Dell Active System Manager Version 8.2.1 Manual
Active System Manager Integration for VMware
vRealize Orchestrator
User’s Guide
Notes, cautions, and warnings
NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your product.
CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you how to avoid the
problem.
WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death.
© 2016 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws. Dell and the Dell
logo are trademarks of Dell Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of
their respective companies.
2016 - 09
Rev. A01
Contents
1 Overview......................................................................................................................... 5
2 About The Document...................................................................................................... 6
3 Executive Summary........................................................................................................ 7
4 What’s new in the ASM vRO Plugin 2.0.......................................................................... 8
5 Installing the ASM vRO Plugin for Integration.................................................................9
Installation Prerequisites.....................................................................................................................................................9
Installation Procedure.........................................................................................................................................................9
6 Validating the Installation...............................................................................................10
Validating Package Content..............................................................................................................................................10
Workflows...................................................................................................................................................................10
Actions.........................................................................................................................................................................11
Inventory..................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Validate the ASM vRO Plugin API......................................................................................................................................11
7 Upgrading ASM vRO .....................................................................................................12
8 API for ASM vRO Integration.........................................................................................13
API Types..........................................................................................................................................................................13
API Objects.......................................................................................................................................................................14
ASMAppliance.............................................................................................................................................................14
ASMApplianceManager...............................................................................................................................................16
ASM Service............................................................................................................................................................... 17
ASMServiceComponent..............................................................................................................................................17
ASMTemplate.............................................................................................................................................................18
9 Workflow and Actions....................................................................................................19
Workflow.......................................................................................................................................................................... 19
Configuration Workflows............................................................................................................................................ 19
Sample Workflows...................................................................................................................................................... 19
Actions..............................................................................................................................................................................21
com.dell.library.asm.....................................................................................................................................................21
com.dell.library.asm.configuration ..............................................................................................................................22
10 Using vRealize Orchestrator........................................................................................23
Adding a New ASM Appliance Object to vRO Inventory.................................................................................................. 23
Deploy a New Service to vRO..........................................................................................................................................23
Add a Server to an Existing Service................................................................................................................................. 24
Teardown the Service...................................................................................................................................................... 24
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11 Integrating with vRealize Automation...........................................................................25
Prerequisite for vRA Integration.......................................................................................................................................25
Non-Interactive Workflow as vRA XaaS Blueprints..........................................................................................................25
Interactive Workflow as vRA XaaS Blueprints..................................................................................................................26
Workflow Output..............................................................................................................................................................27
Upgrading the vRA XaaS Blueprint...................................................................................................................................27
12 Troubleshooting...........................................................................................................28
vRO Exceptions................................................................................................................................................................28
vRO Application Server Log............................................................................................................................................. 28
ASM Troubleshooting.......................................................................................................................................................28
13 Uninstalling ASM vRO Integration............................................................................... 30
14 Known Issues and Forewarning.................................................................................... 31
15 Compatibility Matrix.................................................................................................... 32
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Overview
The Dell Active System Manager integration for vRealize Orchestrator (vRO), formerly known as vCenter Orchestrator (vCO),
enables key automation functions, which can be embedded into vRealize Orchestrator workflow. The workflow helps in provisioning
infrastructure, capacity scaling, remediation actions, and service teardown. These features help IT teams to broaden their business
solutions, improve responsiveness, and simplify complex IT processes.
The integration is developed using the VMware vRO SDK and Active System Manager’s newly published REST APIs. The ASM
Integration for vRO are given to ASM customers to install it into their vRealize Orchestrator environment. After installing the
integration, customers can use the workflows packaged with the plugin or they can create their own workflows using the ASM
attributes implemented in the creation of the plugin. IT administrators use the two main management products for this integration:
• VMware’s vCenter Server
• VMware vRealize Automation Center
ASM integration for vRealize Orchestrator also enables the vRealize Automation (vRA) to integrate with VMware vRealize
Orchestrator (vRO).
VMware vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) allows:
• Any template in ASM, whether infrastructure or workload, to be published as a service in vCAC (vCloud Automation Center)
portal.
• Enables any ASM function to be called from vCO for broader orchestration.
vRealize Automation (vRA, formerly known as vCloud Automation Center) enables:
• Consumption portal and service catalog
• Broad workflow and process integration
• Aggregation of anything as a service, including any ASM-based template or ASM action such as scaling and remediation
This integration enables unique services not supported by VMware, physical, hybrid physical-virtual, multi-hypervisor, infrastructure
scaling, and remediation. The ASM vRO Integration supports vCO and vRO versions 5.5 and 6.0.
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About The Document
This documentation provides information regarding:
• Installing ASM vRO integration
• Validating the installation
• Upgrading ASM vRO
• Configuring ASM vRO API
• Workflow and Action
• Using vRealize Orchestrator
• Integrating with vRealize Automation
• Troubleshooting
• Uninstalling ASM vRO Integration
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Executive Summary
ASM is a service-based management console that automates end-to-end template-based provisioning and lifecycle management of
infrastructure and workloads in today’s modern data center. ASM and its REST base API, enables end-to-end integration and
automation with additional tools and management consoles in the data center. Active System Manager integration of VMware
vRealize Orchestrator, automates customers, cloud and integrate VMware management systems with Active System Manager.
Workflow packages are developed using the Orchestrator to achieve step-by-step process automation for greater flexibility and
automation across physical and virtual infrastructure and multiple management products.
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What’s new in the ASM vRO Plugin 2.0
In the previous releases, 1.0 ~ 1.1, the update was required for the support of ASM release 8.1.1 from release 8.1.0. This version has
been implemented to support the ASM release 8.2.1 and new vRO version. Noticeably, the API objects are replaced and updated.
The model objects provide more detail about the mirroring ASM objects than previous versions. The API Explorer has updated
method signature and descriptions for commonly used objects and methods. Also, caching has been removed in this version, and
the inventory data is handled by the vRO database. This means that AsmObjectNotFound exception will rarely be an issue if at all.
Minor changes include the workflow icon update, version details, and so on.
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Installing the ASM vRO Plugin for Integration
Before installing ASM vRO integration, ensure that you have met the installation prerequisites:
Installation Prerequisites
To install ASM vRO Integration, vRO environment must meet the following criteria before installing the Integration:
• The ASM vRO plugin 2.0 requires vRO 7.0.
• The vRO server must be able to communicate to the ASM appliance servers through HTTPS protocol (ports 443 and 8281).
• The vRO server must be in a clean state. Either the ASM vRO Integration has never been installed before or it should be
removed completely. To ensure that the environment is clean, see the chapter Uninstalling ASM vRO Integration.
• The vRO control center must be running. if the control center is not running, run the command, /etc/init.d/vco-
configurator start
• The workstation must be able to reach the vRO configuration server, and the o11nplugin-asm.vmoapp must be downloaded to
the workstation.
NOTE: To avoid data loss, make sure that there is no workflow running in the vRO during the installation procedure, as
restart is required.
, on the vRO server to start the service.
Installation Procedure
To install ASM vRO Integration:
1. Open control center on the browser. Usually, it is https://<VRO_HOSTNAME>:8283/vco-controlcenter/ or https://
<vRA_HOSTNAME>:8283/vco-controlcenter/ depending on how the vRO has been set up. If the vRO is bundled in vRA
appliance, use the vRA_HOSTNAME. If these URL’s do not work, contact the IT administrator to verify the system setup.
Alternatively, access the system setup page( https://<vRA_HOSTNAME>:5480) to verify the required port information.
2. In VMware vRealize Orchestrator window, log in as a user with administrative privileges (For example, “root” user) to the vRO
control center. Click
3. Find the “Install new plug-in” in the Plug-ins page.
4. Click on the find button (magnifying glass icon or “browse” box), locate and select the vmoapp file in the pop-out window, and
click Upload and install.
5. Read and accept the EULA in the following page.
6. The Plug-ins page should display, “Dell Active System Manager (2.0.0 build X) New plug-in installed” (where ‘X’ is the actual
build number) message after a successful installation. It will also alert that the vRO has to be restarted. Click the link provided
on the page to the Startup Options page, or on the VMware vRealize Orchestrator Configuration page, in the left pane, click
Startup Options..
7. Restart the vRO application server by clicking Restart Service. The page will update the vRO application server status. Even
though the page shows that server is RUNNING, it will take a few seconds afterward to enable the service completely.
8. Now the installation is complete.
Plug-ins in the left pane of the VMware vRealize Orchestrator configuration page.
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Validating the Installation
To validate the installation, make sure:
• The package contents are imported.
• ASM API/SDK is available.
• New Inventory object is created.
Validating Package Content
1. When the ASM vRO Integration is successfully installed, new contents should appear in vRO. To inspect these, launch the vRO
client, and select the Design view.
2. You see six tabs in the left panel to inspect different types of vRO contents. Each tab selects its corresponding view
(workflows, actions, resources, configurations, packages, or inventory). First select the Packages tab. It shows the list of
existing packages and additional information about each package.
3. Locate the package, com.dell.plugin.asm. Now click the Workflow tab in the right pane of the vRO client. It should show 21
workflows that are imported through the plugin installation.
4. Click the Actions tab in the right panel, you can see action elements are listed.
NOTE: The workflows and the actions show their version as 2.0.0.
5. Finally to check whether the ASM API is associated with these elements or not, click the Used Plug-ins tab in the right pane. It
should list the ASM API with its name and version information.
Workflows
The ASM vRO workflows are organized under the Dell Active System Manager folder in the Library folder. Select the Workflows
tab in the left panel of the vRO client. Expand the root folder, Library folder, Dell Active System Manager folder, and its subfolders
to inspect the workflows:
• Root Folder
– Library
* Dell Active System Manager
• Configuration Workflows
– Add ASM Appliance
– Remove ASM Appliance
• Sample Workflows
– Asynchronous
* Deploy Service (Async)
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