For a vRealize project that I’m currently working on one of the requirements is that the provisioned VM is added to EMC Avamar Data Protection. Normally we do this by creating REST API calls to the Avamar server, which works OK but can’t we do it simpler than that? And now we can!

Introducing the EMC Avamar Plugin for vRealize Automation.





This post will describe how to install the EMC Avamar Plugin for vRealize Automation and add day two operations to the through vRA provisioned VMs.

Pre-requisite

vRealize Automation (vRA) 6.x installed

vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) 5.5.x / 6.x installed and configured in vRA

vRealize Automation IaaS must be configured to use vRO workflows for customizations (link)

EMC Avamar 7.1.x configured and the VMware vCenter client configured

EMC Avamar Plugin for vRealize Automation Plugin

Installation

Upload and install plug-in package to vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) through Orchestrator Configuration page : https://vroIPorFQDN:8283

Accept the “License Agreement”

Check if the Plugin is installed correctly

Restart vRO Server service through Orchestrator Configuration page

Log back in the Orchestrator Configuration page and check if the EMC Data Protection Plugin has the status : “Installation OK”

Configuration

If the installation went OK you can open the vRealize Orchestrator Client and login and open :

Run -> Workflows -> Library -> EMC -> Data Protection -> vCAC -> Installation -> Install default setup for tenant.

And run the workflow.

If you have already added the vRA host to vRO you can select “Not Set” and select the vRA host else fill in the required information for adding the vRA host. Then select if you want to configure the default tenant.

Fill in the name of the Catalog Service that the workflow will create.

Select an already created entitlement or fill in a name for an entitlement that will be created by the workflow.

For the last step fill in the IP / FQDN of the Avamar server and credentials. If your Avamar server listens on a different than defeault port you can also change this here and finally select “Submit”.

The workflow will create multiple EMC Avamar administration related Service Blueprints that can be found in the vRA Catalog Service you’ve selected or filled in.

Select “Add a tenant data protection system” and fill in the IP / FQDN of theEMC Avamar server.

And finally fill in the credentials of the EMC Avamar server.

And select “Submit”.

This will create a EMC Avamar Data Protection Endpoint which can be viewed in the vRO Client under Administer -> EMC Data Protection.

Now the Configuration part is done, we can use the workflow “Add a virtual machine client during provisioning” in our workflow stubs like WFStubMachineProvisioned and see how the Machine is added to EMC Avamar under the specified Policy when the VM is provisioned.

Day Two Operations / Custom Actions

The other cool feature of the plugin is the standard included “Day Two Operations” which contain a couple handy workflows for day to day maintenance.

We can add these “Day Two Operations” to vRA by running the workflow Run -> Workflows -> Library -> EMC -> Data Protection -> vCAC -> Installation -> Add virtual machine resource actions.

Select your vRA host and specify your Entitlement. If you don’t select an Entitlement you will have to do this manually through the portal.

When you view your provisioned VM, the EMC Avamar Day Two Operations should be visible on the right side of your screen under “Actions”.

Pretty cool right? Happy Data Protecting 😉