Usage

There are several ways to get the desired profile to run during the VM lifecycle:

1. Attach vRA Property Group to vRA Blueprint

When the SovLabs Configuration is created, a vRA property group for that configuration is also created. That Property Group contains a custom property of SovLabs_NamingStandard with a value of the profile name.

By setting this property to the profile name, we enable that profile to run during the machine’s lifecycle.
The vRA Event Broker Subscription (EBS) created during the configuration of the SovLabs modules controls the order in which the various integrations will run.

The easiest way to enable the profile for your build is to add the SovLabs Property group to the vRA blueprint, either at the blueprint level, or at the machine level.

Be sure to login using the correct URL for your tenant and a service account that was entitled to the SovLabs Service during the Configuration steps, e.g. sov_admin
  1. Login to vRealize Automation.
  2. Click on the Design tab > Blueprints
  3. Click the blueprint name to Edit it
    1. Click on the vSphere machine component on the Blueprint Design Canvas
    2. Click on the Properties tab
    3. In the Property Groups section, add the vRA property group for Custom Naming:
      • Property Group name: SovLabs-NamingStandard-[tenant]_[profile_shortname]
Do not attach more than 1 Custom Naming vRA Property Group to a blueprint

Repeat for all desired vRA blueprints and provision!

The vRA Property Group can also be attached at the vRA Business Group or Reservation level

2. Set the SovLabs Custom Property to the desired profile name

Instead of adding a Property Group to the blueprint, a more streamlined method is to simply set the SovLabs Custom Property to the desired profile name.

This can be done with the Profile Name as a hardcoded value.

For the Custom Naming module, the SovLabs Custom Property is SovLabs_NamingStandard

Instead of setting a property on each Blueprint, you can also set this property more globally by creating the custom property on a vRA endpoint, or a Reservation, or even a Business Group.

You can set the SovLabs vRA profile properties on any component in vRA that allows Custom Properties to be created.

Just remember to keep track of where you set them!

3. The SovLabs profile can be chosen dynamically using the SovLabs Template Engine

For this example, assume there is a vRA Custom Property called location and it’s value is set to “Norcross”.
If we want to use one Custom Naming profile for the “Norcross” location and different one for any other location, you could write a template that does this:

if location is “Norcross”, set the SovLabs_NamingStandard property to
my_Customnaming_profileA
otherwise set it to
my_Customnaming_profileB

Template Syntax: {% if location == "Norcross" %}my_Customnaming_profileA{% else %}my_Customnaming_profileB{% endif %}

Result: SovLabs_NamingStandard is set to my_Customnaming_profileA

If location had been set to something other than “Norcross”, the result: SovLabs_NamingStandard is set to my_Customnaming_profileB

*See documentation on the SovLabs Template Engine and the SovLabs Template Tester .

Disable

To disable the the integration from running for troubleshooting or other purposes

If you enabled the integration by adding the Property Group to the Blueprint, remove it

  1. Login to the vRA tenant
  2. Click on the Design tab > Blueprints
  3. Hover over the desired blueprint name and click Edit
    1. Click on the vSphere machine component on the Blueprint Design Canvas
    2. Click on the Properties tab
    3. In the Property Groups section, remove the vRA property group for Custom Naming:
      • Property Group name: SovLabs-NamingStandard-[tenant]_[profile_shortname]

Repeat Step 3 for all desired blueprints

Unpublishing the Event Broker Subscriptions is a non-destructive and simple way to disable the workflows for SovLabs module Custom Naming module from running for all builds.

  1. Login to the vRA tenant
  2. Click on the Administration tab -> Events -> Subscriptions
  3. Highlight the Event Broker subscription and click Unpublish

The vRA EBS will go to “Draft” mode and will not execute until you click “Publish” to publish it again.