vSphere agent modification for vRealize Automation (vRA) Endpoint

vSphere Agent Modification for vRealize Automation (vRA) Endpoint

While deploying & testing vRealize Suite as part of my VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) for the Lab, I noticed naming convention issues with IaaS Agent configuration for vRA thus the IaaS Agent name and Endpoint name had to be modified for vRA Endpoint.

It all started during create an Endpoint for vSphere (vCenter) into the vRA infrastructure. I had deployed vRA with Full High Availability architecture (Enterprise Deployment) essentially it means deploying following number of components (VMs) and configure necessary services and agents. This type of deployment is used for production, and allow you to design the topology best suited to your organization’s need.

IaaS Web Server Node 1

IaaS Web Server Node 2

IaaS Manager Server Node 1

IaaS Manager Server Node 2

DEM Worker Node 1

DEM Worker Node 2

Agent Node 1

Agent Node 2

 

One important aspect of the above mentioned deployment is that you ensure to use a friendly name for the ‘Agent Name’. This will need to match the name of the endpoint in vRA for successful data collection.

Here is the screenshot that shows how it looks like for Agent Name and Endpoint.

Once I have successfully deployed vRA with number of IaaS components mentioned above, it is time to configure the Infrastructure Endpoints and  Compute, storage, and network resources for the vRA tenant. As I keep reiterating, there is a 1:1 relationship between the vSphere agent installed on IaaS and the vCenter instance. Additional vCenters require additional vSphere Agents. The vSphere IaaS endpoint name must match the vRA endpoint name.

To create a vCenter endpoint you need to follow these steps:

• Log into the default tenant portal with an account that has infrastructure administrator privileges.
• Select the Infrastructure tab and click Endpoints
• Click New and navigate to Virtual and click on vSphere (vCenter).
• Enter the name for the endpoint unless you have specified a different endpoint name during IaaS installation.

As you see in below screenshot, when I click ‘Test Connection’ to validate configuration and connectivity between IaaS Agents and vRA services, the test was successfully completed however I realized the Endpoint name is not followed as per my Lab specifications therefore the agent name has to be modified.

The simplest way to achieve IaaS Agent name modification is to use the proxy agent utility to modify encrypted portions of the agent configuration file

Note – This procedure has to be executed in all the IaaS components so that the modification is consistent across the IaaS

Using an account with administrator privileges, log in to the IaaS Windows server where you installed the vSphere agent

Procedure:

• Open a Windows command prompt as an administrator
• Change to the agent installation folder, where agent-name is the folder containing the vSphere agent
  • C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\vCAC\Agents\agent-name
• To view the current configuration settings, enter the following command.

DynamicOps.Vrm.VRMencrypt.exe VRMAgent.exe.config get

• The following is an example of the command output.

To change the name of the endpoint that you configured at installation, use the following command

DynamicOps.Vrm.VRMencrypt.exe VRMAgent.exe.config set managementEndpointName <New Endpoint Name>

In my case below my new Endpoint name ‘Cloud-Demo’

Make sure you restart following two services from all the IaaS components mentioned earlier in the blog.

Service – VMware vCloud Automation Center Agent

Service – VMware vCloud Automation Center Management Agent

Once all the necessary actions highlighted above are completed successfully, you can proceed to create the Endpoint with New Name.

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