Dedicated this article to talk about another VMware product which enables us to automate the workflows and orchestrate them and simplifies the automation of complex IT tasks. With VMware vRealize Orchestrator we can extend service delivery and operational Management working with existing infrastructure and tools.

  1. VMware vRealize Orchestrator is a workflow engine which allows the users and external systems to execute and monitor workflows, by providing a library of workflows that perform the management tasks per best practices. We can also run Workflows externally using vSphere Web Client, VMware vRealize Automation, SNMP, Python, PowerShell Script, we can also make use of VMware Solution Exchange which provides a library of VMware and partner – provided vRealize Orchestrator workflows and plug-ins
  2. VMware vRealize Orchestrator helps us to automate both the operational and management tasks of VMware and third party applications including service desks, change management database systems, IPAM, DNS, DHCP, Load Balancers, Storage Management
  3. vRealize Orchestrator supports modular programming (which helps us separate the functionality of program into the interchangeable module) wherein each module contains everything necessary to execute the single aspect of that functionality, modular programming support with vRealize Orchestrator is quite important because it provides code reliability, modifiability, and debugability
  4. vRealize Orchestrator comprises three layers i.e. Orchestration Platform which includes all the features required within an orchestration tool, Plug -In Architecture – which uses Orchestrator to access external applications and systems and the last layer in the architecture is Workflow Library which has prebuilt workflows created and executed with the help of workflow engine that can permits 300 workflows to run at the same time
  5. When working with vRealize Orchestrator we can create workflows using the Integrated development environment, which provides us the access to the Workflow Library and other functional components used to build workflows. When creating, the workflows using workflow editor we do not need to write any code, nor need to know how to communicate with ESXi and vCenter. The only details we should know is that what each component does and the information it needs to execute the workflow
  6. Orchestrator is made available as pre-configured appliance wherein the orchestrator service automatically starts after the deployment however we can increase the availability and scalability by installing and configuring a database, installing and configuring the load balancer so to distribute the workload between multiple orchestrator servers. Once we have downloaded the server component we can install Orchestrator client which provides different views based on the perspective (Run, Design and Administer) on 64 Bit Windows, Linux and Mac machines and later start both the client and the server services
  7. Few prerequisites to be taken care when working with the installation of Orchestrator like the VMware vCenter Server Service should be up and running, the ESXi host that you are selecting for appliance deployment must meet the minimum hardware requirements, another important aspect to take care when working on the deployment is to change the expiry of the root password which is by default set to 365 days and can be changed by logging to the appliance as root user
  8. Once the installation is done we can make use of control center which requires a web browser to change the default behavior of VMware vRealize orchestrator wherein we can manage users, export and import configurations, configure workflow run properties and access log files. By default, the control center service is stopped and should be started using the root account and login into VMware vRealize Orchestrator appliance
  9. When working with user permissions management we can connect the Orchestrator to either VMware vRealize Automation or VMware vCenter Server, wherein no more than 10 vCenter Server connection should occur which can cause the orchestrator to experience timeouts
  10. When working with workflows we see black box metaphor which is a well-defined interface that expects certain input and produce desired results, the simplest example when working on the workflows can be considered of a Virtual Machine creation wherein we provide the details about the Virtual Machine like Virtual Machine name and let it create the Virtual Machine for us, even if the user supplying the inputs is not aware about the mechanism behind to create the Virtual Machine can supply the required parameters and let the black box do the rest

BDRSuite offers cost-effective VMware Backup Solutions to backup and protect VMs on ESXi & vCenter. Backup starts at $1.80 vm/month.

Protect Your Data with BDRSuite

Cost-Effective Backup Solution for VMs, Servers, Endpoints, Cloud VMs & SaaS applications. Supports On-Premise, Remote, Hybrid and Cloud Backup, including Disaster Recovery, Ransomware Defense & more!

Interested in trying BDRSuite?, Try Now on a 30-days free trial: https://www.bdrsuite.com/vembu-bdr-suite-download/

Follow our Twitter and Facebook feeds for new releases, updates, insightful posts and more.

Rate this post
Download Banner