You can configure a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) as a cloud account within Automation Assembler to use workload domains.

A VCF cloud account enables you to incorporate a VCF workload into Automation Assembler to facilitate a comprehensive hybrid cloud management solution. Automation Assembler offers several entry points from which you can activate the VCF cloud account configuration page. If you access this page using the Add Cloud Account button on the SDDC integration Workload Domain tab, the workload is pre-selected, including the basic information for the vCenter and NSX Manager.

Prerequisites

You must have an instance of VMware SDDC Manager 4.1 or higher configured as an Automation Assembler integration for use with this cloud account. For more information, see Configure a VMware SDDC Manager integration.

Procedure

  1. Select Infrastructure > Connections > Cloud Accounts and click Add Cloud Account.
  2. Select the VCF Cloud Account type, and enter a Name and Description.
  3. Enter the FQDN and credentials for the SDDC manager instance that you are using with this cloud account.
    You can skip this step if you have already configured the SDDC manager instance that you will use with this account.
  4. Select one or more workload domains that you want to use with this VCF cloud account.
  5. If you want to have Automation Assembler use Cloud Foundation managed service credentials for vCenter and NSX, select Automatically create service credentials. Later, if you want to change these credentials, you must use the VCF mechanism for password management.
    If you select this option, you can skip steps 7 and 8.
  6. Enter the credentials required to access the vCenter associated with this cloud account.
  7. Under the NSX Manager heading, enter NSX credentials if you want to manually enter credentials for the VCF cloud account, or click Create and Validate Service Credentials if you want Automation Assembler to create and validate NSX credentials.
  8. Enter the credentials required to access the NSX-T network associated with this cloud account.
  9. If applicable, select the NSX mode.
  10. Click Validate to confirm a connection to the SDDC manager.
  11. If applicable, select the data centers that you want to provision to under the Configuration heading. Click the check box if you want to create a cloud zone for the selected data centers.
  12. If you use tags to support a tagging strategy, enter capability tags. See How do I use tags to manage Automation Assembler resources and deployments and Creating a tagging strategy.
    Note: When capability tags are applied to a VMware Cloud Foundation cloud account, these tags are not inherited by deployments for the underlying vCenter Server and NSX-T components. As a workaround, you can apply tags at the next level, such as on the cloud zones.
  13. Click Save.

Results

This cloud account brings the selected workload domain associated with the specified SDDC manager into Automation Assembler for use.

If you want to manage additional workload domains using VMware Aria Automation, you must repeat this processs for each domain.

What to do next

After you configure the VCF cloud account, you can select the account on the main cloud account page and click Setup Cloud to initiate the VMware Cloud Foundation Quickstart wizard that will configure your cloud.

For more information about the Quick Start wizard, see How do I get started with VMware Aria Automation using the VMware Cloud Foundation Quickstart in Getting Started.