vRA 8.1 Allow user to select network port group during deployment

[MichalCz]

Hello,

I'm trying to figure out how can I allow user to select network from dropdown list while filling out deployment form.

In my Project I use network constraints to select Network Profile. Within Network Profile I have two existing Networks added.

I would like to allow user to select one of those Networks while filling the blueprint form.

Could you please provide some examples how to achieve such functionality.

Thanks,

Michal

[j_dubs]

What's the use case for network selection after you have scoped it down with tagging?

You could always add an additional tagging contraint on the networks within the profile itself and add an input that the user then selects an option for that tag.  For example, we have networks bundled with tags for regions, tenants, etc.  Within a profile, I have networks for app/web/db.  Those are selected by the "Server type" input (just as an example..) and then the placement engine should scope it down to the right network for you.

To make it prettier, you coud always use the 'oneOf' operator on the input list to give a pretty name with a corresponding value.  Then use that value as a tag constraint on your network interface.

I assume this is a generic blueprint form and you don't necessarily know which network it will fall into until the options are selected by the user.

[MichalCz]

@ j_dubs

Thanks for your reply.

The use case is as you  guessed.

I want to allow users within Project to select ServerType. The case is that for single ServerType there might be many available networks (for example for ApplicationServerType there might be two networks: APP1 network and APP2 network). So after user selects ServerType from custom form dropdown field, the Network dropdown should update its items to match networks available for this specific ServerType.

I have achieved such behaviour by writing vRO action that takes ServerType and Project as an input parameters and returns array of network tags. Unfortunatly mapping between [project, serverType] -> [network:tag1, network:tag2, ...] is embedded into code. I don't know (for now) how to retrieve networks assigned to project by network constraints.

It would be very nice if somebody could share some code to retrieve Networks available for Project. Unless there is some simpler solution...

[craigso]

I have the same use case and in fact this was pretty easy to achieve in 7.6 by using the getApplicableNetworks action. This action would look at the networks assigned to the business group and return it. Since the move to selection by tag this is making it a bit more difficult for us as well. We could tag all of these networks and then populate a list based on those tags, but we still need to figure out the 8.1 equivalent of getApplicableNetworks that existed previously.

[siglert]

formatVersion: 1

inputs:

  environment:

    type: string

    oneOf:

      - title: Development

        const: D

      - title: Lab

        const: L

      - title: Management

        const: M

      - title: Production

        const: P

      - title: Staging

        const: S

      - title: Testing

        const: T

    title: Select Environment

    description: Specify which environment this VM should be deployed in.

  image1:

    type: string

    oneOf:

      - title: Windows Server 2019

        const: Windows Server 2019

      - title: Windows SQL Server 2019

        const: Windows SQL Server 2019

      - title: Windows Server 2016

        const: Windows Server 2016

      - title: Windows SQL Server 2016

        const: Windows SQL Server 2016

      - title: REDHAT Enterprise Linux 7

        const: REDHAT Enterprise Linux 7

      - title: SUSE Enterprise Linux 12

        const: SUSE Enterprise Linux 12

      - title: SUSE Enterprise Linux 15

        const: SUSE Enterprise Linux 15

    title: Select Image/OS

  image2:

    type: string

    oneOf:

      - title: Windows Server 2019

        const: Windows Server 2019

      - title: Windows SQL Server 2019

        const: Windows SQL Server 2019

      - title: Windows Server 2016

        const: Windows Server 2016

      - title: Windows SQL Server 2016

        const: Windows SQL Server 2016

      - title: REDHAT Enterprise Linux 7

        const: REDHAT Enterprise Linux 7

      - title: SUSE Enterprise Linux 12

        const: SUSE Enterprise Linux 12

      - title: SUSE Enterprise Linux 15

        const: SUSE Enterprise Linux 15

    title: Select Image/OS

  image3:

    type: string

    oneOf:

      - title: Windows Server 2019

        const: Windows Server 2019

      - title: Windows SQL Server 2019

        const: Windows SQL Server 2019

      - title: Windows Server 2016

        const: Windows Server 2016

      - title: Windows SQL Server 2016

        const: Windows SQL Server 2016

      - title: REDHAT Enterprise Linux 7

        const: REDHAT Enterprise Linux 7

      - title: SUSE Enterprise Linux 12

        const: SUSE Enterprise Linux 12

      - title: SUSE Enterprise Linux 15

        const: SUSE Enterprise Linux 15

    title: Select Image/OS

  nets1:

    type: string

    oneOf:

      - title: Web Server

        const: web

      - title: Application Server

        const: app

      - title: Database Server

        const: db

  nets2:

    type: string

    oneOf:

      - title: Web Server

        const: web

      - title: Application Server

        const: app

      - title: Database Server

        const: db

  nets3:

    type: string

    oneOf:

      - title: Web Server

        const: web

      - title: Application Server

        const: app

      - title: Database Server

        const: db

  flavor1:

    type: string

    oneOf:

      - title: 'X-Small: 1 vCPU w/ 2GB RAM'

        const: 'X-Small: 1 vCPU w/ 2GB RAM'

      - title: 'Small: 2 vCPU w/ 4GB RAM'

        const: 'Small: 2 vCPU w/ 4GB RAM'

      - title: 'Medium: 4 vCPU w/ 8GB RAM'

        const: 'Medium: 4 vCPU w/ 8GB RAM'

      - title: 'Large: 6 vCPU w/ 12GB RAM'

        const: 'Large: 6 vCPU w/ 12GB RAM'

      - title: 'X-Large: 8 vCPU w/ 16GB RAM'

        const: 'X-Large: 8 vCPU w/ 16GB RAM'

      - title: '2X-Large: 12 vCPU w/ 32GB RAM'

        const: '2X-Large: 12 vCPU w/ 32GB RAM'

  flavor2:

    type: string

    oneOf:

      - title: 'X-Small: 1 vCPU w/ 2GB RAM'

        const: 'X-Small: 1 vCPU w/ 2GB RAM'

      - title: 'Small: 2 vCPU w/ 4GB RAM'

        const: 'Small: 2 vCPU w/ 4GB RAM'

      - title: 'Medium: 4 vCPU w/ 8GB RAM'

        const: 'Medium: 4 vCPU w/ 8GB RAM'

      - title: 'Large: 6 vCPU w/ 12GB RAM'

        const: 'Large: 6 vCPU w/ 12GB RAM'

      - title: 'X-Large: 8 vCPU w/ 16GB RAM'

        const: 'X-Large: 8 vCPU w/ 16GB RAM'

      - title: '2X-Large: 12 vCPU w/ 32GB RAM'

        const: '2X-Large: 12 vCPU w/ 32GB RAM'

  flavor3:

    type: string

    oneOf:

      - title: 'X-Small: 1 vCPU w/ 2GB RAM'

        const: 'X-Small: 1 vCPU w/ 2GB RAM'

      - title: 'Small: 2 vCPU w/ 4GB RAM'

        const: 'Small: 2 vCPU w/ 4GB RAM'

      - title: 'Medium: 4 vCPU w/ 8GB RAM'

        const: 'Medium: 4 vCPU w/ 8GB RAM'

      - title: 'Large: 6 vCPU w/ 12GB RAM'

        const: 'Large: 6 vCPU w/ 12GB RAM'

      - title: 'X-Large: 8 vCPU w/ 16GB RAM'

        const: 'X-Large: 8 vCPU w/ 16GB RAM'

      - title: '2X-Large: 12 vCPU w/ 32GB RAM'

        const: '2X-Large: 12 vCPU w/ 32GB RAM'

  count1:

    type: integer

    maxItems: 5

  count2:

    type: integer

    maxItems: 5

  count3:

    type: integer

    maxItems: 5

  busUnit:

    type: string

    oneOf:

      - title: Corporate Services

        const: C

      - title: External DMZ

        const: E

      - title: Lender Services

        const: L

      - title: Healthcare

        const: H

      - title: Personal Lines

        const: P

      - title: Quotit

        const: Q

      - title: Shared Services

        const: S

    title: Select Business Unit

    description: Specify which Business Unit is associated with this request.

  servRole:

    type: string

    oneOf:

      - title: Application

        const: AP

      - title: Citrix

        const: CX

      - title: Domain Controller

        const: DC

      - title: File

        const: FL

      - title: Messaging

        const: ME

      - title: Utility

        const: UT

    title: Select Server Role

    description: Specify what the server role/purpose will be.

  servRole1:

    type: string

    oneOf:

      - title: Web

        const: WE

  servRole3:

    type: string

    oneOf:

      - title: Database

        const: DB

resources:

  Cloud_vSphere_Network_1:

    type: Cloud.vSphere.Network

    properties:

      networkType: existing

      name: web

      constraints:

        - tag: '${"network:" + to_lower(input.nets1)}'

        - tag: '${input.environment == "P" ? "env:prod" : "env:nonprod"}'

  CLoud_vSphere_Machine_1:

    type: Cloud.vSphere.Machine

    properties:

      image: '${input.image1}'

      flavor: '${input.flavor1}'

      folderName: 'VRA_Machines/${env.projectName}'

      name: null

      count: '${input.count1}'

      customizationSpec: '${contains(input.image1,"Windows") ? "W2k16w1" : "LinuxOS"}'

      busUnit: '${input.busUnit}'

      os-image: '${contains(input.image1, "Windows") ?"WV": "LV"}'

      environment: '${input.environment}'

      servRole: '${input.servRole1}'

      networks:

        - tags: []

          network: '${resource.Cloud_vSphere_Network_1.id}'

          assignment: static

          assignIPv6Address: false

          assignPublicIpAddress: false

  Cloud_vSphere_Network_2:

    type: Cloud.vSphere.Network

    properties:

      networkType: existing

      name: app

      constraints:

        - tag: '${"network:" + to_lower(input.nets2)}'

        - tag: '${input.environment == "P" ? "env:prod" : "env:nonprod"}'

  Cloud_vSphere_Machine_2:

    type: Cloud.vSphere.Machine

    properties:

      image: '${input.image2}'

      flavor: '${input.flavor2}'

      folderName: 'VRA_Machines/${env.projectName}'

      name: null

      count: '${input.count2}'

      customizationSpec: '${contains(input.image2,"Windows") ? "W2k16w1" : "LinuxOS"}'

      busUnit: '${input.busUnit}'

      os-image: '${contains(input.image2, "Windows") ?"WV": "LV"}'

      environment: '${input.environment}'

      servRole: '${input.servRole}'

      networks:

        - tags: []

          network: '${resource.Cloud_vSphere_Network_2.id}'

          assignment: static

          assignIPv6Address: false

          assignPublicIpAddress: false

  Cloud_vSphere_Network_3:

    type: Cloud.vSphere.Network

    properties:

      networkType: existing

      name: db

      constraints:

        - tag: '${"network:" + to_lower(input.nets3)}'

        - tag: '${input.environment == "P" ? "env:prod" : "env:nonprod"}'

  Cloud_vSphere_Machine_3:

    type: Cloud.vSphere.Machine

    properties:

      image: '${input.image3}'

      flavor: '${input.flavor3}'

      folderName: 'VRA_Machines/${env.projectName}'

      name: null

      count: '${input.count3}'

      customizationSpec: '${contains(input.image3,"Windows") ? "W2k16w1" : "LinuxOS"}'

      busUnit: '${input.busUnit}'

      os-image: '${contains(input.image3, "Windows") ?"WV": "LV"}'

      environment: '${input.environment}'

      servRole: '${input.servRole3}'

      networks:

        - tags: []

          network: '${resource.Cloud_vSphere_Network_3.id}'

          assignment: static

          assignIPv6Address: false

          assignPublicIpAddress: false

[craigso]

Thanks for posting an example of your setup!

I am familiar with selecting networks based on tags. The problem is we've got 100's of networks and with more created every day. We operate as somewhat of a MSP to our customers and so dynamically loading these fields was key in 7.6. We could certainly go through and tag each network, or better yet automate the tagging of the network. But we need a way to determine which networks are associated with a particular customer for the purpose of displaying this in a dropdown.

Also to the original poster, I hope you don't mind me chiming in. I almost started my own post, but figured I should search to see if had been answered before. This thread looked almost identical to my request. So I chimed in here.

[siglert]

So TAG each network.  That is important.  Then ll you have to do (in which I did in the request)  is figure out a logical way to choose that network.  I use hidden fields based off responses and proects to determine the network that it needs to be deployed on.

[xian]

I want to achieve something similar, but not sure about the best approach.

Environments and networks are also separated by tags here, but not all projects are authorized to use all combinations. I need to track which are allowed in vRA8 admin interface and Service Broker as well.

So I was thinking about tagging the networks with the project name, but if I have many projects this can become a mess. How can I replicate the functionality of vRA7 reservations?

I think I could create a REST API request to fetch the networks tagged with the project name...

https://www.vrealize.it/2020/06/25/vrealize-automation-network-selection-in-request-form/​​ seemed to be a good idea, but does not prevent a user to request a network not entitled to via REST API. So I want to solve this with constraints instead.

Having multiple networks within a single profile and tagged differently sounds an interesting idea as well, not sure about where can this be a good fit.

Any suggestions appreciated.

[Lokesh GS]

I am also looking for a dropdown option to select networks when the user fills/requests the catalog based on cluster.

If anyone had a successful implementation of this. please help us

[Dong Cui]

not sure if you have figured it out. here is my solution:

tag the networks in your network profile, and create an VRO action to retrieve the tagged networks and select the new action as the dropdown list source. here is the sample javascript:

var vrahost = VraHostManager.getHostBySid('your VRA endpoint ID');
var restClient = vrahost.createRestClient();
var request = restClient.createRequest("GET", "/iaas/api/fabric-networks?%24top=1000&%24skip=0", null);
var response = restClient.execute(request);
var jsonResponse = response.contentAsString;
var obj = JSON.parse(jsonResponse);
var fabricNetworksArray = obj.content;
var taggedNetworks = [];
for each (var net in fabricNetworksArray) {
    if (net.tags && Array.isArray(net.tags)) {
        for each (var tag in net.tags) {
            for each (var tag in net.tags) {
                if (tag && tag.key === "your tag key" && tag.value === "your tag value") {
                    //System.log(net.name)
                    taggedNetworks.push(net.name)
                    break;
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
return taggedNetworks.sort();