In part 1 of this series, we built a Windows 10 desktop using HashiCorp Packer. Now we will script the installation of the VDI agents needed for our VMware Horizon environment. After this, we will patch the box with the latest updates, before applying the VMware OS Optimization Tool to produce a lean and clean image. In the last part, we will automate the solution using VMware Code Stream.
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Automating VDI Template Creation with VMware Code Stream and HashiCorp Packer – Part 1: Building Windows
In previous consultancies I’ve worked, it was common practice to frequently patch corporate VDI templates. Whilst continuous patching is a good thing, it is quite often laborious. Any attempt to automate this is seen as difficult and organizations often give up and continue with manual processes. Here I will show how it can be done using Code Stream and HashiCorp Packer. Continue reading
Deploying GitLab Runner to VMware Enterprise PKS
Recently I have been deepening my learning of DevOps methodolgies, specifically around the vRealize Automation and Orchestrator platforms. I have been producing code for both in my development environment for a while and promoting it manually to test, staging and production. However, this is a very error-prone and laborious process that fails to take advantage of Continue reading
Configuring a lower lease time for a vRealize Automation deployment
Recently a customer I was working with had the need to ensure that deployments of a certain service category had a lower lease time than others. So all blueprints would have no maximum lease time configured, but if a customer chose a “DevTest” catalog item, then the lease time is set to seven days. Continue reading
Enabling dynamic site selection in the Private Cloud with vRealize Automation
In HobbitCloud we have the ability to deploy vRealize Automation workloads to multiple sites. This enables us to leverage different technologies like NSX for vSphere and NSX-T, without having to mix both in the same site. It also means that if we have to scale up workloads for certain projects, we can utilise different clusters. Continue reading
Wednesday Tidbit: Verifying a variable type in vRealize Orchestrator
Really short post, but this might stop you from going bat**** crazy…
Recently I needed to create some NSX Distributed Firewall Rules in vRealize Orchestrator for a complex micro-segmentation project. The layer 3 section already existed in NSX, I just needed to create the rules on the fly using the REST API. Continue reading
Deploy an Azure Kubernetes Service cluster from vRealize Automation – Part 2: Deploying the cluster
In part 1 of this short series we used vRO to create a bearer token for connecting to Microsoft Azure. Now we will create some new components and a master workflow for provisioning our AKS Cluster, to enable our developers to request public cloud Kubernetes straight from vRealize Automation. Continue reading
Deploy an Azure Kubernetes Service cluster from vRealize Automation – Part 1: Authentication
Kubernetes (k8s) is arguably one of the hottest technologies right now. Whether it’s building your own in the private cloud, leveraging vendor implementations to compliment your enterprise apps or consuming public cloud varieties like Amazon Web Service’s EKS – there’s no shortage of ways to deploy k8s.
Capture the Business Group at request time in vRealize Automation
A few days ago I had the strange need to capture a requester’s business group in a custom property whilst provisioning resources in vRealize Automation.
Whilst obtaining this information post-provisoning is simple enough, I couldn’t find an obvious way to do this at first. Then I sat down and thought about it. Continue reading
Don’t forget about DTC when migrating your vRealize Automation IaaS database
HobbitCloud has been enjoying somewhat of an infrastructure refresh recently, with the entire estate being renamed and Windows Servers migrating to 2016 and 2019. Part of this project was to increase resilience in my on-premise data warehouse by implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2016 AlwaysOn Availability Group (AAG) running on Windows Server Core. Continue reading
