VRO Automation Development Training Info

Some time ago, while reading and searching for information for vRO-vRA development and automation I found very interesting article, which pointed me to a very good vRO training. Starting from that one and accumulating it with some memories on how I started with vRO I decided to create this post. Maybe it will help somebody to start with vRO automation in some way. In this post I will try to provide some vRO intro and free training materials as well.

Intro

So the main reason I like the training I found is because it aims to getting people into workflow development. This means it don’t focus on products installation or plugin installations, but more on specifically how you can develop and code the workflows. And actually this is the most important part if you can develop the workflows you can easily learn the other parts as well.

The course contains the following 7 modules:

1. Getting Started – A tour of vRealize Orchestrator and the components.
2. Building Workflows – Approach to workflow design, followed by some basic workflow creation.
3. Scriptable Tasks – Learn some basic Javascript and start using Scriptable tasks.
4. Input Presentation and Additional Javascript – Learn some basic ways to use the presentation view, as well as more JavaScript.
5. Actions – Turn scriptable tasks into reusable actions.
6. VMware Tools and HW Upgrade – A basic real world example for combining workflows in a real world use case.
7. Snapshot creation and automated deletion – Create a snapshot and then schedule it for automatic deletion at a future date.

Some prerequisites

Off course to start with vRO orchestration there are some prerequisites like:

• Having knowledge in coding/scripting like Java Script or Python. Or even better have real programing skills and knowledge in languages like Java (Any programing language experience helps…).
• Having knowledge in SDDC or just vCenter or vRealize Suite helps.
• Having knowledge in the tools and components that are part of any data center for both software and hardware - compute, storage or networking etc.

Free Video Trainings & Intros

First I will share few quick vRO intros - you can use them just to check if vRO automation development is for you:

• Introduction to vRealize Orchestrator Whiteboard: https://youtu.be/apYYClLHr78
• vCenter Orchestrator: Creating a Simple Workflow: https://youtu.be/-1EC2xQc0VE
• vRealize Orchestrator Basics Part 1: https://youtu.be/hO3ku7DvxKs
• vRealize Orchestrator Basics Part 2: https://youtu.be/UjxXTlSO-P8

As well I will first share basic free vRO training from VMware on YouTube. You can first check this one and then go the main one I'm sharing in the post bellow. Or skip this one continue with the one bellow. Anyway here is the training:

• vCenter Orchestrator training: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6611Q6qmwxX6eVkJqsBJboke0MnFFkF2

Blog Posts vRO Intros

Maybe it is a good idea to give some links to vRO intro and training posts for the people that do not like to watch a lot of videos. Lets start with this one:

• Automating with vRealize Orchestrator: http://www.vhersey.com/2014/12/automating-with-vrealize-orchestrator/

And yet another vRO intro. This one consists again of a short vRO intro:

• vCenter Orchestrator: Part 1 – Overview & Architecture: http://cloudmaniac.net/vcenter-orchestrator-part-1-overview-architecture/

Though previous one says part 1, there are no other parts in there, but I found yet another vRO intro. This one really consists of 5 parts short vRO intro training. And part 2 gives a bit of an idea how to install vRO server as well:

• My first vCenter Orchestrator Worlkflow – Part 1 – Introduction: https://blog.mwpreston.net/2013/04/09/my-first-vcenter-orchestrator-worlkflow-part-1-introduction/
• My first vCenter Orchestrator Workflow – Part 2 – Installing vCenter Orchestrator:  https://blog.mwpreston.net/2013/04/09/my-first-vcenter-orchestrator-workflow-part-2-installing-vcenter-orchestrator/

The vRO Training

If you watched the videos above or read the blog post training and you believe vRO development is for you, you can continue with the vRO training bellow, and become vRO master. Off course for the training to really make sense for you, you may need to setup yourself small home lab, or just download vRO server 7.X to check it out. I will try in other post to give more info on how to do that as well. But even without test lab you can get enough knowledge to start doing vRO workflows and perform basic automation.

So finally here is the link to the course I'm writing this post about:

https://app.pluralsight.com/player?course=vmware-vrealize-orchestrator-workflow-development&author=nick-colyer&name=vmware-vrealize-orchestrator-workflow-development-m0&clip=0&mode=live

Hope you will enjoy it!

The blog post is from Nicholas Colyer and I found here at this blog: http://2ninjas1blog.com/. Here is the link to the post as well: http://2ninjas1blog.com/vmware-vrealize-orchestrator-pluralsight/, took me some time to find it again though.
Official VMWare trainings:
Actually one of the best options offcourse is to perform official VMware trainings and get certificates:

• https://www.vmware.com/nl/professional-services/learning-zone.html

Maybe Books

And as well if you are from the guys which loves books, I found that there are some books on the topic as well, like this one:

• VMware vRealize Orchestrator Essentials: https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/vmware-vrealize-orchestrator/9781785884245/

I guess it can be found on Amazon as well.