Do I need an infinite number of flavor mappings?

[jimmyvandermast]

In vRA 7 we have blueprints with a Custom Form that allows to set both CPU and Memory.
CPU ranges from 2 to 8 in increments of 2, memory ranges from 2048 (k) to 32768 in steps of 256.

This was easy in vRA 7.

When I migrate, or rebuild, this in vRA 8, they are converted to "inputs" and those inputs are then referenced in the "resources".
This then seems to be fine when we use this in the Custom Form.
However, when attempting to deploy with e.g. 2 CPU and 2048MB RAM, vRA 8 says:
"Cannot find matching flavors for instance: CPU: 2 and Memory: 2048 MB"
Which I can understand, because there is no such flavor, yet.

However, since I can select many cpu count and and mem count, should I then have about 4x120=480 different flavor mappings??

[xian_]

Use either flavor or cpuCount + totalMemoryMB properties on your machine resource.

[jimmyvandermast]

I agree partially on "Use either flavor or cpuCount + totalMemoryMB properties on your machine resource".

As long as I don't have ANY flavors defined under Cloud Assembly - Infrastructure - Flavor Mappings, it works.
But as soon as I have just one flavor, even without changing anything in the Cloud Template, it fails.

As far as I see, you cannot use flavor mapping for one Cloud Template and use another Cloud Template without having flavors.

So to be precise, you can only use cpuCount + totalMemoryMB as long as no flavor is defined at all.

[xian_ · Accepted solution]

You I right, just found in Learn more about flavor mappings in vRealize Automation :

With regard to image mapping in cloud templates that contain vSphere resources, if there are no flavor mappings defined for a vSphere cloud zone, you can configure unlimited memory and CPU by using vSphere-specific settings in the cloud template. If there are flavor mappings defined for a vSphere cloud zone, the flavor mapping serves as a limit for vSphere-specific configurations in the cloud template.

[xian_]

Strange this is that I never faced this limitation yet. I have couple of flavor mappings and thought that I always hit one of them with cpu and memory values. So I decided to update my test template to have a combination without matching flavor.

Contrary to the documentation the deployment succeeded with the custom values. So I'm not sure what the truth is here, or why does it work for me and does not work for you...

[jimmyvandermast]

@xian_  are your flavors related to the same cloud?

Since I am now working in a lab with just one vCenter as one cloud, the flavor mapping that I created is for the same cloud as the template uses for the actual deployment. I can imagine that the deployment only "conflicts" with flavors that point to the same cloud? So perhaps in your case, it works if you have a template that deploys to AWS while having flavor mappings on a different vCenter?

Basically, that what the vmware page says here: "If there are flavor mappings defined for a vSphere cloud zone, the flavor mapping serves as a limit for vSphere-specific configurations in the cloud template."

[xian_]

I have 3 cloud zones and all are vSphere clusters.

The cluster I'm testing do have flavors. Some flavors exist only in one cluster, others in two clusters, ...

So - based on the documentation - it should conflict. If I check the provisioning diagram, I can see vRA tries to match the flavor and no match found, but that does not prevent allocation to continue:

[jimmyvandermast]

I only have one vCenter, one Cloud Template with selectable CPU and Mem counts.
That works as long as I have no Flavor mappings at all.
As soon as I add one flavor mapping (which does not match what I select during the request), the Flavor mapping cannot match and fails.
See my image. (for some reason, insert image does not work here, so I attached it)

[jimmyvandermast]

With one Flavor:

With no Flavors:

[Christiankkcc]

Hi guys,

Just to clarify, you can't have custom cpuCound or totalMemoryMB inputs if you have flavors in your flavor mappings?

I'm a bit confused why @xian_  is able to do both.

Thanks in advance