VCP6-CMA Study Guide : Section 5: Allocate and Manage vRealize Automation Resources

As I predicted in my last blog post, VMware have announced that starting at VMworld 2015 in August, it will be possible to schedule VCP6 exams such as VCP-DCV, VCP-DTM and VCP-CMA. Hopefully this will mean that my beta score for my CMA exam is not too far away now, it would be nice to get a full house of VCPs!

Anyway, also as per my last blog post, I’m publishing section 5 of the study guide, which is as far as I got. Unless I fail the beta and have to resit, I don’t envisage me having the time to go back and complete the remaining sections. Hopefully it will be of some use to people planning on having a go at the CMA, any feedback is welcome via Twitter as always.

Objective 5.1: Create and Manage Fabric Groups

Adding and configuring vSphere Endpoints

• Creating an endpoint creates access to compute resources on a virtualised platform
• The process involves creating a credential set, defining a cloud endpoint and mapping resources for consumption
• Log in to the vRealize Automation console as an IaaS administrator.
• Select Infrastructure > Endpoints > Credentials.
• Click New Credentials.
• Enter a name in the Name text box. (Optional) Enter a description in the Description text box.
• Type the username in the User name text box.
  • Must be in domain\username format, for example mycompany\admin. The credentials must have permission to modify custom attributes
• Type the password in the Password text boxes.
• Click the Save icon (green tick)
• Select Infrastructure > Endpoints > Endpoints.
• Select New Endpoint > Virtual > vSphere.
• Enter a name in the Name text box.
  • This must match the endpoint name provided to the vSphere proxy agent during installation or data collection fails.
• (Optional) Enter a description in the Description text box.
• Enter the URL for the vCenter Server instance in the Address text box.
  • The URL must be of the type: https://hostname/sdk or https://IP_address/sdk. For example, https://vsphereA/sdk.
• Select the previously defined Credentials for the endpoint.
  • If your system administrator configured the vSphere proxy agent to use integrated credentials, you can select the Integrated credentials.
• Only select Specify manager for network and security platform if you plan to integrate with an existing NSX or vCNS instance

Adding and configuring vRealize Automation endpoints

• I’m assuming here that this refers to Orchestrator!
• Same process as for vSphere endpoint, except you choose to create a vCO credential using administrator@vsphere.local (assuming using the vCO engine as part of the vRO appliance)
• Create a new Orchestration endpoint for vCenter Orchestrator
• Give it a meaningful, type in the address (typically https://vcoserver:8281/vco)
• Select the appropriate vCO credential you just created
• Add a custom property VMware.VCenterOrchestrator.Priority and set it to 1. This is mandatory.

Map compute resources to endpoints

• A compute resource is an object that represents a host, host cluster, or pool in a virtualization platform, a virtual datacenter, or an Amazon region on which machines can be provisioned.
• An IaaS administrator can add compute resources to or remove compute resources from a fabric group.
• A compute resource can belong to more than one fabric group, including groups that different fabric administrators manage.
• After a compute resource is added to a fabric group, a fabric administrator can create reservations on it for specific business groups. Users in those business groups can then be entitled to provision machines on that compute resource
• Compute resources such as storage and networking can be assigned from endpoints to Business Groups
• Reservations are used to carve up resource from compute resources to apply to a Business Group

Assign correct permissions to manage Fabric Groups

• An IaaS administrator can organize virtualization compute resources and cloud endpoints into fabric groups by type and intent. One or more fabric administrators manage the resources in each fabric group.
• Fabric administrators are responsible for creating reservations on the compute resources in their groups to allocate fabric to specific business groups. Fabric groups are created in a specific tenant, but their resources can be made available to users who belong to business groups in all tenants.
• Fabric administrators are created and assigned when creating the Fabric Group
• A Fabric Administrator can do the following:-
  • Manage build profiles
  • Manage compute resources
  • Manage cost profiles
  • Manage network profiles
  • Manage Amazon EBS volumes and key pairs
  • Manage machine prefixes
  • Manage property dictionary
  • Manage reservations and reservation policies

Perform compute resource data collection

• vRealize Automation collects data from both infrastructure source endpoints and their compute resources.
• Data collection occurs at regular intervals. Each type of data collection has a default interval that you can override or modify.
• IaaS administrators can manually initiate data collection for infrastructure source endpoints and fabric administrators can manually initiate data collection for compute resources.
• To perform a manual data collection, Log in to the vRealize Automation console as an IaaS administrator.
• Select Infrastructure > Endpoints > Endpoints
• Point to the endpoint for which you want to run data collection and click Data Collection.
• Click Start.
• (Optional) Click Refresh to receive an updated message about the status of the data collection you initiated.
• Click Cancel to return to the Endpoints page
• There are seven different types of data collection:-
  • Infrastructure Source Endpoint Data Collection (Updates information about virtualization hosts, templates, and ISO images for virtualization environments. Updates virtual datacenters and templates for vCloud Director. Updates regions and machines provisioned on them for Amazon. Updates installed memory and CPU count for physical management interfaces.)
  • Inventory Data Collection (Updates the record of the virtual machines whose resource use is tied to a specific compute resource, including detailed information about the networks, storage, and virtual machines. This record also includes information about unmanaged virtual machines, which are machines provisioned outside of vRealize Automation.)
  • State Data Collection (Updates the record of the power state of each machine discovered through inventory data collection. State data collection also records missing machines that vRealize Automation manages but cannot be detected on the virtualization compute resource or cloud endpoint.)
  • Performance Data Collection (vSphere compute resources only) (Updates the record of the average CPU, storage, memory, and network usage for each virtual machine discovered through inventory data collection)
  • vCNS inventory data collection (vSphere compute resources only) (Updates the record of network and security data related to vCloud Networking and Security and NSX, particularly information about security groups and load balancing, for each machine following inventory data collection)
  • WMI data collection (Windows compute resources only) (Updates the record of the management data for each Windows machine. A WMI agent must be installed, typically on the Manager Service host, and enabled to collect data from Windows machines.)
  • Cost data collection (compute resources managed by vRealize Business Standard Edition only) (Updates the CPU, memory, and storage costs for each compute resource managed by vRealize Business Standard Edition. The costs of catalog items that can be provisioned by using the compute resources are updated.)

Perform resource monitoring tasks

Resource Monitoring Scenario	Privileges Required	Location
Monitor the amount of physical storage and memory on your compute resources that is currently being consumed and determine what amount remains free. You can also monitor the number of reserved and allocated machines provisioned on each compute resource	Fabric Administrator (monitor resource usage on compute resources in your fabric group)	Infrastructure > Compute Resources > Compute Resources
Monitor physical machines that are reserved for use but not yet provisioned.	Fabric Administrator	Infrastructure > Machines > Reserved Machines
Monitor machines that are currently provisioned and under vRealize Automation management	Fabric Administrator	Infrastructure > Machines > Managed Machines
Monitor the amount of storage, memory, and machine quota of your reservation that is currently allocated and determine the capacity that remains available to the reservation	Fabric Administrator (monitor resource usage for reservations on your compute resources and physical machines)	Infrastructure > Reservations > Reservations
Monitor the amount of storage, memory, and the machine quota that your business groups are currently consuming and determine the capacity that remains on reserve for them.	Tenant Administrator (monitor resource usage for all groups in your tenant)Business Group Manager (monitor resource usage for groups that you manage)	Infrastructure > Groups > Business Groups

Objective 5.2: Create and Manage Reservations

Create and Manage Reservations

• Before members of a business group can request machines, fabric administrators must allocate resources to them by creating a reservation.
• Each business group must have at least one reservation for its members to provision machines of that type.
• Log in to the vRealize Automation console as a fabric administrator
• A tenant administrator must create at least one business group
• Select Infrastructure > Reservations > Reservations
• Select New Reservation > Virtual and select the type of reservation you are creating
• (Optional) Select an existing reservation from the Copy from existing reservation drop-down menu.
• Data from the reservation you chose appears, and you can make changes as required for your new reservation
• Select a compute resource on which to provision machines from the Compute resource drop-down menu.
• Only templates located on the cluster you select are available for cloning with this reservation.
• The reservation name appears in the Name text box.
• Enter a name in the Name text box
• Select a tenant from the Tenant drop-down menu.
• Select a business group from the Business group drop-down menu.
  • Only users in this business group can provision machines by using this reservation
• (Optional) Select a reservation policy from the Reservation policy drop-down menu.
  • This option requires additional configuration. You must create a reservation policy
• (Optional) Type a number in the Machine quota text box to set the maximum number of machines that can be provisioned on this reservation.
  • Only machines that are powered on are counted towards the quota. Leave blank to make the reservation unlimited.
• Type a number in the Priority text box to set the priority for the reservation.
  • The priority is used when a business group has more than one reservation. A reservation with priority 1 is used for provisioning over a reservation with priority 2.
• (Optional) Deselect the Enable this reservation check box if you do not want this reservation active.
• (Optional) Add any custom properties

Specify Reservation Information

• A reservation is a share of provisioning resources allocated by the fabric administrator from a fabric group and reserved for use by a particular business group
• A virtual reservation is a share of the memory, CPU, networking, and storage resources of one compute resource allocated to a particular business group.
• Each reservation is for one business group. A business group can have multiple reservations on a single compute resource. A business group can also have multiple reservations on compute resources of different types.
• A physical reservation is a set of physical machines reserved for and available to a particular business group for provisioning.

Create and Manage a Cloud Reservation

• A cloud reservation provides access to the provisioning services of a cloud service account for a particular business group.
• A group can have multiple reservations on one endpoint or reservations on multiple endpoints.
• A reservation may also define policies, priorities, and quotas that determine machine placement.
• The reservation must be of the same platform type as the blueprint from which the machine was requested
• The reservation must be enabled
• The reservation must have capacity remaining in its machine quota or have an unlimited quota.
  • The allocated machine quota includes only machines that are powered on. For example, if a reservation has a quota of 50, and 40 machines have been provisioned but only 20 of them are powered on, the reservation’s quota is 40 percent allocated, not 80 percent
• The reservation must have the security groups specified in the machine request.
• The reservation must be associated with a region that has the machine image specified in the blueprint.
• For Amazon machines, the request specifies an availability zone and whether the machine is to be provisioned a subnet in a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) or a in a non-VPC location. The reservation must match the network type (VPC or non-VPC).
• If the cloud provider supports network selection and the blueprint has specific network settings, the reservation must have the same networks.
  • If the blueprint or reservation specifies a network profile for static IP address assignment, an IP address must be available to assign to the new machine.
• If the blueprint specifies a reservation policy, the reservation must belong to that reservation policy.
  • Reservation policies are a way to guarantee that the selected reservation satisfies any additional requirements for provisioning machines from a specific blueprint. For example, if a blueprint uses a specific machine image, you can use reservation policies to limit provisioning to reservations associated with the regions that have the required image.
• If no reservation is available that meets all of the selection criteria, provisioning fails.