VMware KB TV - How to install and configure VMware vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in for vCloud Director

We are proud to announce that vCO Team members and VMware KB TV have released the "How to install and configure VMware vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in for vCloud Director" video. This video is published on the excellent VMware KB blog and the VMwareKB channel on youtube. We definitely recommend you to subscribe to these and to follow VMware KB on twitter.

Thousands of visitors have consulted our installation and configuration articles in the last few months and these are the only articles getting more and more traffic week after week. If you are planning on a vCloud Director deployment, you may want to consider a vCO server configured with this plug-in to help automate some of those redundant tasks.

VMware vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in for vCloud Director installs similar to any other plug-in. To help you along with the installation and configuration of this new plug-in, we have worked with the @VMwareKB folks to record a How-To video for them to publish on their YouTube channel. That video is right here:

Overview

This video provides instruction on the installation and configuration of the VMware vCenter Orchestrator Plug-In for vCloud Director .

VMware vCenter Orchestrator has an open plug-in architecture that allows for integration with various other products and services. VMware is pleased to present the Plug-in for vCloud Director, which allows for orchestration of your vCloud Director environment! The following video will walk you through the steps required to get the plug-in installed and configured for use.

Prerequisites

Use of the plugin requires the following be available:

  • vCloud Director 1.0 or 1.0.1 Installed and Configured with one or more Organizations
  • vCenter Orchestrator 4.1.0 or 4.1.1 Installed and Configured

Installation and Configuration

  1. Launch the vCenter Orchestrator Configuration web interface
  2. Click on the Install Application" tab
  3. Browse for the vCloud Director Plug-in file and install it
  4. After it is installed, the vCloud Director Plug-in will be listed on the left side of the Configuration screen - select it
  5. Click on SSL Certificates in the right pane and then enter the URL to your vCloud Director server and click Import
  6. Click on the vCloud Director Plug-in in the left pane again
  7. Now Click the tab: New vCloud Director Connection
  8. Fill out the form, selecting the shared session, then specifying an org name and the appropriate credentials. If configuring the plugin for full administrative access over all Organizations, specify "SYSTEM" as the Organization name and provide the correct credential for your vCloud Director server.
    • NOTE: Shared session is the advised configuration due to the amount of Caching that is done to optimize GUI performance. If session per use is set then the memory consumption will increase on a per logged in user basis.
  9. Once the plugin has been configured, restart the vCenter Orchestrator Server service
  10. Verify that the plugin is installed and configured correctly by logging into the vCenter Orchestrator client and:
    • Click the Inventory in the bottom left of the screen and verify that you can browse through your vCloud Director Organization(s)
    • Click the Workflows in the left of the screen and verify you have a Workflow Category named vCloud Director with several sub-categories and workflows underneath
    • Finally, run one of the vCloud Director workflows and confirm it works.