What is vRealize Automation?

vRealize Automation (now known as VMware Aria Automation) is a DevOps-based infrastructure management platform for provisioning and configuring IT resources and automating the delivery of container-based applications. Part of the vRealize Suite of products for managing hybrid cloud environments, the platform is designed to automate multiple clouds with secure, self-service provisioning and to help IT staff, DevOps engineers, developers, and line departments get the resources they need. All of this is achieved efficiently yet allows IT to maintain security and control.

Learning the Features and Benefits of vRealize Automation

The latest 8.5 version of vRealize Automation has new features and capabilities.

Users can quickly implement self-service multi-clouds with centralized governance.
Leverage iterative development with enterprise-ready Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and infrastructure pipelining.
Apply system compliance and vulnerability remediation.
Utilize application rollout with network and security.
Manage Kubernetes infrastructure self-service and governance.

Benefits of vRealize Automation

To leverage the various vRealize Automation features and benefits, the tool supports organizations with teams composed of administrators and developers, with each member assigned to specific tasks.

Easy setup and use: As part of VMware’s vRealize Suite, it leverages tools for end-to-end lifecycle management and other common tasks.
Self-service provisioning with fine-grained policy management: User requests are fulfilled from a single product catalog utilizing a common set of policies.
Hybrid and multi-cloud support: Application templates can be deployed to any cloud.
DevOps-ready platform: It provides Kubernetes infrastructure automation capabilities while also supporting third-party tools such as Ansible and Puppet. When bundled with VMware’s vCloud Suite, it can be used together with the VMware vSphere compute virtualization platform.

Creating and Deploying Cloud Templates with Cloud Assembly

vRealize Automation Cloud Assembly is a cloud-based service that makes it easy to create templates for provisioning machines, applications, and services to your cloud vendors. Once a template is created, it can be used without any need to retrofit it to any one vendor.

For Cloud Assembly, administrators are responsible for configuring the cloud vendor infrastructure so that it can accommodate templates once ready, set up projects for users, and, when necessary, import ready-made templates from the VMware Solutions Exchange for developer use.

Aside from creating templates, developers are tasked with deploying the templates to the cloud.

Automating the DevOps Lifecycle

vRealize Automation Code Stream lets your organization leverage continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) principles, allowing for more frequent code changes when necessary and ensuring that your applications are running more smoothly in the process.

vRealize Automation Code Stream integrates your release process with your developer tools. Using pipelines, you can develop, test, and produce software faster.

For Code Stream, administrators create environments and endpoints for developer use, integrate with other services, create, trigger and manage pipelines, monitor development environments, and troubleshoot any issues.

On the other hand, developers build and run pipelines, and they monitor pipeline-related activities.

Organizing and Automating with vRealize Automation Service Broker and Salt Stack Config

vRealize Automation Service Broker provides a single repository for all your catalog items, which includes templates, workflows, and services from different sources.

Administrators are tasked with managing catalog items and enforcing policies on who can and where to deploy them. Users request access to the catalog items when needed for their projects and deployments.

Also available as a standalone product, the open-source SaltStack Config automates provisioning, configuration, and deployment of software to virtual machines (VMs) across your environment. It also gives you the ability to query and execute commands on VMs or groups of VMs.

VMware Aria Automation Use Cases

The new version of vRealise Automation, VMware Aria, can be used for the following scenarios:

Multi-Cloud Self-Service. Infrastructure delivery and consumption across VMware Clouds and public clouds should be self-service.
Multi-Cloud Governance. For multi-cloud setups, control costs, performance, security, networking, and configuration
Kubernetes. Utilize Tanzu to automate the administration of Kubernetes namespaces and clusters with support for vSphere.
DevOps. Support infrastructure pipelining and iterative development to enable an Infrastructure as Code platform.
Security Ops. Utilize event-driven automation to provide full-service, closed-loop compliance enforcement and vulnerability mitigation for IT systems.

Using Parallels RAS for Cloud Automation

Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS) provides a set of cloud automation tools that streamline the deployment and maintenance of your IT infrastructure, freeing your IT staff from often time-consuming and repetitive tasks – making it a great alternative to vRealize Automation.

PowerShell API

IT administrators can manage Parallels RAS Farms using a PowerShell API, providing essential configuration and management capabilities using PowerShell cmdlets. Moreover, the PowerShell API provides a mechanism to set up and manage the Parallels RAS environment without using the Parallels RAS Console.

REST API

Parallels RAS also has a REST API that enables organizations to integrate server operations within their environment, publish resources and manage user sessions.

Other Parallels RAS features include:

Auto-provisioning and autoscaling capabilities using templates.
Automated optimization capabilities for more efficient delivery of virtual applications and desktops.
Set up wizards to help IT teams perform essential tasks more smoothly.

To evaluate Parallels RAS for your cloud automation needs, download the trial.

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