Deploying an OVA or OVF from vCAC 6.1

[tperrySov]

While I believe I know the answer, I have a need to be able to deploy a third party customers OVA or OVF instead of cloning a template via vCAC.     Of course the ideal situation would be all of the variables from the OVA would become custom properties.

The only work around I can come up with is deploy the ova, write custom configuration scripts for the application, convert to template, deploy via clone, run the config scripts, etc.   Of course this is not optimal.

Anyone have any thoughts? 

Thanks,

Tim

[abhilashhb]

That's the only way that even i can think of doing it.

[bigDavefromTren]

Having the same issue....trying to manage all my .ova (appliance) deployments within vRA 6.2.  Can we deploy/enable Application Services (formerly vCD)?  I know the Upload functionality of OVA/OVF was available in vCD.

BigD

[sbeaver]

I ended up using the ovftool on a proxy machine from the command line to deploy appliances and that worked out pretty well for me

Here is an example of something I used to deploy vCO using a powershell script and the ovftool

var output;

var session;

var appliance;

var psScript = ''

psScript +='##############################################################\n';

psScript +='# Stephen Beaver\n';

psScript +='# PowerShell  script to deploy Virtual Appliance\n';

psScript +='# Version 1.0 - 10/22/2013\n';

psScript +='##############################################################\n';

psScript +='\n';

psScript +='# Configurations\n';

psScript +='\n';;;

psScript +='# vCO OVF\n';

psScript +='$VCO_OVA="E:\\Orchestrator\\VMware vCenter Orchestrator 5.5 Appliance Template.ova"\n';

psScript +='$OVFTOOL_BIN="C:\\Program Files\\VMware\\VMware OVF Tool\\ovftool.exe"\n';

psScript +='# e.g. 10.10.10.10/24\n';

psScript +='$VCO_DISPLAY_NAME="'+ DISPLAY + '"\n';

psScript +='$VCO_HOSTNAME="' + VCOHOSTNAME + '"\n';

psScript +='$VCO_PORTGROUP="' + PORTGROUP + '"\n';

psScript +='$VCO_DATASTORE="'+ DATASTORE+ '"\n';

psScript +='$VCO_DISK_TYPE="thick"\n';

psScript +='$VCO_IPADDRESS="'+ IPADDRESS + '"\n';

psScript +='$VCO_NETMASK="'+ NETMASK +'"\n';

psScript +='$VCO_GATEWAY="'+ GATEWAY +'"\n';

psScript +='$VCO_DNS="1.1.1.1,2.2.2.2"\n';

psScript +='$VCO_IPPROTOCOL="IPv4"\n';

psScript +='\n';

psScript +='# vCenter or ESX(i)\n';

psScript +='$VCENTER_HOSTNAME="'+ VCHOSTNAME + '"\n';

psScript +='$VCENTER_USERNAME="' + USERNAME + '"\n';

psScript +='$VCENTER_PASSWORD="' + PASSWORD + '"\n';

psScript +='$ESXI_HOSTNAME="'+ ESXINAME +'"\n';

psScript +='\n';

psScript +='############## DO NOT EDIT BEYOND HERE #################\n';

psScript +='\n';

psScript +='& "C:\\Program Files\\VMware\\VMware OVF Tool\\ovftool.exe"  --acceptAllEulas --skipManifestCheck --noSSLVerify --powerOn --prop:varoot-password="vcopassword" --prop:vcoconf-password="vcopassword" "--net:network=$VCO_PORTGROUP" --datastore=$VCO_DATASTORE --diskMode=$VCO_DISK_TYPE --name=$VCO_DISPLAY_NAME --prop:vami.DNS.VMware_vCenter_Orchestrator_Appliance=$VCO_DNS --prop:vami.gateway.VMware_vCenter_Orchestrator_Appliance=$VCO_GATEWAY --prop:vami.ip0.VMware_vCenter_Orchestrator_Appliance=$VCO_IPADDRESS --prop:vami.netmask0.VMware_vCenter_Orchestrator_Appliance=$VCO_NETMASK $VCO_OVA vi://username:password@$VCENTER_HOSTNAME/?dns=$ESXI_HOSTNAME\n';

try {

  session = host.openSession();

  output = System.getModule("com.vmware.library.powershell").invokeScript(host,psScript,session.getSessionId()) ;

} finally {

  if (session){

  host.closeSession(session.getSessionId());

  }

}

[bigDavefromTren]

But these will still be unmanaged by vRA?  Ideally we'd like to control everything under vRA.

BigD

[sbeaver]

Yes that is true but you can import the VM once it is build and take control that one.  Just an option

[bigDavefromTren]

Thanks that's what I was looking for.  Do you create an "Import" Blueprint?   Since these are OVA appliances, they usually don't match up with our standard Win2k12 Blueprint

[sbeaver]

For me it came from vCO and then importing it as a resource action or service  blueprint

[1234Joel1234]

I'm just running into this issue myself.   Did you ever get a resolution to the non-matching blueprint?

[CoolRam]

Deploy the template with the bare minimal input which is generic with all the customer and Write one script which can vary with customer to customer input.  This Way we can customize our effort.

[tarunemany]

I am trying to deploy OVA from vCAC. Has anyone found the solution for this? What could be the best workaround for this other than ovftool.?

[tperrySov]

Only "Soultion" that I have found is to us ASD to run a VRO flow to run ovftool on a remote windows box to actaully deploy the OVF.   Pretty cumbersome, but you can make it work.

Tim