Last week I ran a workshop at VMUG Belgium. In this workshop we discussed vRealize Orchestrator and also did one of the vRealize Orchestrator Hands On Labs (HOL-1721-SDC-5). In the presentation I talked about the different integration options for vRealize Orchestrator: integrate vRO with vRealize Automation and integrate directly with vCenter Server. In this blog I will focus on the second option: how to integrate vRO with vCenter Server.

First of all, you will need vRO. vRO is available as a virtual appliance at my.vmware.com. For vCenter 6.5, you will need the latest vRO appliance which is version 7.2. After the deployment you have to go through some initial configuration steps. First of all, I advise to update the vCenter plugin in vRO. Build 4512205 of the VC plugin is available, you can download build 4465893 for my.vmware.com.

A plugin management option is part of the vRO Control Center interface. The control center interface is available through https://<vRO URL>:8283. Login using username root and the password you’ve configured during the deployment. Plugin management can be found under the manage plugins option.

After you’ve updated the plugin, restart the vRO service or restart the entire appliance. You can use the Startup Options menu option in the vRO Control Center interface for this.

Now we’ll have to configure the authentication provider, again in the Control Center interface. Select the vSphere option, accept the certificate, and connect with administrator@vsphere.local account. After a successful connection you have to select an Admin group. This can be an AD group, if Active Directory is connected to the vCenter Server Single-Sign on environment.

After you’ve succesfully configured the SSO connection, do a test login using the Test login option in the Control Center interface. If your login is succesful, you can start the vRO Java client and run the additional required configuration steps.

In the vRO Java client we will have to do two things (the vRO java client is available on https://<vRO URL>:8281):

Add a vCenter instance; Register vCenter Orchestrator as a vCenter Extension.

For both steps the worfklows are available in the library. First run the Add a vCenter instance workflow:

And:

I prefer to use a a shared service account to connect to the vCenter Server from the vRO server. Now the next step: an important one, otherwise you will not be able to run vRO workflows from the vSphere WebClient. Run the Register vCenter Orchestrator as a vCenter Server extension and select the vCenter Server you’ve just registered in the previous step. Now restart your vCenter Server.

If everything went well, the vRO extension should be available in the vSphere WebClient:

In a next article I will explain how to add extra workflows to this list.