VMware Aria Automation: Your Journey to Success

Introduction to VMware Aria Automation

Hello from Aria Automation, and welcome!

You can use this site as a roadmap for your automation journey to success. It includes a variety of use cases from getting started to becoming a power user. You can jump about as you want; you are not required to read it in order, but you may do so as needed. Besides, if you are looking to expand your automation skills, we can help. Skip to the last section and let the fun begin!

If you’re wondering how other customers are using VMware Aria Automation, please visit the VMware Customer webpage.

Getting Started

Try these Simple Steps to Get Started with Aria Automation!

Use automation to deploy basic workloads and manage resources in your existing environment. Learn how Aria Automation can help your organization free up IT resources by streamlining and ensuring consistent machine deployments for developers and administrators.

 

Get Started by Adding your Cloud Environments

(10 min) Define the cloud environment you intend to use for deployment. Organize and control the placement of the deployments. Resources such as virtual machines, networking, and storage are discovered after adding your cloud.

Take Quick Actions on your Discovered Resources

(10 min) Gain visibility and perform day two actions on discovered resources from the specified cloud accounts to achieve quick time to value.

Organize Resources and Users into Projects

(10 min) Create projects to install and set controls for quotas, resource limits, and map which users have access to specific clouds. You can assign the appropriate cloud resources to various groups within the organization by adding users to projects. This allows for self-service consumption.

Create Quick Virtual Machines

(10 min) Utilize the quick create wizard, after defining cloud accounts and projects in Aria Automation, to spin up workloads, reduce complexity, and accelerate time to value.

 

Onboard Existing Workloads for Day-to-Day Management

(10 min) For existing workloads, you can identify machines that have been discovered but are not yet managed by Aria Automation Assembler. You can create a comprehensive onboarding plan for workloads in the environment using a step-by-step wizard. The machines are now set up, and you can manage them with Aria Automation policies and perform advanced day 2 actions.

Getting More Out Of

Empower your Organization with Automation!

Create the automation building blocks and self-service catalog from which users can request applications and resources. Build templates for Aria Automation by dragging and dropping objects in a canvas designer or by using YAML. Use Aria Automation Config and Aria Automation for Secure Hosts to harden and secure the deployed automation workloads. Take your automation strategy to the next level by enabling integration, extensibility, and developer-focused capabilities.

Construct a Cloud Abstraction Layer

(10 min) Use an IaC approach to abstract storage, networking, and compute across multiple clouds. Allocate tags and assign resources such as security groups, clusters, and load balancers. Implement a cloud agnostic automation strategy and boost agility by deploying applications to any cloud.

 

Create Aria Automation Templates (IaC)

(10 min) Create and deploy cloud templates declaratively using YAML IaC and integrate them with distributed version control platforms like GitHub. Develop cloud-agnostic templates to specify the machines, applications, and services that users in the organizations can deploy. Using cloud templates from Aria Automation, standardize and expedite automation with repeatable and consistent results.

 

Set up Aria Automation Config

(10 min) Set up the foundation for configuration management with Aria Automation Config. Help your team automate common infrastructure administration tasks and ensure that all the components of your infrastructure are operating in a consistent desired state.

Use Templates in Aria Config

(10 min) Integrate an Aria Config resource object with the Aria Automation cloud template to provide an operating system and application scripts. By incorporating Aria Config state files into your automation strategy, you can achieve a faster time to value for deployments.

Enforce compliance and vulnerability policies

(10 min) Create policies to scan and remediate CIS/DISA compliance violations and CVE vulnerabilities. Apply corporate compliance standards and ensure that security policies are enforced. You can save resources, strengthen overall security, and reduce risk by enabling automated continuous compliance enforcement.

 

Access a Cloud Consumption Interface

(10 min) Allow developers to spin up infrastructure with familiar Kubernetes commands via UI or command line. Empower developers to streamline their processes and get applications to production faster.

 

Enhance lifecycle management using extensibility in Aria Automation

(10 min) Build subscriptions to trigger actions based on deployment lifecycle events such as create, read, update, and delete. Actions are version controlled and polyglot (e.g., NodeJS, Python, JSON). Reduce complexity by adding extensibility when events happen in the deployments and save time by automating operations.

 

Create a catalog for Self-Service Consumption

(10 min) Provide curated content to a catalog for user consumption and implement usage quotas and approval policies to help control it. There are many content sources that can be added, including pipelines, extensibility actions, and Aria Automation templates. The applications and services that consumers can request and utilize are given centralized, streamlined, and consistent visibility.

 

Set up Plugin based Elements in Templates

Use IDEM technology to provide access and properties to cloud objects for deployments.

 

 

Becoming a Power User

Take Automation to a New Level!

Step up your automation game with advanced topics, from DevOps to building complex workflows. Leverage 3rd party integrations and dive deeper into customizing content for scripts and catalog items. Expand Aria Automation Config capabilities by implementing a patching solution or hardening an operating system. Get more out of automation by improving agility, productivity, and efficiency to prepare for the future of your business!

Create Cloud Templates for DevOps Deployments

(10 min) Use the Aria Automation cloud template to run existing Terraform and Ansible scripts. The template includes out-of-the-box support for dragging and dropping Terraform and Ansible objects onto the canvas. These integrations will help you further your DevOps strategy.

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Include Network Automation into your Deployments!

(10 min) Extend network and security policies across workloads and leverage modern infrastructure automation. Take advantage of integrations with IPAM providers, such as Infoblox, to incorporate your existing network policies. Provision networks for consumption or create networks on-demand to provide flexibility, governance, and consistency.

 

 

Automating the Deployment of Kubernetes Clusters

(10 mins) Cloud administrators can automate the configuration and deployment of Tanzu Kubernetes clusters and Supervisor Namespaces for Developers using Aria Automation Templates (IaC) in Assembler while maintaining governance and control.

 

Customize Catalog Request Forms

(10 min) Create custom forms to determine how the information of a request appears when a user clicks on a catalog item. By creating a more advanced form, you can have conditional drop-down selections, connect to a CMDB, data grids, and much more. Accelerate agility and add value to your organization by providing relevant and specific options at the time of request.

 

Manage applications and services using Aria Automation Config

(10 min) Utilize the Aria Automation Config state management system to create state files that you can apply to several nodes simultaneously rather than manually configuring each node or application one at a time. These state files can include a set of instructions that tell Aria Automation Config which operations should be run on the node and in which order. They can also explain which configuration files or settings should be applied. By incorporating advanced Aria Config state files into your strategy, you can completely automate the deployment process and free up IT staff to take on other tasks.

 

Recover From Unexpected Changes in the Environment

(10 min) Recover from unexpected changes in the environment by implementing a beacon and reactor system that will trigger a scripted reaction when certain events occur in the system. Reactors can be defined to respond to events like service status, file system changes, shell activity and more. Incorporate auto-remediation into your automation strategy for better uptime and consistent operations.

 

Create an Aria Orchestrator Workflow

(10 min) Add scripted workflows and tasks with Aria Orchestrator to step up your automation strategy. With the help of scalable workflows and processes provided by Aria Orchestrator, you can automate even more tasks by using a range of programming languages, including Python, PowerShell, NodeJS, and Java. Aria Orchestrator is a modern workflow automation platform that can help increase agility and extensibility for those complex data center tasks.

 

Build Automation Skills

Python Tutorial

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YAML Tutorials

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GitHub and GitLab Tutorials

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PowerShell Tutorials

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NodeJS Tutorials

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