An introduction to VMware vCloud Automation Center

May 13, 2013 by Leave a comment

One of the less known solutions of VMware is vCloud Automation Center or vCAC for short. The foundation of vCAC is based on DynamicOps Cloud Automation Center 4.5 software. DynamicOPS  was acquired by VMware in July 2012. The current version of vCAC is 5.1

vCAC enables automated provisioning of both virtual machines and physical servers (including the guest operating system). Provisioning of both on-premises and cloud infrastructures is supported. vCAC enables authorized end-users to quickly have access to servers without IT having to perform the provisioning. Provisioning is so reduced from days to minutes.

Agility, speed of provisioning and reducing costs are the top 3 business drivers for companies looking to deploy private and hybrid cloud infrastructures.

Typical use case scenario’s for vCAC are service providers, large organizations and organizations which do a lot of testing and development. Those environments are very dynamic with relatively many changes.
Supported resources (vCAC calls them endpoints) are VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 and Citrix XenServer. KVM support is on the roadmap for first half of 2013. Supported public clouds are all cloud providers which support VMware vCloud standard (over 150 providers worldwide) and Amazon Web Services Elastic Cloud Computing EC2.  Supported physical servers are those equipped with HP iLO, Dell iDrac and Cisco UCS.  There is no out of the box Windows Azure endpoint available. However  integration with vCAC can be provided via VMware Professional services.  For IBM bare metal server support VMware Professional services can be approached as well. Also offered is interfacing to VMware vCenter Orchestrator 5.1 and Powershell.

vCAC does lifecycle management as well. At request for a new VM the end of life of the VM can be set. At the end of the use period the VM is deleted automatically by vCAC.  Also chargeback is possible.

vCAC supports a wide range of image deployment tools. Microsoft SCCM and Citrix Provisioning Server are a few examples. See the image below for a complete overview.

vcac-image-support
For a full overview of supported systems see the vCloud Automation Center Support Matrix.

vCAC enables IT-departments to serve as a  broker service for internal cloud consumers. End-users are able to create virtual machines/physical servers from a self service portal consuming the resources that have been allocated to them by the IT-administrator. Gartner predicts that IT organizations will increasingly be assuming internal “cloud services brokerage” roles — overseeing  the provisioning and consumption of  heterogeneous and often complex cloud services for “their internal users and external business partners.”

You can think of vCAC as a abstraction layer above hypervisors, public clouds and physical servers. It’s functionality pretty much looks like vCloud Director. Only vCloud Director is limited in its support; it supports VMware infrastructures (vCenter, ESX) only. cVAC can connect to vCloud Director and to vCenter Server. vCAC will be integrated with  VMware vFabric Application Director in 2013 to be able to perform Platform as a Service.

In an IT-world in which hybrid clouds are becoming the standard it is interesting to see what the roadmap  of vCloud Director and vCAC will be. Will VMware continue develop both solutions?

vCAC is available as a standalone license and as well as part of the VMware vCloud Enterprise suite.

More information

VMware has a free online eLearning course available on vCAC. Register here.

Viktor van den Berg has a detailed posting on vCloud Automation Center here.

Dailyhypervisor.com has a series of postings on how to install vCloud Automation Center. vcacteam.info also has a lot of information.

Randy Stanley, VCDX #94 and blogger at Killerclouds.com has a series of postings on vCAC as well.

VMware vCloud Automation Center – vCAC Posts

VMware documentation

YouTube video: vCloud Automation Center Product Overview
vCloud Automation Center Reference Architecture
vCloud Automation Center Operating Guide
vCloud automation Center Frequently Asked Questions

Filed under VMware solutions

Free ebook: Flash Storage for Dummies

May 11, 2013 by Leave a comment

NetApp released a free e-book titled Flash Storage for Dummies. The 51-pages book gives a high level overview of technologies, where and how to use flash and benefits on costs, performance. Mind the book is sponsored by NetApp so is used as a marketing tool.

Download via registration here.

flash-storage-for-dummiesflash-storage-for-dummies-back

Filed under Uncategorized, VMware solutions

Virtual lab for replicas announced as new Veeam Backup & Replication v7 feature

May 8, 2013 by Leave a comment

In Q3 2013 Veeam will introduce Veeam Backup & Replication (B&R) version 7. In the meanwhile Veeam has announced some of the new features. See this posting for an overview of previously announced features; support for tape one of them!

Today Veeam announced another feature to be introduced in v7 of Veeam B&R : Virtual lab for replicas. This feature will be available for VMware only for the time being.

Veeam B&R has two methods to protect applications: backup and replication. Backup stores the data in a backup repository. Replication creates another virtual machine in another location which is ready to make operational without a restore.
It is not about the backup or replica, it is about being able to successfully restore the application/data. Since Veeam B&R v5 a feature named ‘SureBackup’  is available which verifies backup jobs. The SureBackup process starts the VM from the backup repository in an isolated network. Veeam B&R full automates verifies if the VM is able to start. The result is written to a logfile, can be sent by email etc.

Veeam B&R v7 introduces a feature named SureReplica which does the same for replicas: verify that a replica of a VM can be made operational successfully. SureReplica verifies if the VM starts, if the operating system starts and if the applications behave like expected. All is reported in a log and by email.

U-AIR for replicas is also a new feature. It allows granular item-level recovery of any application and provides wizards for SQL Server, Exchange and Active Directory. This without the need for agents. U-AIR is already available in current versions of Veeam B&R for virtual machine data stored in the backup repository.

The On demand sandbox allows administrators to test software updates on replicas before putting those on production servers. This is a very efficient, low-cost alternative to having a dedicated infrastructure for testing.

A short video explaining the new Virtual Lab for Replicas can be watched here. 
See also the Veeam blog for more information on this feature.

Filed under Veeam solutions, VMware solutions

Error 32010 when installing vCenter Server 5.1

May 7, 2013 by Leave a comment

When installing vCenter Server 5.1.0 on a Windows Server 2012 machine while selecting the supplied SQL Server Express edition for database error 32010 is displayed.

Error 32010. Failed to create database users. There can be several reasons for this failure.

sql-error

The logfile vmMSSQLCmd.log revealed that the passwords used for the RSA_user and RSA_DBA where not complex enough.

After setting a more complex password in the screens below the installation continued without any issues.

It is beyond me why VMware does not provide a check immediately after typing in the password. There is a check on complexity of password for the vCenter Single Sign On administrator database useraccount.

 

Filed under VMware solutions, vSphere 5

Internal error 28173 when installing vCenter Server 5.1.0

May 7, 2013 by Leave a comment

When installing vCenter Server 5.1 (VMware-VIMSetup-all-5.1.0-1065152.iso) on a Windows Server 2012 server you might get error ‘Internal error 28173′  when using the Simple Install or during installation of the Single Sign On component.

setup2-internal-error

This is caused because one of the requirements of vCenter Server install is missing: .NET Framework 3.5

To resolve, go to Server Manager , select the Add roles and features wizard and install .NET Framework 3.5 features.

After completion start the installation of vCenter Server again.

.NET-features

Filed under VMware solutions, vSphere 5

Microsoft IaaS Product Line Architecture Guides on Server 2012 and System Center 2012

May 3, 2013 by Leave a comment

Microsoft published two very interesting documents which assist in designing and understanding  Infrastructure as a Service based on Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 SP1.

  • Infrastructure-as-a-Service Product Line Architecture Fabric Architecture Guide (Windows Server 2012).
    This 112 pages document provides specific guidance for developing fabric architectures (compute, network, storage, and virtualization layers) of an overall private cloud solution. All of the Windows Server 2012 features are discussed.
    Very much recommended reading if your task is to design a Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V infrastructure.
    Download here.
  • Infrastructure-as-a-Service Product Line Architecture Fabric Management Architecture Guide (System Center 2012)
    Fabric management is the concept of treating discrete capacity pools of servers, storage, and networks as a single fabric. The fabric is then subdivided into capacity clouds, or resource pools, that carry characteristics like delegation of access and administration, SLAs, and cost metering. Fabric management allows centralizing and automating complex management functions that can be carried out in a highly standardized, repeatable fashion to increase availability and lower operational costs.
    This document discusses sizing, databases used for the various System Center components, requirements like vCPU, RAM and storage for System Center components, ITIL and MOF. It also describes at a functional level features of System Center.
    The document also has a picture showing all System Center connections.
    Download here.

 

The goal of the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) product line architecture (PLA) is to help organizations develop and implement private cloud infrastructures quickly while reducing complexity and risk. The IaaS PLA provides a reference architecture that combines Microsoft software, consolidated guidance, and validated configurations with partner technology such as compute, network, and storage architectures, in addition to value-added software components.

The private cloud model provides much of the efficiency and agility of cloud computing, with the increased control and customization that are achieved through dedicated private resources. By implementing private cloud configurations that align to the IaaS PLA, Microsoft and its hardware partners can help provide organizations the control and the flexibility that are required to reap the potential benefits of the private cloud.

The IaaS PLA utilizes the core capabilities of the Windows Server operating system, Hyper-V, and System Center to deliver a private cloud infrastructure as a service offering. These are also key software components that are used for every reference implementation.

system-center-connections

 

Filed under System Center 2012, VMware solutions, Windows Server 2012

VMware Site Recovery Manager 5.1.1 and vSphere Replication 5.1.1 released

April 28, 2013 by Leave a comment

VMware released Site Recovery Manager 5.1.1 and vSphere Replication 5.1.1 at April 25.
This release does not contain new features but has many bugfixes.

More info at the VMware blog site.

SRM 5.1.1 release notes are here.
vSphere Replication 5.1.1 release notes are here.

Filed under Site Recovery Manager, VMware solutions, vSphere 5

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