VMware vRealize Orchestrator Essentials

Book description

Get hands-on experience with vRealize Orchestrator and automate your VMware environment

About This Book

  • Gain an in-depth understanding of vRO in the VMware infrastructure
  • Create your own advanced vRO scripts using JavaScript
  • A step-by-step tutorial to manage and create workflows with vRO

Who This Book Is For

This book is for VMware vSphere administrators who have minimal experience with automation tools and want to learn how to effectively automate their environment with VMware vRealize Orchestrator. A basic understanding of the VMware vSphere terms and concepts would be helpful.

What You Will Learn

  • Familiarize yourself with the Orchestrator architecture and Explore how plugins can expand Orchestrator's capabilitiesExplore how plug-ins can expand Orchestrator's capabilities
  • Deploy and configure the vRealize Orchestrator appliance
  • Schedule and run workflows using the vSphere Web Client
  • Create your own workflows with minimal work
  • Use workflow presentations to improve your automation projects
  • Integrate JavaScript to enhance your workflows
  • Debug your workflows for errors and fix them
  • Learn how to create, import, and export packages, to enable easy exchange solutions with others

In Detail

The automation of virtual environments has become the focus of many endeavors. VMware vRealize Orchestrator is a tool that enables you to automate not only your VMware environments, but also the surrounding hardware and software infrastructure. Orchestrator is also a central tool in the VMware cloud initiative and is extensively used by products such as vRealize Automation.

In this book, you will learn how Orchestrator is able to help you automate your complete VMware infrastructure as well as its surrounding hardware and software. After deploying and configuring the vRealize Orchestrator appliance, you will learn how to run the existing workflows that are a part of the Orchestrator library. You will also see how the vSphere Web Client integration of Orchestrator reduces the time you spend on your daily admin tasks.

The main aspect here is to learn how to create new workflows from existing ones. You will also look at how you can create completely new workflows. This includes learning about JavaScript and using presentation features to improve the layout and user friendliness of your workflows. Toward the end, you will learn to check for errors in your workflows and debug them. By the time you're done with the book, you'll be proficient in managing your workflows.

Style and approach

This book follows a sequential approach with ample screenshots in the examples that convey a deeper understanding of all Orchestrator-related tasks.

Table of contents

  1. VMware vRealize Orchestrator Essentials
    1. Table of Contents
    2. VMware vRealize Orchestrator Essentials
    3. Credits
    4. Foreword
    5. Foreword
    6. About the Author
    7. About the Reviewers
    8. www.PacktPub.com
      1. Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more
        1. Why subscribe?
        2. Free access for Packt account holders
        3. Instant updates on new Packt books
    9. Preface
      1. What this book covers
      2. What you need for this book
      3. Who this book is for
      4. Conventions
      5. Reader feedback
      6. Customer support
        1. Errata
        2. Piracy
        3. Questions
    10. 1. Architectural Overview
      1. What is VMware Orchestrator?
        1. A short history of Orchestrator
        2. Features of Orchestrator
        3. More about plug-ins
      2. Obtaining Orchestrator
        1. Licensing
        2. Downloading
        3. Compatibility
      3. The Orchestrator architecture
        1. Authentication
        2. Dedicated service account
        3. Database
        4. VMware infrastructure
        5. Other services
        6. Limitations
      4. Additional sources for Orchestrator
        1. Documentation
        2. Books
        3. VMware community
        4. Websites
        5. Google searches
      5. Summary
    11. 2. Deploying and Configuring the Orchestrator Appliance
      1. Preparations
        1. Downloading the appliance
        2. Appliance's size requirements
        3. Preparing the IP and DNS settings
        4. Open ports
        5. Creating users and groups
        6. Database
      2. Deploying the Orchestrator Appliance
        1. Deploying the Appliance with vCenter
        2. Deploying the appliance into VMware Workstation
        3. After the deployment
      3. Accessing Orchestrator
        1. Accessing the Orchestrator home page
        2. Starting the Orchestrator Client
      4. Base configure the Orchestrator Appliance
        1. What is preconfigured?
        2. How to run a workflow
        3. Configuring Orchestrator with SSO
        4. Configuring Orchestrator with an external database
        5. Creating a Package Signing Certificate
        6. Entering a license
        7. Last steps
      5. The Orchestrator configuration tools
        1. Orchestrator Configurator
        2. Orchestrator Control Center (Beta)
      6. Summary
    12. 3. Integrating Orchestrator with vSphere
      1. Integrating Orchestrator with vCenter
        1. Open TCP ports
        2. Allowing user access
        3. Adding a vCenter to Orchestrator
        4. The Orchestrator inventory
        5. vSphere Web Client
      2. Installing additional plugins
        1. Downloading the VMware plug-in
        2. Installing the plug-in
          1. Opening the Orchestrator configuration
          2. Installing a new plug-in
          3. Restarting the Orchestrator service
          4. Checking out the new plug-in
        3. Plugin problems
      3. Summary
    13. 4. Working with Workflows
      1. Using the Orchestrator Client
        1. Introducing the Orchestrator Client
        2. Workflow properties
          1. The General tab
          2. The Inputs tab
          3. The Outputs tab
          4. The Schema tab
          5. The Presentation tab
          6. The Parameters References tab
          7. The Workflow Tokens tab
          8. The Events tab
          9. The Permissions tab
        3. Starting a workflow
        4. Workflow run and results
        5. Rerunning workflows
      2. Using the vSphere Web Client
        1. Starting a workflow from the Orchestrator plugin
        2. Configuring workflows for the vCenter inventory
        3. Starting a workflow from the vCenter inventory
      3. Scheduling workflows
        1. The Orchestrator Client
        2. The vSphere Web Client
      4. Summary
    14. 5. Combining and Modifying Workflows
      1. Combining existing workflows
        1. Creating a new workflow
          1. Creating a new library folder
          2. Opening a new workflow for editing
        2. Adding workflows
        3. Adding actions to a workflow
        4. Assigning parameters
        5. Workflow verification
        6. Workflow history
          1. Comparing the versions
          2. Reverting to an older version
      2. Useful workflow operations
        1. Copying a workflow
        2. Renaming a workflow element
        3. Deleting an element
        4. Exit without saving and reverting
        5. Deleting and undeleting a workflow
      3. Workflow parameters
        1. Parameter types
          1. Parameters in the General section
          2. Variables in the input section
          3. Variables in the output section
        2. Working with parameters and attributes
          1. Moving a parameter or attribute
      4. Some more advanced programming
        1. Adding a decision element
        2. Working with connection lines
        3. Things you might like to try out
      5. Modifying an existing workflow
      6. Summary
    15. 6. Advanced vRO Scripting with JavaScript
      1. JavaScript – the very basics
        1. Basic rules
          1. Every line ends with a semicolon
          2. Variables
          3. Case sensitivity
          4. Comments
          5. Formatting
        2. Running though some examples
          1. Creating an example workflow
          2. Creating new parameters
          3. Numerical operations
          4. String operations
        3. Integrating JavaScript into our program
      2. The if-clause in JavaScript
        1. Conditions and operators
        2. An example if-clause
        3. Common string problems and solutions
          1. Is a string part of another string?
          2. Case sensitivity
          3. Getting rid of space
      3. Creating an action
        1. Creating a new action module
        2. Creating a new action
        3. Implementing the action into a workflow
        4. Things you might like to try
          1. Switch case
          2. String clean-up
      4. Summary
        1. Correct answers
    16. 7. Improving Workflows with Presentation
      1. Presentation basics
        1. Descriptions
        2. Mandatory
        3. Min and max values
        4. Default value
      2. Working with arrays
        1. Arrays in JavaScript
        2. Defining and filling arrays in the workflow
        3. JavaScript example
        4. Predefined answers
      3. Linking presentations
      4. VMware plug-in specific properties
        1. Specify a root object to be shown in the chooser
        2. Select value as
        3. Show in inventory
        4. Example
      5. Summary
    17. 8. Errors, Logs, and Debug Mode
      1. The debug mode
      2. Logs and errors
        1. Catching and dealing with an error
      3. Summary
    18. 9. Packing It All Up
      1. Importing and exporting workflows
        1. Exporting a workflow
        2. Importing a workflow
      2. Working with packages
        1. Creating a package
        2. Filling a package
        3. Exporting a package
        4. Importing a package
      3. Summary
    19. Index

Product information

  • Title: VMware vRealize Orchestrator Essentials
  • Author(s): Daniel Langenhan
  • Release date: September 2015
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781785884245