VMware Aria Automation: Advanced Topics [V8.14] (VAAAT)

I. Overview:

This four-day course is a follow-on to the VMware Aria Automation: Install, Configure, Manage course. During this course, you will take a deeper dive into advanced topics using features of VMware Aria Automation such as deploying user systems and interfacing Aria Automation with other platforms. You will also learn how to deploy a cluster environment using VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle and interface with, and use, vSphere with Tanzu Kubernetes. This course makes heavy use of hands-on labs.

II. Duration: 05 days (40 hours)

III. Objectives:

By the end of the course, you should be able to meet the following objectives:

Describe and configure VMware Aria Automation in a clustered enterprise deployment using with VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle
Scale out VMware Identity Manager to support High Availability
Use external Certificate Authorities to configure security certificates in VMware Aria Automation
Create YAML templates to configure VMware Aria Automation using cloudConfig
Use VMware Aria Automation advanced templates to deploy a 2-tier Database-Server using MySQL and phpMyAdmin
Use Advanced VMware NSX networking features including NAT, routed networks, load balancers, security groups, and tags
Integrate and use NSX Advanced Load Balancer with VMware Aria Automation and VMware NSX
Create and use Aria Automation Pipelines to deploy software and connect to Kuberenetes
Create and use Ansible playbooks that integrate with VMware Aria Automation
Integrate Aria Automation with Terraform
Integrate Aria Automation with GitLab
Create Orchestrator Workflows and ABX Actions that interface with other systems and use REST calls
Configure and use Orchestrator Workflows and ABX actions to create day-2 actions and interface with Powershell scripts
Use Aria Automation to deploy minions and deploy software

IV. Intended Audience:

Experienced system administrators and system integrators responsible for using VMware Aria Automation in advanced configurations in enterprise deployments.

V. Prerequisites:

You should also have the following understanding or knowledge:

Knowledge and working experience of VMware vSphereTM environments
Good understanding of one or more VMware Aria Suite products

VI. Course outlines:

1. Course Introduction

Introductions and course logistics
Course objectives

2. VMware Aria Automation Clustered Deployment

Using Aria Suite Lifecycle in a clustered deployment
Configure External Certificates
Configure VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer
Install VMware Aria Automation using Clustered Deployment
Scale out VMware Identity Manager to support High Availability

3. Advanced VMware Aria Automation Templates

Use advanced YAML and cloudConfig to deploy a functioning 2-tier application with a phpMyAdmin front end server and a MySQL database server
Use cloudConfig and cloug-init
Use advanced YAML techniques to create configuration files and add users to deployed virtual machines

4. Advanced Networking

Use VMware NSX advanced features in VMware Aria Automation templates
Interfacing to IPAMs
Use VMware NSX NAT in VMware Aria Automation templates
Use VMware NSX Routed Networks
Use VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer
Use VMware NSX Security Groups

5. Advanced Orchestrator Workflows

Create Day-2 Actions with Orchestrator workflows
Use Orchestrator to Add computer objects to Active Directory when VMware Aria Automation deploys templates
Create VMware Aria Automation Custom Resources
Create VMware Aria Automation Resource Actions
Use VMware Aria Automation with Orchestrator to perform REST calls

6. Using ABX Actions

Use ABX to create day-2 Actions
Create ABX Action-Flows
Use ABX to make REST calls

7. Kubernetes Integration

Describe vSphere With Tanzu
Create a Supervisor Cluster
Create a Supervisor Namespace
Create Cluster Plans
Deploy a Tanzu Kubernetes cluster from Aria Automation
Manage Kubernetes Tanzu clusters from Aria Automation
Execute YAML code and deploy software in a managed Tanzu Kubernetes cluster
Connect to an existing generic Kubernetes cluster
Create Kubernetes namespaces from Aria Automation
Interface Aria Automation to other Kubernetes systems

8. Aria Automation Pipelines

Create and use CI/CD pipelines
Use the Pipeline user interface
Add states and tasks to a pipeline
Integrate code from a pipeline with Gitlab
Use an Aria Automation pipeline to install software
Use an Aria Automation Pipeline to Create a Kubernetes Namespace and a Deployment

9. Aria Automation and Configuration Management