How to specify a deployment target when using vRealize Automation
I regularly get the question ‘Can I specify a deployment target when using vRealize Automation?’. Most of the time this question comes up at customers who want to use vRealize Automation on top of a vSphere Metro Storage Cluster environment. For those of you that…
Missing endpoints after upgrading to vRealize Automation 7.3
Besides adding a ton of new features, some customers have reported missing endpoints after a successful upgrade to the new vRealize Automation 7.3 which was released May 16, 2017. In the Infrastructure tab, Endpoints page does not show any or only few endpoint types and endpoints are…
How to run Containers as a Service – Secure Docker communications
Last March, Dimitri did an excellent series on ‘How to run Containers as a Service’. In part 1, Dimitri describes containers, the problems of running containers and possible solutions. In part 2, he published a very elaborate guide on how to configure Containers as a Service…
Control NSX using Log Insight webhooks and a Lego Mindstorms robot
[Updated 26-03: Added the NSX API call script] During the last few years we’ve had some fun demos at the Dutch VMUG Usercon. We’ve automated a coffee machine using vRealize Orchestrator. We did a vRealize Automation challenge where competitors could control a lightsaber when they…
Create a new database user using vRealize Automation XaaS
Recently I described how to deliver Database-as-a-Service using XaaS (Anything-as-a-Service) in vRealize Automation. In the meantime I added some add-ons to this. It’s nice to have the ability to create a new database using self-service from vRealize Automation but when the database is running, users…
How to deliver Database-as-a-Service with vRealize Automation
Recently we (My colleague Dimitri and myself) delivered a Proof of Concept (PoC) at a customer with vRealize Automation 7. During the PoC we have proven a few different use cases like deploying a Linux virtual machine with a JBoss application using an integration with…
Monitor JBoss EAP with vRealize Operations
VMware is working hard to provide more and more application management plugins for vRealize Operations. In previous versions vRealize Hyperic was used to perform application monitoring, with the newer versions of vRealize Operations this is done using the EndPoint Operations agent (EPOPS agent). Application specific intelligence…
Monitor Microsoft Exchange with vRealize Operations Manager
VMware is working hard to provide more and more application management plugins for vRealize Operations. In previous versions vRealize Hyperic was used to perform application monitoring, with the newer versions of vRealize Operations this is done using the EndPoint Operations agent (EPOPS agent). Application specific…
How to monitor your VMware SDDC Management health?
If you are operating a full VMware SDDC environment you’re using a lot of components from the VMware portfolio. VMware vCenter Server, vSAN, NSX, vRealize Operations and Automation. But how is the health of your overall solution? How is everything working together? Wouldn’t it be nice…
DRS got even smarter with Predictive DRS
Once again VMware has enhanced a fundamental feature of vSphere, Distibuted Resource Scheduler (DRS) now got even smarter. The great thing of VMware is that they take fundamental features like vMotion and DRS and make them even better. Like with all the vMotion enhancements in vSphere 6,…
vRealize Log Insight internal storage management
Recently I encountered a alert in vRealize Operations stating that on one of my virtual machines the disks-ace was getting low. It turned out to be the vRealize Log Insight server in my test environment. For those of you that don’t know, vRealize Log Insight is…
VMware announces Cross-Cloud Architecture
Companies are increasingly relying on multiple public and private clouds to run their applications, but are daunted by the challenge of managing and securing applications across diverse cloud platforms. When customers combine a best-in-class private cloud with leading public clouds they have the strongest, most flexible…
VMware presents Cloud Foundation
With the Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC), VMware laid out the vision for the architecture of the hybrid cloud. In an SDDC, compute, storage, and networking services are decoupled from underlying hardware infrastructure and abstracted into logical pools of resources that can be more flexibly provisioned…
You want micro-segmentation? vRealize Network Insight is your friend!
As many of you have probably heard, in June 2016 VMware acquired Arkin Net. Arkin Net offers 360 degree visibility, enables faster deployments via micro-segmentation planning, and delivers significantly lower time to resources, leveraging constructs like ‘time machine’, natural language search, and contextual analytics. Now 2…
VMware Fling – DRS Doctor
DRS is a very powerful vSphere feature that has been around for years. It’s constantly monitoring host performance to ensure that VM demand is satisfied. When DRS determines that another host in a cluster could better suit a VM, a migration recommendation is generated, and…