Automating vSphere with VMware vCenter Orchestrator

Description

• Copyright 2012
• Dimensions: 7" x 9-1/8"
• Pages: 304
• Edition: 1st

• Book
• ISBN-10: 0-321-79991-7
• ISBN-13: 978-0-321-79991-3

Unleash the Power of vCenter Orchestrator to Automate Tasks and Improve Efficiency

Today, VMware administrators are responsible for far more infrastructure, servers, and services than ever before. To succeed, they must take full advantage of opportunities to automate and orchestrate their vSphere environments. In Automating vSphere with VMware vCenter Orchestrator, three-time vExpert Cody Bunch shows how to utilize VMware vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) 4.2 to achieve far higher levels of operational efficiency and effectiveness.

Bunch reveals what vCO can do, walks through each step of installation and configuration, explains how its “moving parts” work together, and thoroughly introduces both plug-ins and workflows. Building on this core knowledge, he presents several start-to-finish case studies showing how to use vCO to address real-world challenges ranging from provisioning to snapshots, cluster management to decommissioning.

Whatever your VMware virtualization environment, this book will help you do more with less, save time, eliminate errors, and improve both performance and reliability.

Coverage includes

• Understanding how vCO fits into your environment and identifying your best opportunities to use it
• Choosing the right installation scenario and efficiently managing the vCO installation process
• Configuring vCO: services, passwords, networking, LDAP, databases, SSL, licensing, plug-ins, backup, and more
• Interacting with vCO through actions, packages, plug-ins, web views, resources, and workflows
• Automating manual tasks with vCO’s extensive workflow library
• Creating sophisticated workflows with drag-and-drop components and JavaScript
• Using plug-ins to control infrastructure within and around your vSphere environment
• Bringing consistency to VM provisioning, overcoming “VM sprawl” and resource contention, and simplifying support
• Optimizing VM lifecycle management, all the way through decommissioning
• Automating all snapshot monitoring processes and components
• Exporting logs, finding/deleting orphaned files, and performing other day-to-day tasks
• Efficiently conducting mass VM migrations
• Quickly adding vCenter hosts and clusters, configuring shared storage, and adding hosts to new clusters
• Using vCO and third-party plug-ins to gain “private cloud” benefits and flexibility

Networking/Virtualization

vmware.com/go/vmwarepress

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Extras

Author's Site

Link to author site

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Sample Content

Table of Contents

Preface xv

Part I Introduction, Installation, and Configuration

Chapter 1 Introducing VMware vCenter Orchestrator 3

What Is VMware vCenter Orchestrator? 4

What Can vCenter Orchestrator Do? 5

Why Should You Use vCenter Orchestrator? 6

    Do More with Less 6

    Reduce the Risk of Human Error 7

    Save Time 7

Who Should Use vCenter Orchestrator? 9

    Snapshot Maintenance 9

    Virtual Machine Lifecycle 10

When Should You Use vCenter Orchestrator? 11

Where Does vCenter Orchestrator Fit? 11

How to Get Started 13

Summary 13

Chapter 2 Installing vCenter Orchestrator 15

vCenter Orchestrator Installation Types 16

    Installing vCO Alongside vCenter Server 16

    Installing vCenter Orchestrator as a Standalone Server 19

    Separating the vCO from the vCO Database 22

    Installation Type Comparison 24

vCenter Orchestrator Installation 24

    Obtain the Installation Files 26

    Extract the Install Files and Open .\vCenter-Server\vCO\ 26

    Run vCenterOrchestrator.exe 27

    Agree to the License 27

    Choose the Install Directory 28

    Select the Install Type 28

    Select the Location for Shortcuts 28

    Install 30

The vCO Client 30

Summary 32

Chapter 3 Configuring vCenter Orchestrator 33

Starting the vCO Web Configuration Service 34

Changing the Default vCO Configuration Service Password 34

Configuring Networking 36

Configuring LDAP 37

    Find Your LDAP Path 38

    Fill In the Form 40

Database Configuration 41

Configuring SSL 43

    Secure vCenter Communications 43

    Configure the vCO Host Certificate 44

Licensing the vCO Server 45

Plug-In Configuration 46

    Provide Plug-In Credentials 46

    Enable Plug-Ins for vCO Startup 46

    Install Additional Plug-Ins 47

Installing vCO as a Service 48

Backing Up the vCO Configuration 49

Summary 50

Part II Working with vCenter Orchestrator

Chapter 4 Identifying the Moving Parts 53

Actions 53

    Create an Action 55

    Duplicate an Action 55

    Import/Exp

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