How to configure vRO (vCO) AD permissions on workflows

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This is a small “How to” that I was thinking might be useful to some folks having the same requirement as I did today.

before I begin you will see in this post me referring to vRA and vRO as vCAC and vCO as well. This is because the products names changed but not the UI’s so bare with me.

What I was required by the customer here is to setup  access rights on workflows for users from active directory.

In vRO version 5.5.2 that I am working with (embedded in vRA 6.1.1) there are 3 places where there are AD configuration settings. read more

VMware Acquires Continuent what does this mean?

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Today, VMware announced the purchase of Continuent , a software company that delivers replication , high availability and disaster recovery capabilities to databases. According to the following VMware blog this software will be utilized first in VMware’s Hybrid cloud platform “vCloud Air”  to deliver DBaaS capabilities to it’s customers.

The Continuent software has some very impressive features, by abstracting the database from the application using it’s Continuent Tungsten connector, Continuent can replicate the data between two disperse databases and fail over the database with out disruption to the application. read more

vCAC 6.1 Application Services (AppD) Installation notes

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Recently i installed the new vCAC 6.1 in my lab, vCAC 6.1 has many improvements, if you’d like to learn more about the improvements you can read Omer Kushmaro’s (Twitter @elastic_Skies)  excellent blog post  or just read the VMware blog post here.  During my installation i found that the deployment process for the Application services component of vCAC (AKA Application Director) has changed, it is more integrated with vCAC now and there are a few things you need to know when setting it up so it will work well for you. here is a short guide: read more

How EMC IT are delivering DBaaS and ITaaS with VMware vCloud suit

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EMC IT has released a few amazing resources that explain how they achieved a full ITaaS and DBaaS for their users, it is a must read and watch for anyone interested in ITaaS and DBaaS.

Whitepaper:

EMC IT’s Database-as-a-Service

Video

EMC IT’s  IT-as-a-Service/Database-as-a-Service – eCALM Demo

The eCALM system as they call (Enterprise Cloud Automation Life cycle Management) it is a “full” solution that allows deployment, configuration, day2 operations , backup as a service, security management, monitoring management and retirement of DBs.   This solution is based on the vCloud suit components + puppet on top of vBlock  with Symetrix and additional components like Data Domain, infoblocks, Log insight and more. read more

New DBaaS capabilities in VMware vCAC 6.1

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One of the main things customer need in regards to cloud automation is DBaaS. In vCAC6.1 VMware has added the capability to ingest a production database into a VM and allow it to be redeployed as a service on demand by the developer/DBA without the intervention of IT. The use cases are endless,  customers want ot have the ability to “refresh” a production database for test, Dev, QA and training purposes.

So, how does this work:

In vCAC 6.1 VMware added out of box vCO workflows that can deliver a copy of the production DBs (currently Oracle 12c and Microsoft SQL Server 2012) to the self service catalog for redeployment, the workflows executes the following steps: read more

A few tips for the VCDX defense

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Tips for the defense from existing VCDXs  were one of the things that helped me the most preparing for mine.

one thing to note before we start is that each VCDX has it’s own experience and opinion about what’s right and sometimes VCDX A would say one thing and VCDX B would say the opposite, but that is just the nature of things as no one knows what is the  rubric used to score  a VCDX candidate and that includes me.

Take from this post what you think makes sense to you and i suggest you do the same from anything else you read or hear, except for  Rene van der Bedem’s blog AKA @VCDX133 http://vcdx133.com , it is awesome. read more

VMworld 2014 pre-conference post

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Yes, this is this time of the year! No I am not talking about kids going to camp, or fall coming upon us. I mean the best conference of the year, VMworld. This is my 9th or 10th time, I lost count. Working now at VMware I know most of the announcements coming and I can tell you right now, this is going to be an awesome conference! By saying awesome I mean many people are going to be awe’d from what VMware has lined up.

So this is just the preconf post, I can’t detail more but stay tuned bcause I’ll have much to say after the conference begins. And most of all if you are attending have fun, network with peers, learn and discover. With  no limits!!! read more

Important to not burn out while preparing for the VCDX defense

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I felt it a lot, the guilt of not working hard enough on my presentation before the defense, especially after submission of the application while waiting for the results to come in. It took a few weeks to know if we are going to defend our crazy design and during that time i’ve probably put 2% effort in average of the amount of effort I put when we worked on the design.

If you are in that stage you probably read many blogs about VCDX journey by now, many are saying to start working on the presentation a minute after you submitted the application and not to wait for the results. read more

Incorporating business requirements into your VCDX presentation

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This is a question I asked my self many time throughout our preparation to the defense and we had several iterations of it before we got to the final version, how do I incorporate the business requirements into the presentation  (By saying Business requirements I mean constraints and risks as well).

Ggenerally speaking the main presentation should be no more then 15 minutes, this is not enough to cover everything in your solution design ofcourse, not even close, that’s fine since the presentation is meant to give you and the panel points for discussion from which you can break out to your backup slides (we had 80 backup slides!). There a several good posts about creating your presentation which i used: read more

How to create top notch VCDX application documents

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I don’t presume our VCDX application documents were perfect, far from it. We had holes in our design that kept me up at night, but we had pretty good damn documentation which is even more important when you write a fictitious design but not only of course.

The main thing to remember when you write the design is write it as if the IT manager of the customer is supposed to read it, there is a big chance that his technical knowledge is off 🙂 and he is very worried about the business requirements being achieved. He will probably give the documents to his technical staff for review as well and they will love punching holes in it. read more