Currently we're building a small datacenter. For the Infrastructure-as-a-Service part I'm planning to use VMWare vSphere. I know VMWare is pushing its vCloud API so my question is: how can I install and use this API within my own datacenter?
If you are going to use vSphere I strongly advise you to examine PowerCLI. PowerCLI is snapin to Powershell. With PowerCLI you have wonders of Powershell and tools which you can use to automate / manage almost any aspect of vSphere.
vCloud API is currently at beta and it's targeted to vCloud Service Director. It's currently private beta.
Right now VMware is expecting this to be implemented by the service providers themselves. For example BlueLock, Terramark and Hosting.com have implementations provided by the companies' implementations of vCloud Express.
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I need to develop powershell script for automating vm patches updating in azure. I know we can do it by using azure update management but is there any other way to do it? I'm new to it please help.
You could refer to this Virtual Machines - Update to update a virtual machine.
PATCH https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/{vmName}?api-version=2020-06-01
In addition, we could also do this in the UI and capture the request URL and request Body in the Network via F12, then convert it to power shell script.
As per this Microsoft Q&A platform question, you may use PSWindowsUpdate powershell module cmdlets.
And, if you are looking for a way to implement a way by removing dependency on Azure Automation and Azure Log Analytics then check Automatic VM guest patching (Preview).
Also, I would love to know the reason for trying to manually develop script for automating VM patches when the same is already available to us in the form of Update management solution (that is integrated with Azure Automation and Azure Log Analytics).
At work, I'm in the process of installing Windows Azure Pack: Web Sites in a VMWare ESXi lab environment. I have little available RAM and hard drive space on the ESXi.
I originally thought I would be able to do this without spending too much resources. The Azure Pack Express variant is advertised as if it only requires one machine with 8 GBs of RAM. However, after completing the first installation, I discovered that the Azure Pack: Web Sites extension requires no less than 7 different server roles installed on 7 different machines, each with Windows Server 2012 R2. I need a separate Cloud Controller, Cloud Management Server, Cloud Front End, Cloud Publisher, Cloud Shared Web Worker, Cloud Reserved Web Worker and Cloud File Server.
I have no way of freeing up that much resources. In the installation guide for Windows Azure Pack, they "advice" me to use separate VMs for each role, but they don't say explicitly that it won't work. Is it because multiple server roles on one machine will strain resources, or is it because the roles are incompatible and will make the system malfunction? In my case, the Azure Pack will only be used for penetration testing by a single user, so I imagine resources should not be a problem.
I'm not a web administrator, and I'm in over my head on this task. If anyone could give me some advice before I proceed on this, that would be much appreciated.
TLDR: Will there be a critical conflict if I install seven server roles on one machine, or will there just be a strain of resources?
Just to have 100% clarity, does the announcement https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/09/running-Powershell-on-Google-Cloud-SDK.html mean that PowerShell can be used to manage Google Cloud resources/instances independent of the actually installed operating system (i.e. Linux OS)?
Yes. The PowerShell cmdlets are a wrapper for gcloud, which is a cross-platform CLI for managing Google Cloud Platform resources.
We are developing an application in which we need to integrate different cloud services. We need to connect to VmWare VCenter server and should do the provisioning. Is there any Rest API calls to execute the task?
Thanks.....
Since this question was asked and answered VMware has released a vCenter REST API for version 6.5:
The VMware vSphere Automation SDKs provide support for your client application infrastructure with services to perform management operations in your vSphere environment. The vSphere Automation SDK for REST also contains samples to demonstrate how to use the new APIs.
The version 6.5 SDK enables programmatic access to the following
services:
Session management
Tagging
Content Library
Virtual Machines
vCenter Server Appliance management
Read more:
vSphere Automation SDK for REST 6.5 Release Notes
http://creativeview.co.uk/VMware-vCenter-REST-API-Part-1/
Currently, the vSphere API is largely SOAP based.
The simplest way to consume our API is via one of the existing SDKs.
For example, you can use the Python SDK (https://github.com/vmware/pyvmomi) to perform most vSphere functions via the Python library.
Alternatively, you can use a configuration management platform like Chef via the vSphere specific plugin. For Chef, there is a vSphere Knife: https://github.com/chef-partners/knife-vsphere
If you tell us more about the problem you are trying to solve and the tools you are using, we can give you a more detailed answer.
After looking around for some information about managing my azure app i found csmanage and powershell commandlets. What are the difference between these applications and which one to choose?
The basis of Windows Azure Services management is REST API and beauty of using REST API is that you can wrap REST in any programming language as longs as there is networking and security infrastructure available. Most of the tools you mentioned above are using REST API underneath and using Windows Azure Service Management API. CSMANAGE and PowerShell Cmdlets are using Windows Azure Service Management API to manager Windows Azure subscriptions. You can learn more about Service Management API here.
There is also another tool call WAPMMC (Windows Azure Platform Management Tool (MMC) which is also built upon Service Management API.
Besides it there are 3rd party tools which are built using Service management API i.e. Cerebrata Powershell cmdlets.
Comparing all of above, I would say Windows Azure Powershell Cmdlets is the most powerful tool among all of these and it has been updated with bug fixes and many more features added frequently. To use it in your machine you just need to download powershell cmdlets and Windows Azure SDK in your machine as these are required.
http://wappowershell.codeplex.com/
Recently I also found a Java based tool called Burp to use REST API directly from its shell to manage Windows Azure subscription. There is no need for .net framework or Azure SDK. You just need a machine with Java runtime and Burp. I have added a blog on this regard here.
I think it depends on what you're more comfortable with. I don't think the CSManage tool is being updated that much any longer (maybe at all - unsure). The PowerShell cmdlets get a lot of attention - both from Microsoft and partners like Cerebrata.
My vote - learn PowerShell and go with the PowerShell cmdlets for working with your Windows Azure apps. Small learning curve and well worth it.