Configuring VMware Aria Automation

You can set up VMware vCenter Server on your Google Cloud VMware Engine private cloud as an endpoint for VMware Aria Automation.

Before you begin

Complete the following tasks before configuring vCenter Server:

  • Set up private services access for connectivity between your on-premises environment and your private cloud.
  • Configure DNS forwarding of on-premises DNS requests to the DNS servers for your private cloud.
  • Elevate your vCenter privileges from VMware Engine portal.
    • Create a group named VMware Aria Automation IaaS administrator group.
    • Create a user named VMware Aria Automation IaaS administrator user and add the user to the group created in the previous step. If you set up vCenter to use Active Directory and want to use a user from your identity source, add the user to the group.
    • Create a role named VMware Aria Automation IaaS administrator role with the set of permissions that are listed in the table below.
    • Apply the VMware Aria Automation IaaS administrator role to the VMware Aria Automation IaaS administrator group at the vCenter level.
Attribute value Permission
Datastore

Allocate space

Browse datastore
Datastore cluster Configure a datastore cluster
Folder

Create folder

Delete folder
Global

Manage custom attributes

Set custom attribute
Network Assign network
Permissions Modify permissions
Resource

Assign VM to resource pool

Migrate powered off VM

Migrate powered on VM
VM inventory

Create from existing

Create new

Move

Remove
Virtual machine interaction

Configure CD media

Console interaction

Device connection

Power off

Power on

Reset

Suspend

Tools install
Virtual machine configuration

Add existing disk

Add new disk

Add or remove

Remove disk

Advanced

Change CPU count

Change resource

Extend virtual disk

Disk change tracking

Memory

Modify device settings

Rename

Set annotation (version 5.0 and later)

Settings

Swapfile placement
Provisioning

Customize

Clone template

Clone VM

Deploy template

Read customization specs
Virtual machine state

Create snapshot

Remove snapshot

Revert to snapshot

Install VMware Aria Automation in your on-premises environment

Deploy a vSphere Agent for the VMware Aria Automation endpoint.

  1. Sign in to the VMware Aria Automation IaaS server appliance as VMware Aria Automation IaaS administrator user.
  2. Go to https://vra-url:5480/installer, where vra-url is the URL that you use to access the VMware Aria Automation administration UI.
  3. Click IaaS Installer to download the installer. The naming convention for the installer file is setup_vra-url@5480.exe.
  4. Run the installer. On the Welcome screen, click Next.
  5. Accept the EULA and click Next.
  6. Provide the sign-in information, click Accept Certificate, and then click Next.
  7. Select Custom Install and Proxy Agents, and click Next.
  8. Enter the IaaS server sign-in information and click Next. If you are using Active Directory, enter the username in domain\user format. Otherwise, use user@domain format.
  9. For the proxy settings, enter vSphere for Agent type. Enter a name for the agent.
  10. Enter the IaaS server FQDN in the Manager Service Host and the Model Manager Web Service Host fields.
  11. Click Test to test the connection for each of the FQDN values. If the test fails, modify your DNS settings so that the IaaS server hostname is resolved.
  12. Enter a name for the vCenter server endpoint for the private cloud. Record the name for use later in the configuration process.
  13. Click Next.
  14. Click Install.

Configure the vSphere agent

  1. Go to https://vra-url, where vra-url is the URL that you use to access the VMware Aria Automation administration UI.
  2. Sign in as ConfigurationAdmin.
  3. Select Infrastructure > Endpoints > Endpoints.
  4. Select New > Virtual > vSphere.
  5. Enter the vSphere endpoint name that you specified in the previous procedure.
  6. For Address, enter the private cloud vCenter Server URL in the format https://vcenter-fqdn/sdk, where vcenter-fqdn is the name of the vCenter server.
  7. Enter the credentials for the VMware Aria Automation IaaS administrator user that Cloud Customer Care created for you.
  8. Click Test Connection to validate the user credentials. If the test fails, verify the URL, account information, and endpoint name and test again.
  9. After a successful test, click OK to create the vSphere endpoint.

Verify the endpoint name

To identify the correct vCenter server endpoint name, do the following:

  1. Open a command prompt on the IaaS appliance.
  2. Change the directory to C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\vCAC\Agents<var>AGENT_NAME, replacing AGENT_NAME with the name you assigned to the vCenter server endpoint.

  3. Run the following command.

    ..\..\Server\DynamicOps.Vrm.VRMencrypt.exe VRMAgent.exe.config get

The output is similar to the following. The value of the managementEndpointName field is the endpoint name.

managementEndpointName: cslab1pc3-vc
doDeletes: true

What's next