How to integrate VROPS with Ansible

Automating VMware vRealize Operations (vROps) with Ansible

In the world of IT operations, automation is the key to efficiency and consistency. VMware’s vRealize Operations (vROps) provides powerful monitoring and management capabilities for virtualized environments. Integrating vROps with Ansible, an open-source automation tool, can take your infrastructure management to the next level. In this blog post, we’ll explore how to achieve this integration and demonstrate its benefits with a practical example.

What is vRealize Operations (vROps)?

vRealize Operations (vROps) is a comprehensive monitoring and analytics solution from VMware. It helps IT administrators manage the performance, capacity, and overall health of their virtual environments. Key features of vROps include:

 Performance Monitoring: Continuous tracking of VMs, hosts, and other resources.
 Capacity Management: Planning and optimizing resource usage.
 Troubleshooting: Identifying and resolving issues promptly.
 Automated Actions: Responding to specific events with predefined actions.

Why Integrate vROps with Ansible?

Integrating vROps with Ansible allows you to automate routine tasks, enforce consistent configurations, and rapidly respond to changes or issues in your virtual environment. This integration enables you to:

 Automate Monitoring Setup: Configure monitoring for new virtual machines or environments automatically.
 Trigger Remediation Actions: Automate responses to alerts generated by vROps.
 Generate Reports: Automate the creation and distribution of performance and capacity reports.
 Maintain Configuration Compliance: Ensure consistent vROps configurations across environments.

Setting Up the Integration

Prerequisites

Before you start, ensure you have:

1.vROps Environment: A running instance of VMware vRealize Operations.
2.Ansible Installed: Ansible should be installed on your control node.

Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Configure API Access in vROps

First, ensure you have the necessary API access in vROps. You’ll need:

 vROps Host: The URL of your vROps instance.
 vROps Username: A user with API access permissions.
 vROps Password: The password for the above user.

Step 2: Install Ansible

If you haven’t installed Ansible yet, you can do so by following these commands:

sh

sudo apt update

sudo apt install ansible

Step 3: Create an Ansible Playbook

Create an Ansible playbook to interact with vROps. Below is an example playbook that retrieves the status of vROps resources.

Note: to use the other api end points you will need to acquire the token and set it as a fact to pass later.

Example

If you want to acquire the auth token:

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name: Authenticate with vROps and Check vROps Status

  hosts: localhost

  vars:

    vrops_host: “your-vrops-host”

    vrops_username: “your-username”

    vrops_password: “your-password”

  tasks:

    – name: Authenticate with vROps

      uri:

        url: “https://{{ vrops_host }}/suite-api/api/auth/token/acquire”

        method: POST

        body_format: json

        body:

          username: {{ vrops_username }}”

          password: {{ vrops_password }}”

        headers:

          Content-Type: “application/json

        validate_certs: no

      register: auth_response

.

    – name: Fail if authentication failed

      fail:

        msg: “Authentication with vROps failed: {{ auth_response.json }}”

      when: auth_response.status != 200

.

    – name: Set auth token as fact

      set_fact:

        auth_token: {{ auth_response.json.token }}”

.

    – name: Get vROps status

      uri:

        url: “https://{{ vrops_host }}/suite-api/api/resources”

        method: GET

        headers:

          Authorization: vRealizeOpsToken {{ auth_token }}”

          Content-Type: “application/json

        validate_certs: no

      register: vrops_response

.

    – name: Display vROps status

      debug:

        msg: vROps response: {{ vrops_response.json }}”

.

Save this playbook to a file, for example, check_vrops_status.yml.

Step 4: Define Variables

Create a variables file to store your vROps credentials and host information.
Save it as vars.yml:

vrops_host: your-vrops-host

vrops_username: your-username

vrops_password: your-password

Step 5: Run the Playbook

Execute the playbook using the following command:

sh

ansible-playbook -e @vars.yml check_vrops_status.yml

This above command runs the playbook and retrieves the status of vROps resources, displaying the results if you used the first example.

Here are some of the key API functions you can use:

The Authentication to use the endpoints listed below, you will need to acquire the auth token and set it as a fact to pass to other tasks inside ansible to use with the various endpoints below.

 Login: Authenticate and get a session token.
 Endpoint: POST /suite-api/api/auth/token/acquire

Resource Management

 Get Resources: Retrieve a list of resources managed by vROps.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/resources
 Get Resource by ID: Retrieve details of a specific resource.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/resources/{resourceId}
 Create Resource: Add a new resource to vROps.
 Endpoint: POST /suite-api/api/resources
 Update Resource: Update information for an existing resource.
 Endpoint: PUT /suite-api/api/resources/{resourceId}
 Delete Resource: Remove a resource from vROps.
 Endpoint: DELETE /suite-api/api/resources/{resourceId}

Metrics and Data

 Get Metrics for a Resource: Retrieve metrics for a specific resource.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/resources/{resourceId}/stats
 Get Metric Definitions: List available metrics for a resource kind.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/resources/kind/{resourceKindKey}/statkeys
 Get Historical Metrics: Retrieve historical metric data for a resource.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/resources/{resourceId}/stats/historical

Alerts and Notifications

 Get Alerts: Retrieve a list of alerts.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/alerts
 Get Alert by ID: Retrieve details of a specific alert.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/alerts/{alertId}
 Acknowledge Alert: Acknowledge a specific alert.
 Endpoint: POST /suite-api/api/alerts/{alertId}/acknowledge
 Cancel Alert: Cancel a specific alert.
 Endpoint: POST /suite-api/api/alerts/{alertId}/cancel
 Generate Notifications: Send notifications based on specific conditions.
 Endpoint: POST /suite-api/api/notifications

Policies and Configurations

 Get Policies: Retrieve a list of policies.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/policies
 Get Policy by ID: Retrieve details of a specific policy.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/policies/{policyId}
 Create Policy: Add a new policy.
 Endpoint: POST /suite-api/api/policies
 Update Policy: Update an existing policy.
 Endpoint: PUT /suite-api/api/policies/{policyId}
 Delete Policy: Remove a policy.
 Endpoint: DELETE /suite-api/api/policies/{policyId}

Dashboards and Reports

 Get Dashboards: Retrieve a list of dashboards.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/dashboards
 Get Dashboard by ID: Retrieve details of a specific dashboard.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/dashboards/{dashboardId}
 Create Dashboard: Add a new dashboard.
 Endpoint: POST /suite-api/api/dashboards
 Update Dashboard: Update an existing dashboard.
 Endpoint: PUT /suite-api/api/dashboards/{dashboardId}
 Delete Dashboard: Remove a dashboard.
 Endpoint: DELETE /suite-api/api/dashboards/{dashboardId}
 Get Reports: Retrieve a list of reports.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/reports
 Generate Report: Generate a new report based on a template.
 Endpoint: POST /suite-api/api/reports/{reportTemplateId}/generate
 Get Report by ID: Retrieve details of a specific report.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/reports/{reportId}

Capacity and Utilization

 Get Capacity Remaining: Retrieve remaining capacity for a specific resource.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/resources/{resourceId}/capacity/remaining
 Get Capacity Usage: Retrieve capacity usage for a specific resource.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/resources/{resourceId}/capacity/usage

Additional Functionalities

 Get Custom Groups: Retrieve a list of custom groups.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/groups
 Create Custom Group: Add a new custom group.
 Endpoint: POST /suite-api/api/groups
 Update Custom Group: Update an existing custom group.
 Endpoint: PUT /suite-api/api/groups/{groupId}
 Delete Custom Group: Remove a custom group.
 Endpoint: DELETE /suite-api/api/groups/{groupId}
 Get Recommendations: Retrieve a list of recommendations.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/recommendations
 Get Recommendation by ID: Retrieve details of a specific recommendation.
 Endpoint: GET /suite-api/api/recommendations/{recommendationId}

These are just a few examples of the many functions available through the vROps REST API.

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