Hi folks and the 3rd time this week that I’m blogging some big news around the vRealize product suite. Our product team worked hard to ship new versions of products like vRealize Automation 7.1, vRealize Code Stream 2.1, vRealize Code Stream Management Pack for IT DevOps 2.1.1, vRealize Orchestrator 7.1 and many more! If you haven’t seen what’s new, please visit the VMware.com/products website or have a log on our VMware blog.
In my previous two posts I announced and wrote about all the news and updates on VMware Code Stream 2.1 and vRealize Code Stream Management Pack for IT DevOps 2.1.1. In this article, I would like to share more of the improvements, fixes, updates and other cool stuff that our product team has worked on in Realize Orchestrator 7.1.
First, what is vRealize Orchestrator?
Simply – vRealize Orchestrator automates complex IT processes for your IT, developer and datacenter environment. Basically you can simplify the automation of complex IT tasks with VMware vRealize Orchestrator, which integrates with vRealize Suite and vCloud Suite to further improve service delivery efficiency, operational management and IT agility. Here are the top benefits that vRealize Orchestrator delivers to you:
A Robust Workflow Automation
Quickly and easily design and deploy scalable workflows that automate complex IT processes.
Powerful Management Features
Create your own types to use in workflows, without having to wait for a plug-in update or to create a new plug-in; or leverage generic plug-ins based on SOAP, REST operations and PowerShell scripts.
Accelerate Cloud Automation
Leverage vRealize Orchestrator workflows and plug-ins to extend the capabilities of vRealize Suite, vCloud Suite, and the vSphere platform.
Open and Flexible Architecture
Automate management and operational tasks across both VMware and third-party applications, such as service desks, change management and IT asset management systems.
Improve Service Delivery
Automate the delivery of new IT services or adapt the capabilities of existing vRealize Automation infrastructure and application services with vRealize Orchestrator workflows and plug-ins.
Automate Corrective Actions
Use vRealize Orchestrator workflows with the vRealize Operations remediation workflow package to automatically resolve operational issues.
What are the news, updates and improvements in the new version vRealize Orchestrator 7.1?
vRealize Orchestrator 7.1 introduces a number of improvements, bug fixes, and extends the automated configuration with new options:
- Configuration push from one node to all other nodes in the cluster and the ability to restart all nodes from a single node.
- Monitoring of configuration differences between the nodes in a cluster by using the available in Control Center fingerprints for the currently running or pending configuration.
- Added a REST API to update resource elements.
vRealize Orchestrator 7.1 also introduces a number of plug-in improvements:
- Swagger definition support for adding a REST host in the HTTP-REST Plug-in.
- Improved search capabilities in the Active Directory Plug-in.
- Pagination support and arbitrary entry querying in the Active Directory Plug-in.
- VUM plug-in update
- Auto-deploy plug-in update
With the certificate management mechanism based on ISsslService, implemented in version 7.1, the server and trusted certificates are stored in the database. Plug-ins must use the API from the Plug-in SDK to retrieve the trusted certificates.
What features or functions are not anymore part of vRealize Orchestrator 7.1?
The following feature is deprecated in vRealize Orchestrator 7.1 and is scheduled for removal in future releases. This feature should not be used as part of any vRealize Orchestrator solution.
- LDAP authentication
What Plug-Ins are installed with vRealize Orchestrator 7.1?
he following plug-ins are installed by default with vRealize Orchestrator 7.1:
- vRealize Automation Center Infrastructure Administration Plug-In 7.1.0
- vRealize Automation Plug-In 7.1.0
- vRealize Orchestrator vCenter Server Plug-In 6.5.0
- vRealize Orchestrator Mail Plug-In 7.0.1
- vRealize Orchestrator SQL Plug-In 1.1.4
- vRealize Orchestrator SSH Plug-In 7.0.1
- vRealize Orchestrator SOAP Plug-In 2.0.0
- vRealize Orchestrator HTTP-REST Plug-In 2.1.0
- vRealize Orchestrator Plug-In for Microsoft Active Directory 3.0.2
- vRealize Orchestrator AMQP Plug-In 1.0.4
- vRealize Orchestrator SNMP Plug-In 1.0.3
- vRealize Orchestrator PowerShell Plug-In 1.0.9
- vRealize Orchestrator Multi-Node Plug-In 7.1.0
- vRealize Orchestrator Dynamic Types 1.2.0
- vRealize Orchestrator vCloud Suite API (vAPI) Plug-In 7.1.0
- vRealize Orchestrator Plug-In for vRealize Automation 7.1.0
How does the upgrade work from older versions to vRealize Orchestrator 7.1?
From a deployment standpoint, VMware vRealize Orchestrator 7.1 is available as a preconfigured virtual appliance. The appliance significantly reduces the time and skills required to deploy vRealize Orchestrator and provides a low-cost alternative to a traditional Windows-based installation.
The Orchestrator Appliance is distributed as an OVF file. It is prebuilt and preconfigured with Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, PostgreSQL, and In-Process ApacheDS LDAP, and it can be used with vCenter Server 5.5 and later.
The Orchestrator Appliance functionality is suitable for any use case from lab evaluation to large-scale production, when an external database is used. The appliance offers the flexibility to use either the prebuilt directory services and database, or Single Sign-On authentication, provided by vRealize Automation and vSphere 6.0, and external database servers like Oracle or Microsoft SQL.
The Orchestrator Appliance is a fast, easy to use, and more affordable way to integrate the VMware cloud stack, including vRealize Automation and vCenter Server, with your IT processes and environment.
For instructions about deploying and using the Orchestrator Appliance, see Installing and Configuring VMware vRealize Orchestrator.
Important: For security reasons, the password expiry of the root account of the Orchestrator Appliance is set to 365 days. To increase the expiry time for an account, log in to the Orchestrator Appliance as root, and run the following command:
passwd -x number_of_days name_of_account
To make your Orchestrator Appliance root password last forever, run the following command:
passwd -x 99999 root
Ok, hope this helps you to decide on giving vRealize Orchestrator 7.1 a try and download it on our VMware portal. If you are new to the product or space, you might also want to have a look to some of the interactive videos that we have on this topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLl9BzvVlLs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnnSNB1r3dM&list=PLrFo2o1FG9n4mDNlEai02dI50Ae7g598y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apYYClLHr78
Any questions? Just contact VMware or send me an email to: [email protected]
thanks and best regards,
Daniel Jonathan Valik, Galina Slavova Kostova and Savina Savova Ilieva @ VMWare.
