Bluelock

Hi, I'm Jake Robinson+! I'm a Solutions Architect at Bluelock who specializes in virtualized infrastructure and infrastructure automation. I also assist in sales and solutions engineering. There is no greater thrill to me than writing code that saves someone hours of time. Powershell is my weapon of choice, but I can write code in a variety of languages. I'm also a VCP, a former CISSP and a VMware vExpert.

Working as a public vCloud provider periodically gives me the opportunity to help clients that are running their own private vCloud. It’s a great side benefit to working with an experienced public vCloud provider in case you need some advanced help, or custom code/scripting!

In this case, my client needed to set default security permissions for all new VDPortgroups that were created by vCloud Director. This is different than setting security on a single portgroup. This sets the defaults for ALL...

Cloud security is always the first concern for the Fortune 500 clients looking at Bluelock as their public cloud provider (and rightfully so). Public cloud, in general, has gotten a bad rap on the security front. Some simply use the concern as a way to discount the idea of public cloud infrastructure as a service as a viable option for their organization.

However, security professionals in any size organization are pleasantly surprised when I tell them about the security options in their Virtual...

There is not a New-CIUser cmdlet *yet*, but I’ll show you the way you can do it now!

We’ll need 3 things: A username, a password, and a role.

To get the role we want to assign the user, we’ll need to use Search-Cloud:

This will give us a list of roles. Pick a role name. As an example, I want to add an Org admin, so I am going to run this:

The previous line queried for the role, retrieved...

If you or your provider are already running vCloud Director 5.1, you now have access to take a single snapshot of your VMs.

If you want to play with snapshots in PowerCLI, you’re going to need the module in this blog. PowerCLI 5.1 currently only supports the vCloud API 1.5, which means there are no 5.1 API capabilities just yet.

The module uses the current PowerCLI for it’s session and API access, and then bolts on some 5.1 API snapshot magic.

To use the module, simply download the .psm1 file and:

I have the distinct privilege to present with Alan Renouf and Eric Williams this year at VMworld.

The session is entitled Automating Bare Metal to the Cloud and Beyond.

In this session, Eric will demonstrate the use of PowerCLI and UCS PowerTool to quickly deploy your own cloud infrastructure with a single script. (Amazing!)

After the cloud is built, I will share how real world examples of how Bluelock uses PowerCLI from a provider standpoint. From on-boarding new clients to gathering performance...

VMware’s OVFtool is a command line tool that allows you to convert VMware Virtual Machines to Open Virtualization Format, or OVF. In the latest version, it can also upload VMs to vCloud Director for you as well!

To do this, OVFtool simply requires a source (VMX or OVF), and a destination (a vCloud Locator).

The vCloud locator looks something like this:

In vCloud API/GUI Throwdown part 2, I showed you how to modify VM disk sizes in vCloud Director while the VM is still powered on. However, we did *not* cover adding new disks to a VM.

Adding new harddisks is a little tricky because of the implementation of the object in the SDK.. The conversion from XML to a .NET object is not an easy thing, especially with the vCloud API’s intricate nodes, elements, attributes, etc. Because of this, you can’t create a representation of a harddisk as a .NET...

When it comes to cost control in the cloud, Bluelock Portfolio gives you great insight to where your inefficiencies are hiding. Portfolio is known for helping to spot those pesky over-allocated resources within your Virtual Datacenter, but what about in temporary workloads? Here at Bluelock, we see a few different temporary workloads that apply:

• Software Development Build Testing
• Online Classroom Labs
• Software Sales Demonstrations

These types of workloads might run very efficiently during the time...

Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS or RaaS) is big on the hype meter right now, and cloud computing providers are clamoring to find solutions to fill the gap.

The biggest driver in DR in the Cloud is the utility-like aspect of purchasing infrastructure, because you only pay for what you use. Disaster Recovery lends itself well to the concept of cloud computing, because you want to keep that insurance premium as low as possible. Virtualization has enabled some pretty amazing things in regards...

2012 has proven to be an exciting year for Bluelock clients! In January, we introduced the cost projection feature within our Bluelock Portfolio cloud support tool. Today, Bluelock continues the tradition of cloud innovation with the upgrade to VMware vCloud Director 1.5. This upgrade delivers increased cloud agility and makes it even easier to adopt a cloud computing model leveraging existing IT investments.

Ben Miller, our Product Solution Director, reviews the new features and benefits vCloud...