Prepared By: Akmal Waheed @akmal_waheed

Challenge 3: Orchestration and Automation

Table of Contents

1. Overview

a. Background

b. Requirement

c. Home Lab Setup

d. vCenter Server Orchestrator

2. Part. 1

a. Conceptual Workflow

b. Actual Workflow

c. Workflow Documentation

3. Part. 2

a. Conceptual Workflow

b. Actual Workflow

c. Workflow Documentation

4. Part. 3

a. Conceptual Workflow

b. Actual Workflow

c. Workflow Documentation

5. Conclusion

Overview

It’s time to automate the day to day vCenter Server’s administration tasks. A proper automation

helps users to save time, avoid manual errors and makes things more simple and clean.

Background:

We have been given a task where we have to automate and orchestrate 3 tasks in our own home

lab setup. It is up to us to choose the automation product but the given tasks need to complete

and the workflows created should be functional.

Requirement:

As mention, the three requirements are summarized below

Part.1: An automation workflows for a server deployment into a virtual data center. Must include

a Windows server and an alternate OS such as RedHat, CentOS, Ubuntu or a Linux alternative.

Part.2: An application workflow to deploy a web server into each of the servers from Part 1, and

within each web server you will deploy a “Hello World” application using any programming

language.

Part.3: An orchestration workflow to publish an application or server to a cloud environment

which could include vCloud, vCHS, AWS, Rackspace or a public or hybrid cloud environment.

Home Lab Setup:

I have an assembled desktop with not so high configuration, as summarized below

Hardware Specifications:

Attribute Specification

Processor AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor, 4000 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 16.0 GB

BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 1302, 11/14/2012

OS Name Microsoft Windows 8 Enterprise Evaluation

Version 6.2.9200 Build 9200

HDD Size 1 TB

Software Specifications:

Attribute Specification

Hosted Virtualization Vmware Workstation 9

Host ESXi 5.1 Build - 1065491

Management vCenter Server 5.1

Automation vCenter Server Orchestrator

Cloud vCloud Director 5.1 (incomplete Setup)

DC Windows Server 2012

VMs for test Server 2008 R2, RHEL 6 worksation and Server Edition, Windows 7

All the ESXi hosts are running with same build and with local storage only. The vCloud Director is

an Appliance which is deployed for testing purpose to fulfil one of the requirement. When

vCenter Server is installed, it silently install vCenter Server Orchestrator. vCenter Server, vCenter

Server Orchestrator and vCloud Director is using bundled SQL 2008 Express Database Edition.

Domain Controller is configured on Server 2012. To fulfil the mentioned requirements, I am

using Windows Server 2008 R2 and RHEL 6 Server Edition. Also, Windows 7 and RHEL 6

Workstation Edition is also deployed. Here is how the Lab environment looks

Due to the unavailability of shared storage, several vCenter Distributed features are not enabled.

Lab video available at

http://youtu.be/n-dGb1SWLHM

Part 1:

An automation workflows for a server deployment into a virtual data center. Must include a

Windows server and an alternate OS such as RedHat, CentOS, Ubuntu or a Linux alternative.

I would be deploying Windows Server 2008 and RHEL 6 automatically using vCenter Server

Orchestrator. I have prepared two Gold Virtual Machines which would be cloned for automatic

Server Deployments. Here are the steps

1. Separate Workflows created to clone the Gold Virtual Machines. One for Windows Virtual

Machine and second for RHEL Virtual Macine. If the Workflow is run, it will only ask for

New Virtual Machine name, remaining all the inputs are configured as attributes.

2. To make this workflow simpler for users, both the Workflows are combined using a

simple scriptable task and a decision making object. The script just maps the entered

Virtual Machine name to respective cloning Workflow and the Decision making object

select the appropriate cloning Workflow depending on the selection, i.e., Windows or

Linux.

3. The combined Workflow required just 2 inputs, Guest Operating type and the new Virtual

Machine name and it will automatically deploy the Virtual Machine on the Virtual Data

Center.

4. This workflow will clone the Gold Virtual Machine and deploy new Virtual Machine under

Cloned Virtual Machines folder and on the vdm-GoldImages Datastore.

Find the detailed information about Workflow on the below PDF (Part1)

Adobe Acrobat

Document

Please find the video for Part 1

http://youtu.be/i_98sKcb3Tg

Part 2:

An application workflow to deploy a web server into each of the servers from Part 1, and within

each web server you will deploy a “Hello World” application using any programming language.

Conceptual Workflow

To deploy WebServer on Server 2008 R2, we need to install the Internet Information Server (IIS)

Role from Server Manager. This can be automated by several ways, we could use a script to

install or push some commands.

I am using below command to install the default feature of IIS 7.0 through Package Manager

“start /w pkgmgr /iu:IIS-WebServerRole;WAS-WindowsActivationService;WAS-ProcessModel;

WAS-NetFxEnvironment;WAS-ConfigurationAPI”

This command is taken from the below MS link

http://www.iis.net/learn/install/installing-iis-7/installing-iis-from-the-command-line

I am following the below steps:

1. Copy the above command in notepad and save it as win.bat.

2. Create a vCenter Orchestrator Workflow to copy the file from local machine to target

machine (Windows Server 2008).

3. Create another Workflow to run this batch file which will configure the IIS.

Similar steps would be followed on RHEL 6 Server to deploy WebServer.

Actual Workflow:

1. Created batch file with the name win.bat.

2. The file is copied from VCO local machine to Cloned Windows Server 2008 (Windows-

Final) using the below Workflow.

3. Second Workflow is created to run the batch file in the Windows-Final Virtual Machine

which will configure WebServer.

4. Create final Workflow and combine both the Workflow to automate the complete task.

Similarly, for RHEL 6, the perl script can be prepared to download the httpd package and start

the httpd service and same Workflow can be used to deploy. Find the detailed information about

Workflow on the below PDF (Part2),

Adobe Acrobat

Document

Please find the video for Part 2

http://youtu.be/WJVXGG7lLl8

Part. 3

Create an orchestration workflow to publish an application or server to a cloud environment

which could include vCloud, vCHS, AWS, Rackspace or a public or hybrid cloud environment.

Conceptual Workflow

I am going ahead with the Workflow which will publish the Server to vCloud Director. As per the

requirement, we need to deploy a vCloud Director Private Cloud to demonstrate this task. Below

are the steps to accomplish this task

1. Deploy vCloud Director Appliance and configure it.

2. Install the vCloud Director Plugin for vCenter Server Orchestrator. Which comes with lot

of default Workflows and Actions.

3. The Workflow which is created will clone a Virtual Machine and transform that Virtual

Machine into a vApp. Two Workflows are used, one to clone (Same Workflow used in the

first task) and then Second to Import VM as vApp. The Second Workflow “Import VM as

vApp” is the default Workflow which got added with vCloud Director Plugin.

4. After the successful completion of the Workflow, a New Virtual Machine is create with

the clone process and deployed on to the vCloud Director’s Catalog as vApp.

I was not able to setup the vCloud Director completely in my home lab setup as I realized lately

that I am running out of resources and time. Hence, I wouldn’t be able to demonstrate the

complete process of publishing. However, I would try to demonstrate as much I could on the

vCenter Orchestrator workflow created.

Find the detailed information about Workflow on the below PDF (Part3)

Adobe Acrobat

Document

Please find the video for Part 3

http://youtu.be/vkqTWSTflgA

Conclusion:

With the above three tasks, it can be concluded that vCenter Orchestrator is very stable, user

friendly Automation product which can be used to automate everyday work and save lot of time.

There are more than 300 Workflow available within the VCO Library and more Workflows would

be added as when you install new Plugins. This Automation Tool comes along with the vCenter

Server Suite and gets installed silently and it doesn’t need much scripting knowledge and by

combining multiple Workflows more complicated tasks could be easily achieved. Someone

rightly said it is an “Undiscovered Country”.