vRealize Automation ICM Flashcards
What can vRA do?
It can automate the deployment of infrastructure components (such as vms, apps, and services)
It can also automate collaboration between multiple cloud providers
Why don’t you have to be a programmer to consumer vRA?
You don’t have to be a programmer because vRA automates the placement of software and objects in an environment
What business cases does vRA solve ?
- ability to manage multiple cloud infrastructure from one interface
- Achieve IaaS, SaaS, ZaaS
- Decrease organization inefficiencies to app deployment
What are the components of vRA?
- Cloud Assembly
- Service Broker
- Code Stream
- vRealize Orchestrator
What does cloud assembly do?
- Setups basic cloud infra by pulling in cloud accounts from VMware on AWS, VMware Azure , etc
- Infra as code templates are contained her and can be used by teams
- Kubernetes integration support for native kubes, vSphere with Tanzu, and pivotal container service
- marketplace access for ready-made templates for cloud templates
- vm templates
What is the function of service broker in vRA?
- Gathers info from multiple sources into a single catalog for users
- Where the self-service catalog is located
What are the benefits of VMware Cloud services
- 45 day free trial
- no need to patch, upgrade, or monitor vRA
- earlier access to new features
- single view across multiple clouds and data centers
- chat support available if an org has production support
vRealize Automation On Prem vs vRealize Automation Cloud
Who vRealize Automation on Prem is for:
- existing vRealize Customer
- org that needs a large big cloud management solution
- a business that can’t use SaaS because of security and compliance reqs
- Entities dependent on-prem tools such as service desk IPAM and physical load balancers
Who vRealize cloud is for:
- orgs new to vRealize suite
- small IT orgs
- Orgs that have adopted SaaS strategy
- Orgs that need fast provision and deployment of a cloud infrastructure
What is the vRealize Cloud Universal Licensing Model
- it is the hybrid bundling on prem and SaaS vRealize suite products
What are the benefits of the vRealize Cloud Universal licensing model?
- Since on prem and Saas vRealize Suite licenses can be bundled together, it removes the need for separate licenses to manage vRealize suite products
- can monitor on prem and cloud products from one single pane via self service catalog
How can vRa be deployed?
It cann be deployed as a standard deployment or a clustered infrastructure
What is a VRA standard deployment for?
- Only meant for POC and testing
* has no HA feature(if appliance fails there is no failover mechanism to support high availability
What are the components of vRA standard deployment?
- vRealize suite lifecycle management
- VMware identity Manager
- vRealize Appliance
What are all components in the standard vRA architecture deployment based on?
Photon OS
What is the order of installation for a vRA standard deployment architecture?
- vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager suite is installed
2. vIDM and vRA appliance installed
What is a clustered vRA architecture deployment used for?
- It is used for production environments and large enterprises
Why is a clustered vRA deployment better than a standard vRA deployment?
*has high availability to provide infrastructure redundancy
What are the required components of a clustered vRA architecture deployment?
*load balancers to support vIDM instance and vRA instances
*lifecycle manager
*3 nodes for vIDM cluster
3 nodes for vRA cluster
How would you scale if you started with a vRA standard deployment and wanted to migrate to a vRA clustered department?
Go to vRSLCM options and scale out additional nodes, loadbalancers for vIDM and vRA clusters
What are the steps to install vRA?
- Go to downloads.vmware.com
- download the easy installer iso
- mount the easy installer iso to a guest os
- run the easy installer executable
- follow easy installer prompts
- Once installation is complete there will be 3 vms (vRealize suite Lifecycle manger, vIDM, and vRA > can scale vIDM and vRA clusters to 3 nodes from this point
Can vRA be a standalone appliance?
vRA cannot be a standalone appliance because all 3 components (vrslcm, vidm, and vra) must work together
What does vRSLCM do?
- automates the deployment of vIDM and vRA
* helps to patch and upgrade vREalize suite products passwords, user account management, certificate managemen
What does vIDM do?
*provide authentication mechanism for vRealize suite products, vRA appliance
How does the vIDM authentication process work? (simplistic overview)
- someone logs into vRA console or vrealize suite product
- request is sent to vIDM
- vIDM authenticates user’s username and password against an AD or LDAP
- If the user’s account information and ad/ldap privileges match…then an SAML token is issued
- The SAML token is given to console/app that the user requested access to
- user now has access
What is the purpose of the vRA appliance (simplistic overview)?
The vRA appliance provides the services that are needed to support vRealize infrastructure and products
What is the vRealize Automation Appliance Powered By?
Photon OS
What do all vRA services run as?
Kubernetes PODs
How did vRA services run before 8.x?
- SUSE based environment from port 5408
What commands have to be used in vRA?
kubectl
What does rabbitMQ do?
Exchanges information between pods and is also a pod
Can Microsoft SQL be used with a vRA appliance?
No, can only use Postgre SQL
What are the steps to run kubernetes on a vRA appliance?
- vRA powered on
- Docker is installed and kubernetes clusters are configured
- images are taken from private registry and deploy PODs
- vREalize Automation services are running as PODs
What is helm?
Where images are pulled (private registry) for containers
what runs inside kubernetes PODs?
containters
What kind of containers are used in vRA?
Docker
What are the components of a postgres POD?
- data is stored within as a file mount
How many containers can a POD have?
many
What is a file mount ?
persistent storage
what is contained within the vco-app pod?
three containers : control center app, vco app (orchestrator services), vco-polygot-support (for multiple programming languages)
What is a namespace?
allocation of resources to a user in order to allow them to run kubernetes services
what happens with the “kubectl describe POD” command?
How running containers in a POD can be viewed
what happens with the “kubectl get PID” command?
how you view running PODs
What happens with the “kubectl get services ~ namespace” command?
provides networking for a POD
what does the ‘kubectl get deployments ~namespace’ command do?
decides the replica set and the services required to be running for a set of containers. If POds fail it ensures another with the same roles and services is brought back online
What are the steps to use the vRealize Automation Easy Installer?
- Download the vRealize Easy Installer ISO
- Mount the ISO and run the executable
- vRLCM is deployed and configured
- vRLSCM installs vIDM
- vRLSCM install vRealize automation
- vRealize automation is configured and running
Do vRLSCM, vIDM, and vRA share the same datastore?
Yes
FIPS compliance can be placed on
vRSLCM
The installation of vIDM with the vRA easy installer can be __
skipped and later, manually setup
An existing instance of vIDM can be ____
Imported with the easy installer