups through the catalog management components of the vCAC Service Catalog.To enable blueprints to be available in the catalog we first need a service that we can publish them to. A service is really just a container that will hold the object. If you look at the service catalog you can see the services listed down the left side. These services are the containers that hold the actual catalog items that can be requested.

Login to vCAC Console using Tenant administrator credentials. 

Go to Administration -> Catalog Management -> Services. Click on the green “+” sign to add a new service.Provide the Name for the service. I am going to name it as “Windows Services”. You can name the service based on your OS Version. You can browrse and add the Logo for the Service as per your choice.Change you service status to “Active”. Click Add

On the right hand side, Click on Edit button for the new Service item and Select Manage Catalog Items.

Click on + Symbol under Catalog Items

Add the new catalog item to associate it with this service. Click Add.

That’s it. We are done with creating a Service and associate the catalog service with this service. We will discuss about creating Entitlement in upcoming posts. I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading!!! Be Social and share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.