vRA, vRO, vSphere integration, where to run the workflows from

[flynmooney]

What's everyone doing to integrate vRA, vRO and vSphere together for automating tasks that you would typically run in vCenter web client?  Do you integrate and run workflows in the web client?  Do you manage these in vRA and have catalog items / actions?  Just looking for what some others are doing. 

[parmarr]

To connect vRO 7 to vCenter, you use a workflow now, check Under \Library\vCenter\Configuration

- Add a vCenter Server instance <-- This workflow sets up vRO to allow vRO to do things to vCenter.

- Register vCenter Orchestrator as a vCenter Server extension <- This workflow tells vCenter that Orchestrator is available to run workflows. This is important for vSphere Web Client integration of Orchestrator. Note: vRO and vCenter MUST use the same SSO source and the user logged into the vSphere Web Client must be a member of the vRO Admins group you have specified for Orchestrator.

To connect vRO 7 to vCenter, you use a workflow now, check Under \Library\vCenter\Configuration

- Add a vCenter Server instance <-- This workflow sets up vRO to allow vRO to do things to vCenter.

- Register vCenter Orchestrator as a vCenter Server extension <- This workflow tells vCenter that Orchestrator is available to run workflows. This is important for vSphere Web Client integration of Orchestrator. Note: vRO and vCenter MUST use the same SSO source and the user logged into the vSphere Web Client must be a member of the vRO Admins group you have specified for Orchestrator.

If your vCenter is already added as an endpoint to vRA, see the below recommended documentation:

vRealize Orchestrator Integration in vRealize Automation

https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Automation/7.0/com.vmware.vrealize.automation.doc/GUID-F95DBE51-...

Using the vRealize Automation Plug-In Administration Workflows

https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Automation/7.0/com.vmware.using.vra.plugin.doc_70/GUID-85CB676E-...

[daphnissov]

That's not what OP is asking for, parmarr​. They want to know practical use cases for automating vSphere-level tasks either in the web client or vRA.

To answer the initial question, I've seen people do both. Things like datastore creation and expansion I've seen driven through vRA as XaaS. Other things like mass snapshot removal and vMotion I've seen as a workflow integrated into the Flex (web) client. It really depends what you're doing, if that's something that should be automated, and if it truly needs to be delivered as a service, i.e. if you want a separate set of access controls for it versus what vCenter administrators can already perform.

[flynmooney]

Thanks @daphnissov, that's more of what I was looking for.  We are already doing quite a bit of service related items through vRA and vRO with VM builds and other services.  What I'm looking it is with our UCS environment and vSphere where to automate this.  I'll be building the workflows in vRO but haven't committed to run these from vRA or in the Flex client.  To me I'd like to run these UCS and vSphere workflows in the flex client but am getting some kickback from other members in my group that want to run them all as XAAS in vRA.  As far as I know all of these workflows would be for us in our group which would already have this access in vCenter as admins.  A

An example would be to add a new vlan in a DV Switch.  What I'd like to see is, in the flex client to right click on the DV Switch you want to add the vlan to and run the vRO workflow which would then add the vlan in VMware along with adding the vlan to our 3 UCS domains and the all related vnics.  Similar workflows would be to add space to a volume or a new volume and the workflow would go out and provision/change in NetApp.

[Hejahida82]

Just to add my personal view to the answer from daphnissov​. It also depends on what your vRA/vRO/vCenter infrastructure looks like. Remember vRO can only take one type of authentication, and for using vRO with vRA it is recommended to use vRA as the authentication method. To use vRO with the vSphere Web Client so that you can right click and launch workflows you need to use vSphere authentication (or vCenter SSO I can't remember what is is called) as the method in vRO. This suggests that you really want two separate instances of vRO if you need to run workflows from within the vSphere web client and XaaS from vRA.

Personally I use vRA XaaS, you get more options to customise the request form, you can track the requests that have been submitted better and also use approvals if you need to. Plus it gives you a single entry point for all tasks, I appreciate you say the team already has admin access to vCenter but using vRA means you could in the future delegate those tasks to other people (if needed) without giving access to vCenter.

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer, just opinions and positives/negatives for each option.