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Automating vSphere with VMware vCenter Orchestrator
- By Cody Bunch
- Published Mar 2, 2012 by VMware Press. Part of the VMware Press Technology series.
Book
- Sorry, this book is no longer in print.
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
Sample Content
Online Sample Chapter
Introduction to Workflow-Fu with VMware vCenter Orchestrator
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