After you create and configure machine blueprints, you can select a blueprint in the Configure vCAC Blueprint to Provision Machine to Pool workflow, the Advanced Desktop Allocation workflow, or the Self-Service Advanced Desktop Allocation workflow.

Prerequisites

  • Run the Orchestrator workflows described in Prerequisites for Creating Machines in vRealize Automation.
  • Log in to vRealize Automation as a tenant administrator and verify that an endpoint has been created for vRealize Orchestrator and that its priority is set to 1.

    On the Infrastructure tab, go to Endpoints > Endpoints, verify that vRealize Orchestrator appears in the list of endpoints, and verify that the endpoint has the VMware.VCenterOrchestrator.Priority property set to 1. For complete instructions, see the "Create a vRealize Orchestrator Endpoint" topic in the vRealize Automation Machine Extensibility document, available from the documentation page at https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Automation/index.html.

  • If you plan to make action buttons available on the Items tab of vRealize Automation, so that delegated administrators can use action buttons to perform pool management tasks, perform the tasks described in Making Desktop and Pool Actions Available in vRealize Automation.
  • Familiarize yourself with the Information as a Service (IaaS) concepts and the process of creating machine blueprints and creating services and entitlements for them. See the vRealize Automation documentation, available from the documentation page at https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Automation/index.html.

Procedure

  1. Log in to vRealize Automation as a tenant administrator and create one or more machine blueprints that have a source type of iaas-service.
    Important: When specifying the machine name in the blueprint, use a naming scheme that will indicate to any Horizon administrators that the machine was created in vRealize Automation. Machines that are created in vRealize Automation should be deleted only from within vRealize Automation. The naming scheme lets the Horizon administrator know that the machine should not be deleted from the Horizon Administrator UI. If the machine is deleted from within Horizon Administrator, the machine status in vRealize Automation appears as Missing.
  2. When you create the virtual machine template, install the latest version of VMware Tools and Horizon Agent in the guest operating system.
    Instructions for installing VMware Tools appear in the vSphere Client help. Instructions for installing Horizon Agent are provided in the Setting Up Virtual Desktops in Horizon 7 document, available from the documentation page at https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Horizon-7/index.html.
  3. When you create the virtual machine template, add the machine to the domain.
  4. If you are creating a blueprint for an unmanaged machine, verify that the blueprint contains a customization specification that configures the virtual machine so that it has a unique host name.
    Go to the Build Information tab of the blueprint properties, and verify that the Customization spec text box specifies which customization spec to use.

    If the provided customization spec is not set up to appropriately, the machine might remain in the status of Customizing for over an hour before failing.

  5. Publish the machine blueprint.
  6. Create a service for the blueprint by going to Administration > Catalog Management > Services and completing the wizard.
    For example, you can create a specific service for machine blueprints rather than using the service that you created for service blueprints.

What to do next

Add the appropriate entitlement and run the appropriate workflow. See Use Machine Blueprints to Create and Add Desktops to Pools and Configure a Machine Blueprint Service for Advanced Desktop Allocation.