vCAC - vCloud Automation Center UI customization

At the VMworld 2012 the vCloud Suite bundle was announced. Within this new suite package a new automation tool has arrived: vCloud Automation Center aka vCAC. Many of you know that this was the former dnynamicOps aqcuisition.

With vCloud Automation Center you can do some really cool things and I will show more of it in the upcoming posts. Based on the "old" dynamicOps 4.5 bits I tried to figure out how to customize the vCAC self-service portal which looks like this:

As you can see, it´a really smart frontend with some nice slider, buttons and of course functions. Based on the IIS config you can find the folder which contains the self-service portal files:

Under "App_Themes" you can now create a new one. Now you can edit the web.config file and add your themes there. In the web.config file is a description what to do :)

With this step you can now choose what designs you will offer:

I also checked the used objects (javascript console) to find out which .css file is used. As you can see, the design URL "/DCACSelfService/Content/Styles/all.css" defines all the layout stuff.

So the App_Theme only manages the calendar. I changed my profile in "custom" and used the downloaded jQuery theme for the calendar which isn´t colored:

As you can see, it´a bit tricky but you don´t need a master degree to design your own layout. So have fun with all the colors :)

UPDATE: One thing to keep in mind! Like all of my posts this one is no official supported solution :)

vCloud Director - get chain length and consolidate a vCloud:VM

As you may know it isn´t possible to consolidate a VM as an organization administrator. In most environments the customer gets an Org (Cola for example) and can deploy vApps etc. but isn´t able to consolidate a vCloud:VM (i use the vCO syntax for explicit wording).

If you want to provide this function in a customer portal, with WaveMaker for example, you need to check the chain length and when the user decides the consolidate method has to be called.

I build a workflow:

The workflow has three steps: determination of the chain length, user decision to consolidate or not and the consolidate call itself. The first part (getChain script) looks like this:



myVm.updateInternalState();

System.log("VM name: "+myVm.name);

var doc = new XML(myVm.toXml());
default xml namespace = doc.namespace();
var n8 = new Namespace("http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/extension/v1.5");

System.log("ChainLength: "+doc.VCloudExtension.*::VmVimInfo.*::VirtualDisksMaxChainLength);

var chainLength = doc.VCloudExtension.*::VmVimInfo.*::VirtualDisksMaxChainLength;

if(myVm.vmStatus.value != 8){
throw("VM is not powered off!");
} 

As you can see I update the state of "myVM" (vCloud:VM) and setting the variable "chainLength" (number). The chain length is used as external input for the user interaction, so it´s possible to decide based on the count.

After the submission the myVm.consolidate() method is called and the workflows waits for it.

With my host.login() workflow you can combine the Org based login with the consolidation of vCloud:VM´s :)

NEW - mcsWebServicePlugin - NEW

Have you ever ask yourself how to integrate own dynamic webservices into the vSphere Client? Not the poorly way with static .xml pages... now we develop a small freeware solution for this: the mcsWebServicePlugin!

With this vSphere Client Plugin you have the power to integrate your webservices based on the clicked object in the inventory tree. With this solution you are able to simply integrate your mangement boards based on the clicked ESX/ESXi Host-System:



But that´s not the only option. You can also integrate web-portals like your service desk, your monitoring solution or an order portal for new virtual machines. We use it for vCenter Orchestrator workflow integration.



The best is the really simple installation and configuration of the plugin. You have to copy the mcsWebServicePlugin.zip into plugins in your vSphere Client folder and extract it to a new folder in the plugins path. After starting the vSphere Client you can configure your webservice and copy the index.php and the info.php into this path.



At the moment this is the freeware version. In the future there will be a commercial release which would be much more dynamic and allows more than one tab and one central link location.

Feel free to ask for features or if you have any questions!

Here you can download the Plugin and the documentation:
mcsWebServicePlugin.zip
documentation_mightycare_webserviceplugin_v0.2.pdf