The document summarizes a presentation about automation and cloud evolution. It discusses how automation is currently done mostly through scripting but that more advanced automation uses multiple toolsets like vCenter Orchestrator. It presents an ideal end state of full lifecycle automation from provisioning to decommissioning. It discusses choices around using scripting, vCloud Director or vCloud Automation Center depending on needs. It recommends investing in vCenter Orchestrator to improve automation capabilities.

1. Automation & Cloud
Evolution
VMware vForum Calgary
James Charter, VCDX
Practice Director, Virtualization Solutions
Tuesday, January 21, 2014

2. AGENDA
•About Long View
•What Has Changed?
•Automation Today
•Ideal End State
•Choices
•How Can We Help?

3. About
Long View
One of the most powerful IT Solutions and
Services Company
Offices across North America
Industry leading expertise in key technology
innovations and best practices
Best People.
Best Practices.
Best Value.
Slide 3
Innovative, flexible, cost-effective, and
business focused
A people-focused corporate culture
dedicated to “Being the Best”

4. Key Statistics:
Quick Stats
What we do
•
• Largest and Fastest Growing IT
Solutions Company 10 to 1000+
employees, $2M to $300M+ in 14
years
•
•
•
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Calgary (CDN HQ), Vancouver,
Victoria, Edmonton, Toronto,
Denver (USA HQ), Houston, Dallas,
Phoenix
850+ employees are technical today
2014 total headcount trending to
1300+
Privately owned and debt free,
focused organic growth in leading
technology areas

5. Strategic
Partners
• VMware Premier Solution Provider (Canada/US)
• VMware Enterprise Service Provider
• Cisco Gold Partner
• EMC Velocity Solution Provider Partner
• VCE Solution Provider (Canada/US)
• HP Converged Infrastructure Elite Partner
• NetApp Star Partner
• FlexPod Premium Partner (First Canadian Premium Partner)
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6. What we do
Virtualization
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ASSESSMENTS:
• Environment Health Checks
• Full Technology Assessments
• Operational Readiness
• Business cases & ROI analysis
PLANNING & DESIGN:
• Architect and Design Solutions
• Proof of Concepts and Pilots
• Disaster Recovery Planning
• Solution Strategies & Roadmaps
SOLUTIONS:
• Converged Infrastructure
• Private Cloud / Infrastructure as-aService
• Public Cloud
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
• Application Virtualization
Infrastructure and Packaging
• Onsite Experts
MANAGEMENT & OPTIMIZATION:
• Systems Automation,
Provisioning and Capacity
Allocation
• Backup and Recovery
• Performance and Capacity
Management
• Availability, Monitoring and
Alerting solutions

7. What Has
Changed?
Announcements @ VMworld 2013 San Francisco
• vCloud Director development stopping after the 5.5
release, patches only, no new features
Product
Functionality &
• vCloud Director product functionality being replaced by
vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) and future release
vCenter capabilities
• So what do we do?
• So what do we use?
Slide 7
vCloud
Automation
Center

8. vCloud
Director
Transition
http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2013/09/vcloud-directorconvergence-and-transition-plan-whats-the-scoop.html
vCAC 6.0 now offers Secure Multi-tenancy
Slide 8

9. Automation
Today
How do we do it
now? Mostly
Scripting!
Slide 9
Let’s start at the beginning…
What does automation look like today?
Basic automation
• Product interface or scripts to accomplish simple
workflows
• Single use & some re-occurring administrative use
Advanced automation
• Multiple toolsets to accomplish complicated workflows
for scalability
• Enterprise automation toolsets

10. Automation
Today
How do we do it
now? Scripting!
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What does basic automation look like today?
Basic automation
• Product interface typically (or scripts)
• vCenter Orchestrator for simple workflows
• PowerCLI & PowerShell for simple tasks
• vCloud Director for deploying vApps
• Requires some skill and scripting knowledge, minimal
investment

11. Automation
Today
What does automation look like today?
Basic automation
Basic scripted tasks
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12. Automation
Today
How do we do it
now? Multiple
toolsets!
Slide 12
What does advanced automation look like today?
• Web Portal front end
• vCenter Orchestrator for backend workflows (AMQP,
component plug-ins, call other scripts, start other tasks,
provision physical components)
• PowerShell scripting for component specific
requirements
• Requires skills and ongoing investment

13. Automation
Today
How do we do it
with one toolset?
Slide 13
What does advanced automation look like today with
Enterprise tools?
• Web Portal front end
• Orchestration framework with modules of repeatable
workflows, scalable
• Extensible with scripting for component specific
requirements
• Requires skills and ongoing investment

14. Automation
Today
Public Tenant Provisioning Workflow
Workflow Portal
How do we do it
now? Multiple
toolsets!
Tenant
environment
created
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3rd Party Calls
• Network
Provisioning
• Server
Provisioning
• Storage
Provisioning
IPAM &
CMDB
From 4 Hours
to 15 Minutes!

15. Automation
Today
How do we do it
now? Workflows!
Slide 15
Back end vCO
workflows for
client and
admin tasks

16. Ideal End
State
Where should I be going with this?
• Bare metal to applications (fast scaling, agile)
• Reusable tasks (everything is repeatable, efficiency)
Why? What is the
benefit?
• Integration between provisioning, logging, reporting,
alerting, decommissioning (circle of life)
• Reduce operation effort – focus on faster service, more
services, more flexibility (business value, agile)
Slide 16

17. vCD
Product
Functionality &
vCAC
vCAC with
App Director
Slide 17
• Common day-to-day tasks
• Deployment of customized
VMs
• Provide Self Service Portal for
end users and fenced
networking
• Provide a full life-cycle
management flow from
inception to decommissioning
servers
• Include application
deployment into the
workflow
Basic
PowerShell,
Scripts, vCO
More Advanced
Automation Complexity
Why Do We
Want to
Automate?

18. Effort to
Automate
Processes
Complexity = Bad
Slide 18
Can’t the more advanced tasks all be done just with Scripts,
PowerShell and vCO?
Do you want to spend months and years creating complex
workflows?

19. Consider
Server LifeCycle
How does your
organization deploy
applications?
Slide 19

20. vCAC
Out of the Box
Functionality
All out of the box! And with
a Self Service Portal
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21. Administrative
Interface
Governance &
Management
Slide 21
Admins manage
the environment
- Governance
- Policies

22. Choices
So what if I am already invested in scripting today?
• Is it giving you what you want? Then keep doing it!
What do I do?
Scripting
• Requires more substantial skill and time investment
than you have? Leverage more vCO to increase your
benefit.
• Require more advanced features? Consider vCAC
Going forward more vCO integration
will be available in products
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23. Choices
So what if I am already invested in vCloud Director today?
vCloud Director Basic Deployment
What do I do?
vCloud Director
Slide 24
• Meeting your needs? Keep it, look at
upgrade/migration later
• If you need network fencing, keep it until roadmap
catches up with vCAC

24. Choices
So what if I need Infrastructure as a Service now and can’t
wait for new functionality in a future release?
Determine your use case, simple questions:
What do I do?
Do you need network fencing?
YES - vCloud Director
NO – vCloud Automation Center (vCAC)
• Do not layer vCAC and vCD – too complex!
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25. Choices
Do you need this?
Cradle to Grave lifecycle with integration to existing
process tools
What do I do?
CMDB
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26. Approaches
for Success
Where to invest
now?
You’ve determined that you can benefit from more
automation
What can I be investing in right now to help me?
• Determine where automation could help
• vCenter Orchestrator
• PowerShell
• vCloud Automation Center (vCAC)
• vFabric Application Director
If you can take away one thing today:
Use vCO – most environments don’t leverage this tool!
It will become more important going forward.
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27. Questions??
Questions
Slide 29

28. More
Information?
Education Resources
Slide 30
vBrownBag Automation Track - Podcasts
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/professionalvmwarevbrownbag/id468638808?mt=2
vCO Blog
http://blogs.vmware.com/orchestrator/tag/orchestration
Power CLI Blog
http://blogs.vmware.com/PowerCLI/
VMTN PowerCLI Community
https://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/automationtools/po
wercli?view=discussions
William Lam Blog
http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/
Alan Renouf
http://www.virtu-al.net/2013/12/04/automationits-just-tick-box/
Luc D Blog
http://www.lucd.info/

29. How can we
help?
Interested in moving forward with your own integrations?
•
Drop by the Long View table, tell us your story, and talk
with one of our experts
•
Ask to have one of our Account team book a meeting to
discuss your requirements
Contact us
Email: info@longviewsystems.com
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30. Contact Us
Let’s get
connected.
James Charter
Practice Director, Virtualization Solutions
Email: james.charter@lvs1.com
Twitter: @DavesRant
Blog: www.longviewsystems.com/blog
Blog: www.jamescharter.com
Calgary Office
Main: 403.515.6900
Email: calgarysales@lvs1.com
Facebook
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Twitter
Linkedin
YouTube
Facebook.com/
longviewsystems
Twitter.com/
longviewsystems
Linkedin.com/
company/17908
Youtube.com/
longviewsystems

31. Thank You