6 Replies Latest reply on Nov 12, 2019 8:57 AM by Czernobog

    vRA 8 - Extensibility and VM Properties

    Czernobog Hot Shot
    Czernobog Oct 25, 2019 7:11 AM

      Is there any in-depth documentation on how to pass properties to vRO, when an Event is triggered. The very poor official documentation:

      Writing Workflow and Action Code for vRealize Automation Cloud Assembly

      just says to pass the payload to vRO, like you do with vRA 7. However no payload object of the Property type is pased to vRO. The only thing I get is a bunch of attributes, with _metadata* as a prefix in the name. There are no machine properties and, as there are no custom proeprties in vRA 8, I do not know how I could force vRA to pass those to a vRO workflow.

       

      Also - in vRA 7, to test a subscription, I could just configure an event subscription that would be triggered on each event topic (Condition -> run for all events). This was really helpful when learning which parameters get passed with each topic. AFIAK there is no way to configure an "any" Event in vRA 8 - or is there?

        • 1. Re: vRA 8 - Extensibility and VM Properties
          DLally Enthusiast
          DLally Nov 4, 2019 6:38 AM (in response to Czernobog)

          I'm a bit surprised that this is still unanswered due to the massive headache it was to initially deploy and use vcac.  I would have hoped documentation would be improved.  

          • 2. Re: vRA 8 - Extensibility and VM Properties
            haloOne Novice
            haloOne Nov 5, 2019 2:55 PM (in response to DLally)

            use "inputProperties" as your vro WF input, i was getting the same thing until i used that.

            1 person found this helpful
            • 3. Re: vRA 8 - Extensibility and VM Properties
              itrudeau Novice
              itrudeau Nov 7, 2019 5:10 AM (in response to haloOne)

              Hello Group

               

              I have the same issue, I was not able to grab the blueprint input value from the payload with inputProperties input with type properties.

               

              I getting only the custom properties values list bellow in the vro log tabs:

               

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00info__item_stack:/item1

               

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00infocustomProperties[

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00infohostname:none

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00infoimageRef:tmpl-win2019

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00info]

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00infocomponentId:vSphere_Machine

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00infocomponentTypeId:Cloud.vSphere.Machine

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00inforequestId:82738b32-f600-423e-85ed-a901843c12c9

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00infodeploymentId:53b350a6-77a2-42c2-920d-3853f6ea8955

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00infoplacementIds:f8c36a95-2829-476f-8a91-332c6667bbf1-64f403ad807c38755956c5d93c830

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00infoprojectId:f8c36a95-2829-476f-8a91-332c6667bbf1

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00infoblueprintId:9e969c25-ff66-43a1-8caa-49db4553faab

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00inforesourceIds:8698b4e2f1f50e755969c19f0cf70

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00infotags[

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00info]

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00infoHashMap:1513203023

              2019-11-05 11:43:56.000 -05:00info__item_stack:/item0

               

              Is there a way to get the value of the blueprint input like :

               

              inputs:

                environment:

                  type: string

                  default: none

                location:

                  type: string

                 default: none

                workload:

                  type: string

                  default: none

                cluster:

                  type: string

                  default: none

                tier:

                  type: string

                  default: none

                network:

                  type: string

                  default: none

               

               

              • 4. Re: vRA 8 - Extensibility and VM Properties
                haloOne Novice
                haloOne Nov 7, 2019 5:39 AM (in response to itrudeau)

                Did you add it to your blueprint properties ?

                 

                ex.

                  Cloud_vSphere_Machine_1:

                    type: Cloud.vSphere.Machine

                    properties:

                      environment: '${input.envoirnment}'

                      location: '${input.location}

                      workload: '${input.workload}

                1 person found this helpful
                • 5. Re: vRA 8 - Extensibility and VM Properties
                  itrudeau Novice
                  itrudeau Nov 7, 2019 5:47 AM (in response to haloOne)

                  hello haloOne.

                   

                  Actualy you're right they are not part of the vSphere.Machine but only in the contraints/tag.

                   

                  If you look at the YAML

                   

                  vSphere_Machine:

                      type: Cloud.vSphere.Machine

                      properties:

                        imageRef: 'tmpl-win2019-${input.cluster}'

                        cpuCount: '${input.cpuCount}'

                        totalMemoryMB: '${input.totalMemoryMB}'

                        hostname: '${input.hostname}'

                        networks:

                          - network: '${resource.Cloud_vSphere_Network_1.id}'

                        constraints:

                          - tag: 'rp:${input.cluster}-${input.tier}'

                          - tag: 'env:${input.environment}'

                          - tag: 'location:${input.location}'

                   

                   

                  I will to push in the properties.

                   

                  Thank you to pointing it out.

                   

                  Regards.

                  • 6. Re: vRA 8 - Extensibility and VM Properties
                    Czernobog Hot Shot
                    Czernobog Nov 12, 2019 8:57 AM (in response to haloOne)

                    Can confirm this works - use inputProperties of type Properties as input and parse it with for in, here's a sample output:

                     

                    2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFOaddresses:10.9.5.12
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFOcomponentId:Cloud_vSphere_Machine_1
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFOendpointId:5f9de3a1e499ea755957ee7ddc511
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFOexternalIds:50086956-222a-0550-454c-ecbfee8c07a2
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFOblueprintId:0b3be186-630a-4e30-88a7-60680e7fab36
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFOtags[
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFO]
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFOresourceNames:Quickstart project-005
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFOcustomProperties[
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFO  provisionGB:20
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFO  softwareName:CentOS 4/5 or later (64-bit)
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFO  osType:LINUX
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFO  datacenter:Datacenter:datacenter-2
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFO  imageRef:cent_tmpl
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFO  datastoreName:DS9-D01
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFO  memoryGB:1
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFO  vcUuid:1c902f4e-6a6f-45c9-8301-56336a58fe3d
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFO]
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFOcomponentTypeId:Cloud.vSphere.Machine
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFOrequestId:458a4698-0a4d-4b41-b388-eefcc8e0d093
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFOdeploymentId:d9a2e7cd-6686-42f9-a7b8-266f8c66dccb
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFOzoneId:5f9de3a1e499ea755957ef35c4268
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFOprojectId:8b3bdf6a-9b4f-42c2-a6b7-ed25034c8a79
2019-11-12 17:02:23.000 +01:00INFOresourceIds:bfb567677e4923b5

                     

                    I did not monitor the thread, while I was at VMworld last week, but I have asked an expert the question there and got the same result =)

                     

                    edit: the custom properties:

                    resources:

                      Cloud_vSphere_Machine_1:

                         ...etc

                    were already pre-created in the quickstart project.

                    1 person found this helpful