Custom Naming and Matching Patterns

[jsauter42]

is there any way to programmatically add Matching Patterns to vRA 8.10 at request time?  The problem is our naming scheme allows only two digits at the end of a name and our patterns may likely be in the hundreds.   (Location Letters)-(OS Letter)(Environment Letter)-(project code)-(vmType Letter)##   example.. TDC-MP-ABC-A01  or RDC-LD-ABC-W01.    In vra 7 we used a package "Daily Hypervisor" that worked great.  

[jsauter42]

I can't be the only one that needs to do this.. am I?

[emacintosh]

We don't use the built in naming convention patterns.  Our naming convention relies on our external databases, so we set/overwrite the name during compute.allocation.pre with a vRO worklfow by setting the resourceNames array as an output.  You may be able to do the same.

That said, I'm not sure I fully understand the problem you're describing.  Are you saying you may need instance numbers in the 100s?  Or that you never will but the pattern may create instance in the 100s?  

[jsauter42]

Thank you for responding!! The later would be true with our environment.  If i don't manually add specific matching pattern for each new Location/type/project,  i will quickly be crossing the 2 digit number.  I guess it is not possible to pragammatically create and manage Matching Patterns.  What your doing could be my saving grace. I am gonna dig into using an outside workflow or tool to set the names and do a machine rename with vro.  Kind of a shame.  I will also need to update Infoblox dns assignment somewhere in that mess as well.  ugggg.   Thank you!

[jsauter42 · Accepted solution]

I found a way around my issue with having to manually add matching patterns.  I ended up removing the built in vmware custom naming all together and using this site "https://www.virtuallypotato.com/vra8-custom-provisioning-part-two/" to create a vro workflow to set a new name based on inputs and after verifying this name is available, it does a machine rename.  It works perfectly.