— 15 Comments

vRealize Automation 7.3 Plug-In for ITSM – Service Now 3.0 – Step by Step Guide!

Before I start I want to give credit to Spas Kaloferov original blog on this subject. I think you should take the time to check it out specially if your considering using ADFS, as his blog includes the ADFS configuration steps where in my setup I didn’t use ADFS! there for there will be a few caveats.

ADFS allows login for vRealize Automation users that are not in ServiceNow. However, it does not allow login for ServiceNow users that are not in vRealize Automation.

If you use the default authentication like we are going to do here, there are some restrictions and requirements around authentication that you should be aware of, as described in the following table.

SNOW-45

The vRealize Automation Plugin for ITSM 3.0 was released by VMware October 5, 2017 with a couple of Enhancements that I will touch on as part of the Step by Step Installation and configuration guide. I m hoping I do it justice, so lets dive right in.

The vRealize Automation plug-in for ServiceNow enables ServiceNow users to deploy virtual machines and perform day 2 actions on CMDB resources using vRealize Automation catalog and governance capabilities.

The vRealize Automation plug-ins for ServiceNow 3.0 works only with vRealize Automation 7.3, and are available only for the ServiceNow Istanbul and Jakarta releases. Also, the optional ADFS configuration , still uses ADFS 2.0.

For previous iterations of the ServiceNow ITSM plug-in please visit the solution exchange and search for ITSM. You will find ITSM 1.0 and ITSM 2.0

The latest version of the plug-in still supports vSphere and Amazon virtual machine provisioning but unlike the previous versions, we now have added support for Azure, and XaaS blueprints as well, including day 2 operations like Power ON/OFF, Reboot, and Destroy.

Stage 1 – Configuring a MID Server

Before installing the plug-in, you must configure a Management, Instrumentation, and Discovery (MID) Server to facilitate communication between ServiceNow and vRealize Automation.

Creating a MID Server User Account in ServiceNow

  • Log in to your ServiceNow portal and type System Security in the search field.
  • Expand Users and Groups > select Users > Click New to create a new user account.

SNOW-1

  • Fill the required information and click Submit

SNOW-2

  • Find the user you just created by using the search field and select it from the list by clicking on it.

SNOW-3

  • At the bottom of the screen, click Edit within the Role tab.

SNOW-4

  • Search for the mid_Server role and add it the user account, then click Save to get back to the user information page.

SNOW-5

SNOW-6

  • Enter a password for the user account and click Update.

SNOW-7

  • Now lets logoff and login back to ServiceNow using the MID server user to verify that the account is working properly, then logoff.SNOW-9SNOW-10

Installing and Configuring a MID Server Instance

In this step we will cover how to install and configure a MID Server instance which can be done on any servers in your DMZ or private Network as long as we have access to internet where we can communicate with our ServiceNow instance.

  • Login back to your ServiceNow instance with your admin account
  • Search for Mid Server in the search field and select Downloads

SNOW-11

  • Select the appropriate Mid Server package for your desired operating system, in our case here we will download the Windows 64 bit
  • On your Mid Server, create a folder called <MID Server> on your C: drive and then create a sub-folder and give it the name of your Mid Server.
  • Extract the package you downloaded into your <MID Server>/Server name folder. The resulting directory structure would be  //agent

SNOW-12.jpg

  • Navigate to the //agent directory and edit the config.xml file as follows:

Change 1
– Find the <parameter name=”url” value=”https ://YOUR_INSTANCE.service-now.com”/> element and change the value to the URL of your ServiceNow instance.

Change 2
– Enter the MID user credentials you created earlier in the mid.instance.username and mid.instance.password parameters.

Change 3
– Find the <parameter name=”name” value=”YOUR_MIDSERVER_NAME”/> element and change the value for the MID Server name. Use the same name you’ve used form the directory earlier.

Change 4 (Optional)
– Enter connection information for the proxy server. Remove the appropriate comment tags from the proxy configuration information. For example, you can configure the mid.proxy.use_proxy, mid.proxy.host, mid.proxy.port, mid.proxy.username, and mid.proxy.password.

  • Save the config.xml file and execute the start.bat script to start the service.

SNOW-13

  • Login back to your ServiceNow instance with your admin account
  • Search for Mid Server in the search field and select Server

SNOW-14

  • Select the Mid Server name by clicking the check box and select validate from Actions menu on the selected row. click OK to accept the initial criteria.

SNOW-15

 

Stage 2 – Installing the vRealize Automation Plug-in For ServiceNow

Now its time to install the XML plug-in which you must download from the Solution Exchange website Here for your ServiceNow version, either Istanbul or Jakarta type instance.

The plug-in when installed enables vRealize Automation to do the following :

  • Creates vRealize Automation Catalog and Resources menu items within the ServicesNow self-service module.
  • Creates a workflow for requesting vRealize Automation items.
  • Creates the catalog admin role and assigns it to the System Administrator.
  • Grants the users with the catalog admin role access to the integration > vRealize Automation module.

Procedure

  • Log in to your ServiceNow portal as a system administrator and type System System Update Sets in the search field.
  • Select Retrieved Update Sets from the menu and click on Import Update Set From XML

SNOW-16

  • Click Choose File on the dialog to choose the file to upload, and then select the vRealize Automation ServiceNow XML file you downloaded from the solution exchange and click Upload.

SNOW-17

  • In the Retrieved Update Sets list, select the vRealize Automation ServiceNow update set in the Name column and then Loaded in the State column.

SNOW-18

  • Select Preview Update Set to validate the update set before committing it. A dialog box confirms update set validation

SNOW-19

SNOW-20

  • Inspect the update set information, and then click Commit Update Set.

SNOW-21

  • A dialog box opens automatically after you click Commit Update Set while the commit action is in progress. A Close button appears on the dialog when the commit completes. Click this button to dismiss the dialog.

NOW-22

  • Click Udpate

SNOW-23.jpg

  • Select Retrieved Update Sets in the left menu and verify that the VMware update set has a status of Committed.

SNOW-24

Stage 3 – Configure Users for the vRealize Automation Plug-in for ServiceNow

You can configure users either before or after installing the vRealize Automation plug-in for ServiceNow. as I mentioned before we not leveraging ADFS here

Add the role vra_user in ServiceNow for all users that must access vRealize Automation, including vrasn_end_user, vrasn_catalog_admin, and vrasn_itil_user, to enable those users to see vRealize Automation catalog items.

  • Search for System Security and select Users and Groups > Users. Type vra into the user search. add the vra_user role to the above mentioned built-in users for now,  in addition to any user that must access vRealize Automation which you can do at the end.

SNOW-25

SNOW-27

  • Verify and, if necessary, update the appropriate users and roles in ServiceNow. See
    Creating Users and Associating to a group and Creating Roles for more information about working with users, groups, and roles in ServiceNow.
  • The ServiceNow plug-in for vRealize Automation uses the following ServiceNow roles:

SNOW-26

Stage 4 – Configure the vRealize Automation Workflow for Requested Items

The system admin can configure the vRA Workflow for Requested Item using the workflow editor.
At a minimum, you must assign the approval group that contains your ApprovalMgr. When users request vRealize Automation catalog items, this workflow runs, and approvals are sent to the ApprovalMgr within the approval group before the request is submitted to vRealize Automation.

Follow the steps below to use your own approval group and add it to the vRealize Automation workflow:

  • Search for Workflow Editor in the ServiceNow navigation pane and click it.

SNOW-28

  • Search for vRealize Automation Workflow for Requested Item and open it by clicking on it.

SNOW-29

  • Click the menu button and select Checkout.

SNOW-30

  • Double-click the Approval group stage in the workflow

SNOW-31

  • Click the Edit Groups button. Search the list of groups and make the appropriate selections, then Lock your selection by clicking the Lock icon -> Click Update -> Click the menu button -> Click Publish.

SNOW-32

  • By default you will see that the vRealizeAutomaion-ApprovalManagersGroup is already added.  in my instance I made sure that the ServiceNow System Administrator is part of this group.

Stage 5 – Set Basic Configurations the vRealize Automation Plug-in for ServiceNow

You must set up a vRealize Automation integration user. ServiceNow requires this user to import catalog items, categories, request statuses, and resources from vRealize Automation.
In order to import items, the integration users must be a business group manager within the business groups that you want ServiceNow to manage. The integration user does not require a role within ServiceNow.

Procedure

  • Log in to vRealize Automation as a business group manager.
  • Edit your business groups and assign the integration user as a business group manager. in my lab as you see below i will be using the cloudadmin which is a member of the cloudadmins group which has all the roles within vRealize Automation in addition to all the Business group Roles.

SNOW-33

Now that we installed the vRealize Automation plug-in for ServiceNow, and configured users and the integration user “cloudadmin“, we can complete the set up with basic configurations.

  • Search for Integration-vRealize Automation in the ServiceNow navigation pane -> click on Basic Configuration -> Enter the appropriate settings for your MIDServer Name, vRealize Automation tenant, URL, Integration Username and Password and plug-in.

Note : The MidServer Name should be the same as the Server folder name you created at earlier stage when you extracted the Mid Server config files.

SNOW-44

Stage 6 – Register the Plug-in for ServiceNow as a vRealize Automation OAuth 2.0 Client.

After setting up Basic Configurations, you must register the plug-in as a vRealize Automation OAuth 2.0 client.

To register the plug-in, you must provide user credentials to authenticate to vRealize Automation. we have two options here :

Option 1 : If you plan to use the vsphere.local tenant, you can use the administrator from the vsphere.local tenant. Set administrator as the username in the Register the Plug-in as a vRealize Automation OAuth 2.0 client dialog.

Option 2: Use the system admin, is to set up a user with local user and tenant admin roles within your tenant and provide these user credentials. This option registers the
ServiceNow plug-in only in the specified tenant. Providing the same tenant is set in Basic Configurations, this tenant is configured for the end users.

in my case we will be using Option 1.

Procedure

  • Search for Integration-vRealize Automation in the ServiceNow navigation pane -> Click Client Registration
  • Enter the user credentials in the Register the Plug-in as a vRealize Automation OAuth 2.0 Client dialog and since we are using Option 1, we will enter Administrator as the user and provide the password. – > click Submit

SNOW-35

  • Set the Client ID and Client Secret in the Set the Client ID and Client Secret dialog. You must choose what to set. for me I used the same account and password as the Client ID and Client Secret.

SNOW-36

  • Once set, the values are saved in the vrasn.clientID and vrasn.clientSecret properties within Integration > vRealize Automation > System Properties. Client ID and Client Secret are later used to get the access token of the users on login within the tenant specified in Basic Configurations.
  • On completion, you are redirected to the Basic Configurations page.

Note : You MUST logoff from ServiceNow and login again into the portal so you can be redirected to vRA ( you must be on Intranet, so you can reach vRA ) and logon using the integration User. This has to happen at least once after that is just black magic.

After that you can even access ServiceNow portal from the internet and when you are redirected to vRA obviously it will fail since you can’t reach vRA from the internet . Here you can re-enter the ServiceNow URL again and it will let you in the 2nd time. you can even request vRA blueprint .

Stage 7 – Configure and Run Scheduled Import Jobs in ServicesNow

On a first time install of the plug-in, you must manually execute scheduled jobs to import the catalog and resources. Though there is a default schedule for running jobs, you should edit the schedule time in each import according to your needs as you execute each job.

For example, you might want to import catalog items every 10 minutes for high
provisioning use.

The plug-in provides scheduled imports with the following functions. Scheduled imports should be configured and run in the order shown in the table below :

SNOW-37

SNOW-39

Procedure

  • Log in as the ServiceNow System admin
  • Search for Integration-vRealize Automation in the ServiceNow navigation pane and click on Scheduled Imports

SNOW-38

  • This would be a good time to Click on the applicable job name and change the Repeat Interval in Days, Hours, Minutes, and Seconds and update the Import Job Schedule based on your needs
  • Run scheduled jobs in the order shown in the table. Ensure that each job is complete before starting the next one. Completed jobs are shown as processed in the Scheduled Import Queue
  • For now will execute each manual based on the order outlined in the table mentioned above by opening the import job and click Execute Now

SNOW-40

  • Completed jobs are shown as processed in the Scheduled Import Queue. Click the Updated column which you need to add of the Scheduled Import Queue to refresh. The last updated time of the corresponding properties for these scheduled imports is also updated.
  • One thing I had to do in my instance which is mentioned in the Troubleshooting section of the Plug-in documentation is that in some cases, you may need to clear the Value field of the corresponding property in Integration > vRealize
    Automation > Properties and update the property prior to executing the appropriate scheduled import. Once the Value field was clear for all 5 records I started seeing all the jobs in the Scheduled Import Queue when I executed them in order.

Stage 8 – Configure the vRealize Automation Catalog in ServiceNow

Now its time to Choose the catalogs that you want end users to use for provisioning requests.

Procedure

  • Log in a the catalog admin or system admin
  • Select the vRealize Automation Catalog, then clear / delete all the default widgets. if you don’t that you wont see the Add here Section when you select the Category later.
  • Select the plus sign in the upper right corner to add vRealize Automation services, known as Catalog Categories in the ServiceNow, for provisioning

SNOW-41

  • Highlight the Catalog categories in the center pane -> Select Category Items to display the items within the Category and select Add Here based on where you want to place within the catalog page.

SNOW-42

  • Repeat the process for others Categories, to setup your final catalog and start provisioning.

SNOW-43

The End Eh!

 

Automation and Orchestration ITSM vRealize Automation
— 4 Comments

Virtual Container Host As A Service [VCHAAS] With vRealize Automation – vRA 7.x

vSphere Integrated Containers Engine is a container run-time for vSphere, allowing developers familiar with Docker to develop in containers and deploy them alongside traditional VM-based workloads on vSphere clusters, and allowing for these workloads to be managed through the vSphere UI in a way familiar to existing vSphere admins.

2017-04-24_12-55-08

vSphere Integrated Containers comprises three major components:

  • vSphere Integrated Containers Engine, a container runtime for vSphere that allows you to provision containers as virtual machines, offering the same security and functionality of virtual machines in VMware ESXi™ hosts or vCenter Server® instances.
  • vSphere Integrated Containers Registry, an enterprise-class container registry server that stores and distributes container images. vSphere Integrated Containers Registry extends the Docker Distribution open source project by adding the functionalities that an enterprise requires, such as security, identity and management.
  • vSphere Integrated Containers Management Portal, a container management portal that provides a UI for DevOps teams to provision and manage containers, including the ability to obtain statistics and information about container instances. Cloud administrators can manage container hosts and apply governance to their usage, including capacity quotas and approval workflows.

These components currently support the Docker image format. vSphere Integrated Containers is entirely Open Source and free to use. Support for vSphere Integrated Containers is included in the vSphere Enterprise Plus license.

Now that we are done with the intro, we will only be focusing on VIC Engine in this post and how we can leverage vRealize Automation 7.x to make it even better and faster to deploy by users as a service.

I have been playing with vSphere Integrated Containers for a while now and since the early beta days. I can tell you that deploying and deleting the VCH Endpoint so many time was a bit painful since the command line is so rich including so many parameters that you can choose from where some are mandatory and some are optional, which of course can be a bit overwhelming specially when you fat finger some of these parameters as often as I do.

Example of the Linux command line with some of its parameters to deploy a Virtual Container Host on vSphere, looks something like this :

./vic-machine-linux create –name VCH_Name -t ‘UserName@domain.com:Password@vCener_IP_or_FQDN‘ –compute-resource Target_Cluster –public-network Target_Managment_Network –bridge-network Target_Bridge_Network –image-store DataStore_Name –volume-store DataStore_Name :default –dns-server DNS_IP_Or_FQDN –public-network-ip VCH_IP –public-network-gateway Gateway_IP/CIDR–force –no-tlsverify

During all this testing time I had to save the entire command line in a text file with all of its parameters, so I can simply copy and past the command when I need to, after replacing some of these parameters with the values I wanted to use, so I don’t have to type it over and over every single time I decide to deploy or delete a Virtual Container Host to test.

Having in mind our main use case for vRealize Automation and that is IT Automating IT , I wanted to find a way where I can somehow provide this as a service in my home lab where I can simply select the service and submit the request from the catalog.

Well, I did that some time ago and today I m excited to share that publicly on my new blog with all of you out there !

So please sit tight, enjoy the ride as I Explain…

In vRealize Orchestrator I managed to leverage the Guest Script Manager to take the command line with the majority of its parameters and automate the life out of it by creating the desired workflows use cases ( The Creation and Deletion of the VCH process ) then use these workflows as Anything as a service XaaS type blueprints in vRA to essentially present it as an item catalog where users can easily request to create a new VCH or delete an existing one.

Of course there are many other ways on how you can do the VCH automation piece and probably even better than the one I’m sharing here, but this is simply how I did it!.

Steps and User Experience

ScreenShot-1

1. Request the Service from the Catalog


ScreenShot-2

2. Provide the VIC Machine Information


ScreenShot-3

3. Provide the targeted vCenter Server


ScreenShot-4

4. Provide the VCH Configuration needed for the deployment


ScreenShot-5

5. Workflow executes in vRO to deploy the VCH endpoint on vSphere

This is so great on so many levels since now you can easily entitle any development groups for example, that really don’t have to know a whole lot on how VIC works and are simply able to request the service to access a docker API and provision Containers.

You can also wrap an approval / governance policy around it which vRA can easily provide and have all the parameter’s values available to users in drop-down list format within the XaaS Forms on the request page, so the requester don’t have to wonder when filling out these form requests, things like which cluster I should be deploying this to, What network I should be selecting, What Storage I should use and more importantly standardize these inputs to avoid typos to standardize the service overall so its consistent across the IT organization.

 

I tested both XaaS blueprints ( Create and Delete VCH ) and both works like a charm. I still though have to clean it up a bit but I will be sharing both the vRO package and the XaaS blueprints here on this post so others can use it or build on top of it and make it even better since I am not really an expert when it comes to developing vRO workflow but I m doing my best to learn even more.

High level Deployment Guide

Please be aware that this has not been tested yet outside my lab, so please provide feedback if you have any issues, in case I need to tweak things :

  1. Download the VCH 1.0 (Here) or VCH 1.1 (Here) Automation package depending on the VIC version bundle you have or planning to download and extract its content. The package includes the vRO package that includes the VCH workflows and the 2 XaaS VCH Blueprints for the VCH Create and Delete operation.
  2. If you download the 1.0 VIC bundle (Here) make sure its extracted to /workspace/vic on the desired VIC machine (The Machine that host the VIC Bundle), here you will use the VCH 1.0 in step 1.
  3. If you download the 1.1 VIC bundle (Here) make sure its extracted to /workspace/vic on the desired VIC machine (The Machine that host the VIC Bundle), here you will use the VCH 1.1 in step 1.
  4. Import the vRO package into the vRA embedded vRO instance using the vRO client
  5. Use the Cloud Client (Here) to import the two XaaS Blueprints into vRA where you can then publish and entitle them to users.
  6. Confirm that the blueprints are actually pointing to the respective VCH workflows that you imported perilously.

Please make sure to map the right VCH Automation package version with the right VIC Bundle version since some of the command syntax changed in VIC 1.1

Important Deployement Notes

  • This was done using the Guest Script Manager as I mentioned before which is already bundled in the VCH 1.0 vRO package along with the VCH workflows in the vRO package I Exported, so you don’t have to install the GSM yourself.
  • All the fields for this version is mandatory and can’t be skipped for now, but its something that you can definatly modify if you want to.
  • All the fields are static, so later on you can configure some of the field’s in XaaS forms as drop-down lists and provide value from you own environment such as Clusters Name, Network port-groups or storage..etc
  • The Workflow will deploy VCH with Server-side authentication with auto-generated, untrusted TLS certificates that are not signed by a CA, with no client-side verification. i.e. –no-tlsverify is hard coded as you will see in the create command mentioned below.
  • You have VIC bundle deployed and extracted to a folder called /workspace/vic/ on a Linux machine called out in the XaaS forms as the VIC Machine VM available within the same vCenter/environment. This can be the vRA appliance as well and you can modify the original Workflow to preset the values for the VIC machine properties section (2nd Screenshot above) so the user don’t even have to select it or go through the first request tab.
  • The VCH deployment can be used and manually added in Admiral using the certificate type credentials which can be obtained from the VIC Machine from the VCH folder created after a successful deployment . for example if you deploy an endpoint called VCH01, both the server-cert.pem and server-key.pem would be located in /workspace/vic/VCH01 folder on the VIC Machine.
  • This is the command line that being executed on the VIC Machine VM ( which is the VM that has the VIC bundle deployed and extracted to /workspace/vic ) . All the parameters that are used between vRA and vRO are in-between brackets.

The Create Command Used in the Create Workflow for VIC 1.0

./vic-machine-linux create --name [vchName] --appliance-cpu [vchCpu] --appliance-memory [vchMem] -t '[vCenterUserName]:[password]@[vCenterIp]' --compute-resource '[clusterName]' --public-network [publicNetwork] --bridge-network [bridgeNetwork] --image-store [imageStore] --volume-store [volumeStore]:[volumeName] --dns-server [dnsServerIp] --public-network-ip [vchPublicIp] --public-network-gateway [vchPublicGateway]/[vchPublicGatewaySubnet] --force --no-tlsverify

The Create Command Used in the Create Workflow for VIC 1.1

./vic-machine-linux create --name [vchName] --endpoint-cpu [vchCpu] --endpoint-memory [vchMem] -t '[vCenterUserName]:[password]@[vCenterIp]' --compute-resource '[clusterName]' --public-network [publicNetwork] --bridge-network [bridgeNetwork] --image-store [imageStore] --volume-store [volumeStore]:[volumeName] --dns-server [dnsServerIp] --public-network-ip [vchPublicIp]/[vchPublicIpSubnet] --public-network-gateway [vchPublicGateway] --force --no-tlsverify

You notice if you compare the create command between the two versions that some of the parameters were changed. i.e.  –appliance-cpu  renamed to –endponit-cpu

The Delete Command Used in the Delete Workflow is same for both versions

./vic-machine-linux delete --force -t '[vCenterUserName]:[password]@[vCenterIp]' --compute-resource '[clusterName]' --name [vchName]

Have fun Everyone!

Automation and Orchestration vRealize Automation vsphere integrated containers