vCloud Director 5.1 - Guest OS Naming Automation

[haripadmam]

Hi, I wanted to know if we can automatically append 2 digit numeric to the VMs deployed through  vapp template (like we do in vCenter customization wizard "hostname{nn}").

Please clarify...

Thanks and Regards,

Hari.

[IamTHEvilONE]

I don't believe so with the default setup in vCloud Director.  you'd have to do some sort of automation on top of vCloud with Blocking tasks (create vapp) then you can rename them via the response to the blocked task.

i think there are some poses in this forum already about the same or similar topic using vCenter Orchestrator.    

[IamTHEvilONE]

see - https://communities.vmware.com/thread/459522

[qc4vmware]

I wrote some workflows in vCO that keeps a table of prefixes and last number used.  You can call out to it with a prefix and if the prefix is in the table already you get the next number in the series and if it doesn't exist it adds the prefix and you get back 0001 (or however many places you want the prefix to count up to).  I am just using configuration elements for this along with a lock.  It is working well.  We don't use blocking tasks as all of our deployments are initiated with a workflow since we have quite a bit of pre qualifying and post config that needs to happen in our environment and we hate the vCD gui for anything aside from an admin tool.  We do allow the vApp owners access to it post deployment with a locked down role that only allows them to power on/off the vApp and vms and launch a console.  Any way you slice it I think you will need to have vCO in the mix.

[haripadmam]

Thank you guys for the reply. Can you please confirm if the vCenter Orchestrator along will be enough to achieve this without blocking tasks (Rabbit MQ) requirement?

[mcfadyenj]

You will need the blocking tasks to intercept the creation events.

the instantiateVapp is likely to be the item you need to intercept.

you will need erlang and rabbitmq

This site shows how to install on a windows box

http://cloud.dzone.com/articles/how-setup-rabbitmq-amqp-vcloud

This page shows how to setup the blocking task.

http://blogs.vmware.com/orchestrator/tag/blocking-task

The trick to blocking tasks is understanding routing keys, there is a package from the vco group called notifications which assists with the configuration of blocking tasks. Not sure of the site sorry but you can't find it email me direct and i will send to you.

[haripadmam]

hello, thank you for your response. Finally I started setting up vCO and RabbitMQ. But I'm still concerned about the configuration and process. The package you are talking about is for integrating blocking task and vCO? or I can achieve my requirement even without that?

Thanks and Regards,

Hari.

[haripadmam]

Hello guys, We have installed blocking task (RabbitMQ) and orchestrator and working on the configuration. But I'm still very much confused about how the workflow will be triggered when the user try to create vApp from vCloud Director console? Can you please help me clarify this? When I surfed on internet everyone talking about custom scripting and code development. Is it really necessary?

Thanks and Regards,

Hari.