VMware : Validated Solutions – January 2022 Update

The festive season is over, new year's resolutions are in full swing and hears January's update on VMware Validated Solutions. We didn't provide an update in December as taking time out and spending downtime with our families is crucial for our mental wellbeing and so the last update was back in November, if you remember in that update the focus was around extending the automation across the board and with January's update this is still a primary focus for us. Highlights for this update include:

• Additional support for VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell VxRail
• Additional automation across solutions based on the PowerValidatedSolutions v1.3.0 release

Added Support for VMware Cloud Foundation 4.3.0 / 4.3.1 on VxRail

Delighted to announce support for the following Validated Solutions running on Dell VxRail based systems in addition to vSAN Ready Nodes.

• Site Protection and Disaster Recovery for VMware Cloud Foundation

Intelligent Logging and Analytics for VMware Cloud Foundation Updates

Implementation

Added PowerValidatedSolutions automation to the following procedures based on PowerValidatedSolutions v1.3.0:

• Create Alerts in vRealize Log Insight (Add-vRLIAlertVirtualMachine and Add-vRLIAlertDatacenter)

Intelligent Operations Management for VMware Cloud Foundation Updates

Implementation

Added PowerValidatedSolutions automation to the following procedures based on PowerValidatedSolutions v1.3.0:

• Configure User Access in vRealize Operations Manager (Import-vROPSUserGroup)
• Configure Email Alert Plug-in Settings for vRealize Operations Manager (Add-vROPSAlertPluginEmail)
• Install the SDDC Health Monitoring Solution in vRealize Operations Manager (Enable-vROPSManagementPack)
• Rename the SDDC Health Adapters for the vRealize Operations Manager Analytics Cluster Nodes (Update-vROPSAdapterSddcHealth)
• Add SDDC Health Adapters for the vRealize Operations Manager Remote Collector Nodes (Add-vROPSAdapterSddcHealth)
• Activate the Ping Management Pack in vRealize Operations Manager (Register-vROPSManagementPack)
• Add Ping Adapters for the vRealize Operations Manager Nodes (Add-vROPSAdapterPing)
• Create Notifications in vRealize Operations Manager for VMware Cloud Foundation Issues (Import-vROPSNotification)

Private Cloud Automation for VMware Cloud Foundation Updates

Implementation

Focused on adding automation across the implementation procedure based on PowerValidatedSolutions v1.3.0.

• Create a Virtual Machine and Template Folder and a Resource Pool for the vRealize Automation-Managed Workloads on the VI Workload Domain vCenter Server (Add-VMFolder and Add-ResourcePool)
• Configure the Organization Name for vRealize Automation (Update-vRAOrganizationDisplayName)
• Add Cloud Accounts for the VI Workload Domains to vRealize Automation (New-vRACloudAccount)
• Configure the Cloud Zones in vRealize Automation (Update-vRACloudAccountZone)
• Import the Trusted Certificates to vRealize Orchestrator (Add-vROTrustedCertificate)
• Restrict the vRealize Automation and vRealize Orchestrator Service Accounts Access to Virtual Machine and Datastore Folders in the VI Workload Domain (Set-vCenterPermission)
• Configure Email Alerts in Service Broker (Add-vRANotification)
• Configure Service Account Permissions for the vRealize Automation to NSX-T Data Center Integration on the VI Workload Domain NSX Manager Cluster (Add-NsxtVidmRole)
• Add the VI Workload Domain vCenter Server to vRealize Orchestrator (Add-vROvCenterServer)
• Assign Organization and Service Roles to the vRealize Operations Manager Service Account in vRealize Automation (Add-vRAUser)
• Assign Organization and Service Roles to the Groups for vRealize Automation (Add-vRAGroup)

Developer Ready Infrastructure for VMware Cloud Foundation Updates

Implementation

Updates to the following procedures based on PowerValidatedSolutions v1.3.0.

Site Protection and Disaster Recovery for VMware Cloud Foundation Updates

Implementation

Focused on adding automation across the implementation procedure based on PowerValidatedSolutions v1.3.0.

• Create Anti-Affinity Rules for the Placeholder Virtual Machines in the Recovery VMware Cloud Foundation Instance (Add-AntiAffinityRule)
• Create Virtual Machine Groups and Restart Order in the Recovery VMware Cloud Foundation Instance (Add-ClusterGroup and Add-VmStartupRule)

General Availability of PowerValidatedSolutions v1.3.0

I'm delighted to share the release of PowerValidatedSolutions v1.3.0 (https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/PowerValidatedSolutions/1.3.0), this is our PowerShell module that we've developed to deliver a consistent, robust and repeatable way of installing and configuring VMware Validated Solutions. Here's a list of what's changed (this and previous updates can be tracked by reading the CHANGELOG.md file stored in the Git Hub repository (https://github.com/vmware-samples/power-validated-solutions-for-cloud-foundation):

Fixes

• Fixed New-vRSLCMLockerLicense cmdlet where depending on the speed of the system the license would be added but POST_VALIDATION would fail.

Enhancements

• Enhanced all Identity and Access Management Solution cmdlets for better error handling and message output.
• Enhanced all vRealize Operations Manager cmdlets for better error handling and message output.
• Enhanced all vRealize Log Insight cmdlets for better error handling and message output.
• Enhanced all vRealize Automation cmdlets for better error handling and message output.
• Enhanced Set-vCenterPermission cmdlet to set permissions on non-nested folders.
• Enhanced Enable-SupervisorCluster cmdlet with better pre-validation.
• Renamed Add-NsxtVidmGroupRole cmdlet to Add-NsxtVidmRole, to add support for assigning both users and groups roles in NSX-T Data Center.

New

• Added Add-ResourcePool cmdlet to create a resource pool in the Workload Domain specified.
• Added Undo-ResourcePool cmdlet to remove a resource pool based on the Workload Domain specified.
• Added Update-vRAOrganizationDisplayName cmdlet to configure the Organization Display Name in vRealize Automation.
• Added Add-vROPSAdapterPing cmdlet to add a Ping Adapter to vRealize Operations Manager
• Added Enable-vROPSManagementPack cmdlet to upload and install the SDDC Health Management Pack to vRealize Operations Manager
• Added Update-vROPSAdapterSddcHealth cmdlet to rename the SDDC Health Adapters in vRealize Operations Manager
• Added Add-vROPSAdapterSddcHealth cmdlet to add SDDC Health Adapters for the Remote Collectors in vRealize Operations Manager
• Added Add-vROPSAlertPluginEmail cmdlet to add an Email Alert Plugin to vRealize Operations Manager
• Added Register-vROPSManagementPack cmdlet to activate / deactivate Native Management Packs in vRealize Operations Manager
• Added Import-vROPSUserGroup cmdlet to import a user group and assign access in vRealize Operations Manager
• Added Add-vROvCenterServer cmdlet to add a workload domain vCenter Server instance to the embedded vRealize Orchestrator.
• Added Remove-vROvCenterServer cmdlet to remove a workload domain vCenter Server instance from the embedded vRealize Orchestrator.
• Added Add-vROTrustedCertificate cmdlet to import a trusted certificate to the embedded vRealize Orchestrator using a PEM-encoded file.
• Added Import-vROPSNotification cmdlet to import notifications using comma separated value file to vRealize Operations Manager.
• Added Add-vRANotification cmdlet to configure the smtp notification settings in vRealize Automation.
• Added New-vRACloudAccount cmdlet to add Cloud Accounts for a Workload Domains vCenter Server and NSX Management Cluster in vRealize Automation.
• Added Undo-vRACloudAccount cmdlet to remove the Cloud Accounts for a Workload Domains vCenter Server and NSX Management Cluster in vRealize Automation.
• Added Update-vRACloudAccountZone cmdlet to update the configuration of the Cloud Account Zone for a Workload Domain in vRealize Automation.
• Added Add-vRAUser cmdlet to add an organization role and a service role to a user account in vRealize Automation.
• Added Undo-vRAUser cmdlet to remove an organization role and all service roles from a user account in vRealize Automation.
• Added Add-vRAGroup cmdlet to add an organization role and a service role to a group in vRealize Automation.
• Added Undo-vRAGroup cmdlet to remove an organization role and all service roles from a group account in vRealize Automation.
• Added Undo-IdentitySource cmdlet to remove an Identity Provider from vCenter Server.
• Added Undo-SddcManagerRole cmdlet to remove access for a user in SDDC Manager.
• Added Add-SsoUser cmdlet to add a Single Sign-On domain user.
• Added New-vRSLCMDatacenter cmdlet to add a datacenter in vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager.
• Added Undo-vRSLCMDatacenter cmdlet to remove a datacenter from vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager.
• Added New-vRSLCMDatacenterVcenter cmdlet to add a vCenter Server to a datacenter in vRealize Lifecycle Manager.
• Added Export-WSAJsonSpec cmdlet to generate the deployment JSON for Clustered Workspace ONE Access.
• Added New-WSADeployment cmdlet to trigger the deployment of Clustered Workspace ONE Access via vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager.
• Added Add-WorkspaceOneDirectoryConnector cmdlet to add a connector to the Identity Provider in Workspace ONE Access.
• Added Add-vRLIAlertDatacenter cmdlet to create vRealize Log Insight alerts by datacenter.
• Added Add-vRLIAlertVirtualMachine cmdlet to create vRealize Log Insight alerts by virtual machine
• Added Undo-vRLIAlert cmdlet to remove alerts from vRealize Log Insight.
• Added Sample Notification Templates in the SampleNotifications folder:
  • vrli-vcf-datacenter.json defines the vRealize Log Insight alerts that should be configured for VMware Cloud Foundation at the datacenter level
  • vrli-vcf-vmVrslcm.json defines the vRealize Log Insight alerts that should be configured for vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager
• Added Sample Scripts in the SampleScriptsiom folder, each script uses the Planning and Preparation Workbook as the input source:
  • iomDeployVrealizeOperations.ps1 automates the install and config of vRealize Operations for Intelligent Operations Management for VMware Cloud Foundation.
  • iomConfigureVrealizeOperations.ps1 automates the integration config of vRealize Operations for Intelligent Operations Management for VMware Cloud Foundation.