Configuring a VMware Cloud on Dell EMC Instance in VMware Aria Operations

You must configure a dedicated cloud account for VMware Cloud on Dell EMC to manage your VMware Cloud on Dell EMC instances in VMware Aria Operations. For successful configuration, the cloud account requires the CSP API token with appropriate privileges using which the cloud account authorizes and communicates with the target VMware Cloud on Dell EMC. SDDCs are auto-discovered after you save the cloud account for VMware Cloud on Dell EMC. You can then configure the credentials to monitor the underlying vCenter/vSAN and optionally the NSX and service discovery for each of the SDDCs.

Prerequisites

• Navigate to API Tokens under My Account and generate a CSP API token based on your operational needs. For more information, see Generating CSP API Token for VMware Cloud on Dell EMC.
  • To discover and manage SDDCs, include Administrator (Delete Restricted) or Administrator from VMware Cloud on Dell EMC service roles.
  • For NSX monitoring, include NSX Cloud Admin or NSX Cloud Auditor roles from VMware Cloud on Dell EMC service roles.
• Add the IP allowlist for accessing the vCenter Server and NSX Manager in VMware Cloud on Dell EMC service. For more information. see Add IP Allowlist for Accessing vCenter and NSX Manager.
• View the list of Known Limitations of the VMware Cloud on Dell EMC integration.

Procedure

1. From the left menu, click Data Sources > Integrations.
2. On the Accounts tab, click Add.
3. On the Accounts Types page, click VMware Cloud on Dell EMC.
4. Enter a display name and description for the cloud account.
   • Name. Enter the name for the VMware Cloud on Dell EMC instance as you want it to appear in VMware Aria Operations.
   • Description. Enter any additional information that helps you manage your instances.
5. (Optional) Select the Physical Data Center you want to associate with the VMware Cloud on Dell EMC cloud account.
   If no physical data center is created or if you want to create a new physical data center for your cloud account, you can add a new physical data center. For more information, see Adding Physical Data Centers in VMware Aria Operations
6. To add credentials for the VMware Cloud on Dell EMC instance, click the Add icon, and enter the required credentials.
   • Credential Name. The name by which you are identifying the configured credentials.
   • CSP Refresh Token. A CSP API token. For details on generating an API token, see Generating CSP API Token for VMware Cloud on Dell EMC.

   Note: Enter the following details if you are using a proxy server to access the internet or public services.

   • Proxy Host. A remote proxy server IP.
   • Proxy Port. The port that is activated on a remote proxy server.
   • Proxy Username. Enter the username of the proxy server or if you want to add a domain configured remote proxy server, then enter the username as username@domain name.
   • Proxy Password. Password for the proxy server username.
   • Proxy Domain. The domain has to be empty while using the proxy with domain configuration.
7. Determine which VMware Aria Operations collector or collector group is used to manage the cloud account. If you have multiple collectors or collector groups in your environment, and you want to distribute the workload to optimize performance, select the collector or collector group to manage the adapter processes for this instance.
   Note:

   Ensure that you have Internet connectivity for the collectors to work.

8. Organization ID. Click Get Organization to auto-fill this field. If you are offline or if you are unable to get the Organization ID, you can enter it manually.

   The Organization ID refers to the Long Organization ID in the Cloud Service Portal. To obtain this ID in the Cloud Service Portal, click Organization Settings > View Organization.

9. Click Validate Connection to validate the connection.
10. (Optional) Click Advanced Settings.
    1. The VMware Cloud on Dell EMC account uses the following default configuration maximum file: vmc-d_config_limits. Enter the name of the VMC-D Configuration Limit File Name.
    2. Set the Billing Activated setting to true to activate bill based costing and to monitor the costs of running your VMware Cloud on Dell EMC instance.
       The bill based costing retrieves the actual bills and uses cost data from the bills in the cost overview homepage and other cost related functionalities. Bill based cost data retrieval depends on the invoice generation by your provider.

       Note: If the bills are not available in Cloud Services Platform (CSP), then the VMware Cloud on Dell EMC instance costs calculation will automatically switch from the bill-based calculation to the list-price based calculation.
11. Click Save.
    The page to configure the SDDC in VMware Cloud on Dell EMC appears.
12. Configure the vCenter adapter:
    1. Click the Add icon, and enter the required credentials.
       • Credential Name. The name by which you are identifying the configured credentials.
       • User Name. The vCenter Server user name. Use a user with the 'cloudadmin' role which has full visibility to vCenter Server. Users with less privileges have limited visibility, for example, the read-only users do not have visibility into management VMs.
       • Password. The vCenter Server password configured for that vCenter Server user name.
    2. Select the required collector group.
       Note:

       If you have direct connectivity with your VMware Cloud vCenter Server, select Default collector group. If you are using a private IP for your vCenter Server or if you want to deploy telegraf agents for application monitoring, select Cloud Proxy. The best practice is to deploy the Cloud Proxy on each SDDC instance of VMware Cloud on Dell EMC.

       Select the cloud proxy deployed on the given vCenter Server and ensure it has access to the Internet. If the outbound internet access for the cloud proxy must be restricted, ensure that the minimum cloud proxy prerequisites are met.

       For details, see the "Configuring Cloud Proxies in VMware Aria Operations" topic in the Configuring VMware Aria Operations.

       It is advised not to use the default collector groups as the VMware Cloud on Dell EMC management gateway firewall rule does not allow traffic originating from any address.

       If you have configured an HTTP proxy on your VMware Aria Operations cloud proxy, ensure that your HTTP proxy has an exception to access the NSX Management Policy endpoint.

    3. Click Next.
13. By default, the vSAN adapter is activated.
    1. Select Use alternate credentials to add alternate credentials. Click the plus icon, and enter the credential name, vCenter Server username, and password, and click Ok.
    2. Select Activate SMART data collection, if required.
    3. Click Validate Connection to validate the connection.
    4. Click Next.
14. (Optional) Configure Service Discovery. For more information, see Configure Service and Application Discovery.
    After the adapters and cloud accounts are configured, VMware Aria Operations discovers and monitors the environment that runs on VMware Cloud on Dell EMC.
15. Activate the NSX adapter.
    1. Click Validate Connection to validate the connection.
    2. Click Next.
16. Click Save This SDDC.

Results

The VMware Cloud on Dell EMC account, with the configured SDDC, is added to the list.