VCF Automation QuickStart

I recently deployed VCF Automation 8.18.1 to test something and I noticed the Quickstart page upon login.

I usually just skip this step, but for some reason it caught my eye this time, let's go through it. Click LAUNCH QUICKSTART, which will ask you to configure your Cloud Account: either vCenter or VCF.

In my case, I'll just create a vCenter Cloud Account by clicking START on that tile.

Provide a vCenter, Username, and Password. Click VALIDATE to confirm connectivity, which if successful will look like this.

Then click CREATE AND GO TO NEXT STEP.

If you're using NSX, you'll configure that here, I'm not in this lab so I've selected None and then NEXT STEP.

Next you'll select the VM Templates from vCenter you'd like to use.

Additionally, you can create and deploy your first Template/Blueprint by selecting that check box, which will prompt you for more information.

I've configured mine as shown and clicked SAVE.

Once done here, click NEXT STEP.

I'm creating a new Project here, which is where the Template/Blueprint will exist. Once done click NEXT.

Click the EDIT link in each time to adjust the Approval Policy, Lease Policy, and VM Name. Click NEXT STEP.

Review the Summary and click RUN QUICKSTART.

Notice the Quickstart Workflow will do everything for you:

• Verify Cloud Account

• Create Cloud Zone

• Create Project (in Cloud Zone)

• Create IP Range

• Create Network Profile

• Create Storage Profile

• Create Template/Blueprint

• Create Policies (Approval/Lease)

• Create Content Source

• Release Template/Blueprint to the Catalog

• Request deployment from Catalog.

Back on the Services console we can see what's been created.

Selecting Service Broker will give you the Catalog, which shows the Template/Blueprint we just created and release to the Catalog.

If you'd like to test this out you can select REQUEST on the win2022-postinstall-1 tile (in your case this will be different).

Click SUBMIT which will deploy the VM as requested.

As you can see, there is already a Deployment which was created as part of the Quickstart. Click on that link will provide more details.

Over in vCenter you can see the VM was deployed as requested.

This is the VM that was created as part of the original Quickstart. Our second deployment also finished and is now up and running.

As you can see it used the next available IP in our IP Range and assigned the VM Name as requested. In vCenter it looks like this.

What I like most about the Quickstart process is that now we have a Template/Blueprint we can add to. To see it go to Assembler - Design.

Select win2022-postinstall-1 to see the details.

Over on the right you can see the YAML actually creating the VM. There is so much more we can do here, our next blog will discuss the input options. Hope this was helpful!