VCAP-CMA Deploy – Objective 1.1 & 1.2
Disclaimer: These are my notes from studying for the 3V0-31.18 exam. If something doesn’t make sense, please feel free to reach out.
The main goal for the whole of section 1 is to understand blueprint creation and modification in depth. As this is a practical, advanced level, exam I don’t expect to be given tasks in a direct manner. More that requirements will be given and it is down to you to interpret & fulfil these requirements.
References
Objective 1.1 – Create a blueprint for a given multi-tier application
The first part of this is to create a blueprint for a multi-tier application. As they’re testing you on the vRA aspects I don’t think too much knowledge outside of that will be tested. That being said I think you’ll need to be able to complete functions end-to-end.
Permissions: For blueprint creation, you’ll need to have a role with ‘architect’ in the title. Which role depends on which part of the blueprint you would be responsible for. In our case, we’ll be creating the whole blueprint so our user here will have membership of these roles:
- Infrastructure Architect
- Software Architect
- XaaS Architect
Application Architect isn’t necessary – This grants permissions to assemble composite blueprints which Infrastructure & Software Architects also have.
If you’re adding software components to a VM as part of blueprint, it will need the guest agent installed. This can be downloaded from https://vra.fqdn/software. There is either a shell script for Linux or Powershell script for Windows guests.
In principle you could be asked to add any component from the list on the side, so it would pay to be familiar with all of these and the options required.
Standard process to create blueprint. Add machines as required, link to a network & add software components. Add the dependancies between the components as required. This is a simple 3 tier application to demonstrate this.
Objective 1.2 – Modify an existing blueprint to provision new network(s)
The next objective is to modify an existing blueprint to provision a new network. I can’t see anywhere else in the exam blueprint that mentions provisioning a new network profile, so we’ll cover this as well.
Permissions: Fabric Admin privileges are required to create & manage network profiles.
New network profiles are created under Infrastructure, Reservations, Network Profiles. There are three different types of network:
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| External | Pre-existing network configured within vSphere. These form the external part of the NAT & Routed networks. IPs can come from either vRA’s own IPAM, a third party IPAM or DHCP. NB: If using DHCP, the IP isn’t available to bind to within the blueprint. |
| NAT (NSX Required) | On-demand create network to perform NAT behind an NSX ESG (Edge Services Gateway) of all machines within the blueprint. This can be configure as one-to-one or one-to-many |
| Routed (NSX Required) | On-demand created network used when all machines created within a blueprint are required to be accessible from an external network. Each newly created network will use the next available subnet. Connected to an existing DLR (Distributed Logical Router) |
When creating the new network profile, select what type you’ll be creating and fill in the required fields. Not much to explain here, just need to understand the different types of network profile and what information is required for each one.
Once the network profile is created, if it is an external type, it will need to be ‘linked’ to a portgroup within the reservation.
When modifying the blueprint to change the network, if you’re changing an existing network of the same type (and all the blueprint machines need to be on the same network) you can simply change the network profile of that object on the canvas. Doing this updates all the machines that were already connected to the existing network.
Alternatively, you can add the new network as an additional object & update each machine you need to connect to the new network.
Need to be familiar with what information is required for each type of network when adding to the blueprint.
