Logical Design of vRealize Automation

vRealize Automation provides several extensibility options to support various use cases and integrations. In addition, the Cloud Management Platform, of which vRealize Automation is a central component, enables a usage model that includes interactions between users, the Cloud Management Platform itself, and integrations with the supporting infrastructure.

Fabric Endpoints

vRealize Automation can use existing and future infrastructure that represents multi-vendor, multi-cloud virtual, physical, and public cloud infrastructures. Each support type of infrastructure is represented by a fabric endpoint.  

Call vRealize Automation Services from Existing Applications

vRealize Automation provides a RESTful API that can be used to call vRealize Automation application and infrastructure services from IT service management (ITSM) applications such as ServiceNow, PMG Digital Business Platform, and BMC Remedy.

vRealize Business

vRealize Business integrates with vRealize Automation to manage resource costs of provisioned workloads by displaying costing information in the following cases:

At workload request
On an ongoing basis with cost reporting by user, business group, or tenant

Pricing can be on blueprints, endpoints, reservations, and reservation policies for Compute Grouping Strategy. In addition, vRealize Business for Cloud supports the storage path and storage reservation policies for Storage Grouping Strategy.

vRealize Operations Manager

The vRealize Operations management pack for vRealize Automation provides performance and capacity metrics of a tenant’s business groups and underlying cloud infrastructure.

Supporting Infrastructure

vRealize Automation integrates with the following supporting infrastructure:

Microsoft SQL Server to store data relating to the vRealize Automation IaaS elements.
NTP server for synchronization of the time between the vRealize Automation components
Active Directory for tenant user authentication and authorization
SMTP for sending and receiving notification emails for various actions that can be run in the vRealize Automation console.

NSX

NSX and vRealize Automation integration supports designing and authoring blueprints using the networking and security features of NSX. You can use all NSX network constructs such as logical switches, routers, and firewalls.

In a blueprint, you can place an on-demand load balancer, NAT network, routed network , and security groups. When a user requests the blueprint, vRealize Automation automatically provisions these constructs on NSX.

You can directly configure network provisioning as a part of the blueprint design instead of as a separate operation outside vRealize Automation.

Cloud Management Platform Usage Model

The Cloud Management Platform, of which vRealize Automation is a central component, enables a usage model that includes interaction between users, the platform itself, the supporting infrastructure, and the provisioning infrastructure.

Users access the Cloud Management Platform using a tenant-specific URL. Administrators use the URL for the default tenant to create tenant constructs, assigning tenant administrators. Tenant administrators configure authentication and user access, and create fabric groups for consuming the underlying virtual infrastructure and business groups for profiled workload requests. — Figure 2. vRealize Automation Usage Model

The usage model of vRealize Automation contains the following elements and components in them:

Element	Components
Users	Cloud administrators Tenant, group, fabric, infrastructure, service, and other administrators as defined by business policies and organizational structure. Cloud (or tenant) users Users in an organization that can provision virtual machines and directly perform operations on them at the level of the operating system.
Tools and supporting infrastructure	VM templates and blueprints. VM templates are used to author the blueprints that tenants (end users) use to request cloud workloads.
Provisioning infrastructure	On-premise and off-premise resources which together form a hybrid cloud. Internal Virtual Resources Supported hypervisors and associated management tools. External Cloud Resources Supported cloud providers and associated APIs.
Cloud management portal	Self-service capabilities for users to administer, provision, and manage workloads. vRealize Automation portal, Admin access The root portal URL for the default tenant that is used to set up and administer tenants and global configuration options. vRealize Automation portal, Tenant access The portal URL for a custom tenant which you access by appending a tenant identifier.