The other day I successfully demonstrated the power of Code Stream at the UK North-West VMUG. The Management Pack for IT DevOps (codenamed “Houdini”) migrated blueprints between Development and Production, and at the end of the session I built a pipeline for deploying a WordPress application in development. Even though the audience wouldn’t have Continue reading
vRealize Automation
Deploying MySQL on CentOS 7 for vRealize Automation blueprints
Over the weekend I began preparing a multi-tier application blueprint in vRealize Automation for an upcoming talk at the UK North-West VMUG. Rather than re-invent the wheel (and more importantly because I’m lazy), I decided to re-use a blueprint from the VMware {code} site. The one I’d chosen used MySQL, which for a quick and dirty live demo is ideal. Continue reading
Wednesday Tidbit: Fix missing Puppet attributes on vRealize Automation blueprints
Occasionally you come across an issue which bugs the hell out of you. Despite wanting needing to resolve it badly, you know it’s going to be a case of trial and error, and it’s going to consume a lot of your time. The other day I came across one these issues, and just as I suspected, the majority of an evening would be spent trying to resolve it. Continue reading
Securing VMware applications with Google Authenticator
Earlier this week I created a tenant in HobbitCloud for a friend with his own development company. He needs to leverage the power of Infrastructure-as-a-Service, but is unwilling to move to the public cloud for all his workloads just yet. However, now that HobbitCloud is accessible externally, it was clear I had to increase security. Continue reading
Deploying containers with vRealize Automation 7.2 – Part 1: Containers
This week I have been designing a vRealize Automation 7.2 solution for a customer. One of the things that came out of the solution requirements workshop was the ability for vRA to deploy and potentially manage containers. Whilst I knew it was possible, it encouraged me to look deeper at the technology. Thankfully it wasn’t long before a use case emerged. Continue reading
Ensure your load-balancing is right for a vRealize Automation 7.x HA install
Last week I had cause to build a fully distributed/HA installation of vRealize Automation as a proof-of-concept. After encountering an issue with DTC communication, it led to a question of load-balancer configuration. Not how to do it (VMware have documented this very well), but the order of things. Continue reading
Configuring DTC access between vRealize Automation IaaS and Microsoft SQL Server
Recently I had an issue with vRealize Automation communicating with my SQL Server. Unfortunately, the IaaS database plays a fundamental part in any vRA installation, so any problem with it will severely limit your deployment. Continue reading
Building an advanced lab using VMware vRealize Automation – another stoppage in play
If you have been following my series on vRealize Automation then you will have noticed I have not posted anything recently.
The installation has experienced a number of issues, the most recent being that I upgraded to version 6.2.3 and it appears to have caused an issue. Continue reading
Wednesday Tidbit: configuring a clustered MSDTC for vRealize Automation 6.x
A few days ago I found I was unable to add reservations to my vRealize Automation installation. After finding VMware knowledge base article 2089503, I realised it was because I’d forgotten to configure the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Co-ordinator (MSDTC) on my new SQL cluster. Continue reading
Editing vRealize Automation appliance PostgreSQL database by hand
About a month ago I accidentally deleted a SQL database as part of a migration to a new failover cluster. The database in question was the IaaS database used by my vRealize Automation installation, and no backup was available. Mistakes like that in a lab happen from time to time and are okay, as long as you can be the one to fix them. Continue reading
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