Recently I’ve been working on improving HobbitCloud’s DevOps practices, specifically around committing code to version control and documenting it. Once a developer checks code in, this should compile, and if successful be deployed to the test environment. Once here it will undergo automated testing before progressing to staging for unit and integration tests. Continue reading
Wednesday Tidbit: Cycling through XML in vRealize Orchestrator
A few months ago a client asked me to create an NSX application load-balancer programmatically, and then make it available to their vRealize Automation consumers in through the self-service catalog. In building-block fashion, they requested that this wasn’t a composite blueprint, but rather through XaaS. While the former would definitely take less time, the latter was not that difficult either once I got started. Continue reading
Securing VMware Horizon UAGs with Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates
Securing your Horizon Universal Access Gateway (UAG) with a genuine SSL certificate from a recognised vendor is an important process. It enables your users to be sure they’re connecting to the correct VDI infrastructure, and that the communications between their endpoint and remote desktop are secure. Continue reading
How not to lock yourself out of your Ubuntu 18.04 VDI desktop
Those that follow my adventures with EUC will probably be aware that I’m a huge fan of Linux on the VDI desktop. The cost benefits are self-evident for task and knowledge-based workers; and for power users like developers, the platform can provide an easier route to a lot of their applications. Continue reading
Wednesday Tidbit: Installing Certbot and the Route53 plugin on CentOS 8
This will be the smallest blog post I’ve ever created, but I simply had to share this as it has been winding me up all night.
To install Certbot, and more importantly the AWS Route53 plugin on CentOS 8, you first need the Python Package Manager – known as PIP. Continue reading
Automating VDI Template Creation with VMware Code Stream and HashiCorp Packer – Part 3: Automating the Solution
In part 2 we automated the installation of our VMware Horizon agents, including AppVolumes and Dynamic Environment Manager. We also patched our template and applied optimization settings using the VMware OSOT fling. In this final part, we automate the entire solution from end-to-end using VMware CI/CD tool, Code Stream. In the end, with one-click, we will generate our template ready for use. Continue reading
Automating VDI Template Creation with VMware Code Stream and HashiCorp Packer – Part 2: Installing the VDI Agents
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.
Continue reading
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
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