VM Tagging

The SovLabs VM Tagging Module for vRealize Automation enables customers to achieve greater levels of efficiency and control through metadata management. VM tags are metadata stored with the VM which can provide valuable operational insight into business-relevant data such as the machine’s function, organization alignment, regional and service level characteristics as well as security and application related information.

VM tags can be accessed by help desk and operations teams vi GUI or programmatically by IT staff for planning and reporting purposes. Additionally, there are many tag-aware applications where VM tags can drive policy, such as data protection and security products.

Powered by the SovLabs Module Framework, the VM Tagging Module provides a simple, comprehensive and flexible method for driving a rich set of metadata using VM tags and categories with vRealize Automation.


Compatibility

VMware vCenter 6.0x, 6.5x, 6.7
VMware vRealize Automation (vRA) 7.x
VMware vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) 7.x
EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud (EHC) 4.x

Highlights

  • Ability to attach one or more tags to a VM as it is provisioned
  • Automatically detects existing tags and categories re-using existing objects as appropriate
  • Ability to automate multiple scenarios of VM tag names, categories and values with the SovLabs Template Engine
  • Define one or more vRA custom properties that influence the creation of VM tags
    • Each property value can contain one or more tag definitions
  • Tag definition capabilities
    • JSON-formatted or comma-separated list
    • Ability to specify tag name, description, cardinality, category, category description
    • Customize tag data using the SovLabs Template Engine
  • Utilizes SovLabs vCenter Endpoints
  • Delivers dozens to thousands of VM tagging scenarios with minimal overhead via dynamic template configurations and vRA property injection, avoiding Blueprint sprawl

Known Behaviors

Provisioning

  • When a tagged VM is provisioned, the VM’s relationship to the Tag is created
  • If the Tag Category does not exist, it will be created in vCenter
  • If the Tag does not exist, it will be created in vCenter
If the property name or value resolves to an empty string it will be skipped

Deprovisioning

  • When a tagged VM is destroyed, the VM’s relationship to the Tag is removed
  • Tags are not removed from vCenter upon VM removal
  • Categories are not removed from vCenter upon VM removal

Quick Start Process

  1. Define SovLabs vCenter Endpoint
  2. Apply SovLabs VM Tagging properties to existing blueprint
  3. Provision!