vRA 7 - Machine Placement question

[Craig_G2]

Hey guys,

I have a requirement to place VM's on the correct hosts/storage depending on whether their hostname ends in an odd or even number.

Example:

A cluster split across two racks in the datacenter. The customer requires that odd and even VMs are kept on separate sides of the cluster. E.g Odd VMs on odd hosts and odd datastores.

Placing VMs on the correct hosts isn't an issue as DRS groups can be used. However I'm unsure of the best way to ensure that VM's are placed on the right datastores within the cluster.

In vRA we obviously have Storage Reservation Policies, however I need the correct to be dynamically assigned to VM during the request, based on the name of the VM.

I've been down this path before, but with reservation policies, and had to resort to using XaaS blueprints to submit the IaaS requests with the correct data. However this time it's not really a feasible option as the customer doesn't really have any in house vRA/vRO skills.. So leaving them with a complex / hard to manage solution isn't the best way forward.

Would appreciate anyone's input on this!

Thanks
Craig

[kallischlauch]

would it be possible to read the hostname name in orchestrator (or in case you use orchestrator to modify it just pick up from there). figure if even or odd (MOD 1?) and from there generate datastorepath and set this as custom property on the machine?

no idea if that works but would be my initial idea

[GrantOrchardVMw]

Is this for 7?

If so then you could potentially use a vRO workflow to write back the storage reservation property value based on the name before the request is processed. I know they don't have vRO capabilities, but once this is in place it shouldn't require modification.

[Craig_G2]

Yeah it's v7.0.1.

Updating the Storage Reservation Policy was the first thing I tried but it didn't seem to take effect... thats why i was wondering if it behaves the same way as __reservationPolicyID.

I assume that, in theory, the update should occur on a REQUESTED event with ebs?

Cheers

Craig

[GrantOrchardVMw]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Is that what you tried?

[Craig_G2]

Yep - didn't seem to work. I'm going to have another look at it today..

But its looking like im going to gave to go down the XaaS blueprint route at the moment.

Thanks for your replies

Craig