vRA7.3 – T-Shirt Size BluePrints

While I was working on various vRA deployment whether it is 6.x , 7.0 , 7.1 and 7.2 and many of my customers was looking for T-Shirt sizing VMs and I had to write vRO workflow with custom properties to ensure that customer get desired T-shirt sizing deployed VMs.

Now with the release of vRA7.3 , this is Out of the box available , Now you can have traditional blue print where user will chose number of CPU’s and Memory etc…or you can have blueprints where user chooses T-shirt size(like Small , Medium and Large ) deployment. obviously these parameterized blueprints will help us in reducing blueprint sprawls.

In vRA 7.3 VMware Introduced component profiles for defining size and image attributes , which will going to help us out in creating T-Shirt size blue prints and further we can trigger approval policies to size or image conditions.

In this post I will create a simple blue print by defining size and image attributes.

Let’s first Define Component Profile Size:

Log in to the vRealize Automation console as an administrator with tenant administrator and IaaS administrator access rights.
Select Administration > Property Dictionary > Component Profiles.
Click Size in the Name Column.
Click the Value Sets tab
For defining a new value set, Click New and configure the Size settings.
Enter the Values based on your defined sizes., Here I am creating three sizes:
Small: 1 vCPU, 4 GB RAM and 10 GB Storage.

Medium: 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM and 20 GB Storage.

Large: 4 vCPU, 16 GB RAM and 40 GB Storage
Once defined all the value sets click Finish , and we will have three value sets defined.

Next is the image profile.Now Click on Image
Click Size in the Name Column.
Click on Value Set and then Click on New
Enter Display Name

Enter Status as Active

Enter Action as Clone and we will be cloning from a template

Enter Blueprint Type as Server

Enter CloneFrom as “your vSphere Template”

Enter Customization Spec as “Same name as you have created in vCenter”

Enter Provisioning workflow as Cloneworkflow
I am creating Image Value Sets for three operating systems
Windows 2012

Windows 2016

Cent OS
Once created all, Click Finish.

We are done with Value Set of size and Image.

Now let’s create a Blueprint to use these Value Sets.

Click the Design tab.

Click New.

In the New Blueprint window:
Type the name of the blueprint in the Name text box.
The Identifier text box will be auto-populated.
Type the purpose of the blueprint in the optional Description text box.
Select the Archive
Select the Minimum and Maximum Lease
On the NSX Settings tab, select Transport zone and Routed gateway reservation policy as applicable.
Click OK.

Click Machine Types in the left top navigation panel.You will see a list of all the machine types below.
Drag and drop a VMware vSphere® machine onto the main canvas.

Type the name of the VM component in the ID text box.
Leave the Machine Prefix as Use Group Default. The host name will be assigned based on the machine prefix defined in your business group.
Select the Minimum and Maximum
Select Network & Security in the top left pane.
Drag and drop Existing Network on the main canvas.
In the Select Network Profile dialog box, select the network profile to use in your blueprint. Click OK and Click Save.
Select the vSphere machine again on the main canvas. On the Network tab:
- Click New.
- Select the Network.
- For Assignment Type, select Static IP or DHCP.
Next Important to Achieve t-shirt sizing, go to Profile
- Click on ADD
- choose your component profile which we have created in previous steps and Click OK.
- Then Click on Size and Choose Edit Value Sets and Choose all the Value sets that you want and a default value sets
- Click Ok and Publish the Blueprint.
- After configuration of entitlement , you will get Blueprint is in Service Catalog.
- Let’s Request a VM using T-Shirt Sizing
- Choose Image Set that we have created in Image Value Sets.
- Choose Size that we have created in size Value Sets.