Ask the Expert: Introducing the Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 3.5

This Ask the Expert session is now open for questions. For the next couple of weeks our Subject Matter Experts will be around to reply to your questions, comments or inquiries about our topic.

Let’s make this conversation useful, respectful and entertaining for all. Enjoy!

Hello Roberto,

I have a question for our experts Inigo and Karol.

Are EMC creating a library of the orchestrations (scripts, API's, ) which support hybrid cloud automation? 

EMC have enabled IT-as-a-Service and Automation via  Service Catalogs around diverse topics such as:

-Provisioning via ViPR

-Integration with Service Now and CMDB

-Puppet Integrations and scripting

-Backup-as-a-Service leveraging Avamar, NetWorker, DD,

-diverse third-party integrations

-etc.

I understand that manyof these were done as paid, customer, engagements and are either too customized to share (or customer IP since they paid for the EMC PS engagement).

However, any that could be shared would provide tremendous value to EMC professional services and , in particular, with Partners who have invested resources to become FEHC implementation partners.

Having a library as a basis for the automation or orchestration would help partners accelerate their professional services engagements making them more competitive in the market place to win EMC EHC deals and to build a EHC partner community.

Thanks for the response!

Hi John,

that’s a great question.

With the 3.5 release of the Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud, we have introduced the Integration Program, with similar goals you’ve shared in your question. Currently this program is not intended to create a publicly shared repository of all of the integrations & customizations developed by the community, but rather provide more visibility to what is being created in the field and by the partners, and allow these to be promoted. Several of these advanced engagements in the field are to some degree repeatable and created artifacts are reusable, such as integration with ITSM tools, for instance ServiceNOW, Puppet Enterprise and automation of applications - Oracle, SAP, etc. More details on this program are available here: https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-49981.

We are also considering creating a community website, which would act as the repository and allow the community to exchange and share the available integrations with a broader audience. This came as a feedback from the inaugural EMC Federation Cloud Solutions Customer Council, which happened few weeks ago in Miami, Florida. Peter Cutts, the head of our organization summarized that as following: "Customers would like a community or online tool to provide feedback on FEHC features and share sample operational integrations application automation workflows and blueprints”.

This is currently being addressed by the Solution Management team and we’ll be happy to share more details, as soon as they will be available.

I would also consider visiting Cloud Management Marketplace (part of VMware Solution Exchange: https://solutionexchange.vmware.com/store/category_groups/cloud-management), which is a repository of 3rd party add-ons to the cloud solutions built using VMware’s cloud management components, which are a key part of the Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud Solution.

Does it answer your question?

Have a great weekend!

Thank you,

Karol.

Hi Karol,

Thank you for your detailed answer and additional links!

I appreciated that.

I also wish you a great weekend.

Best Regards

John

And to follow on the previous question- what version of vRealize Automation is in 3.5?

Hi Roberto,

I have a question for our experts: What are the new enhancements in FEHC 3.5?

Thanks for that great question!

The Federation Enterprise Hybrid 3.5 introduced several new features that extend the solution capabilities, operational improvements and new platform options that expand customer's choice to deploy the solution.

• With the addition of VMware's Code Stream to the solution we can accelerate software delivery through complete application release lifecycle automation .
• VMware Integrated Openstack 2.0 enables developers to work with Openstack Services and APIs, simplifying Openstack deployment and implementation leveraging proven VMware Infrastructure

New operational improvements that enhance the protection capabilities of the solution, such as applying protection policies to already deployed VMs or the improved support to ingest customer workloads under the umbrella of the cloud solution.

With the 3.5 version of the solution, support for new platforms as VxBlock, VxRack or VxRail (as IaaS workload endpoint)has ben introduced, as well as an updated version of already supported platforms, such as XtremIO 4, ViPR 2.4 SP1, Avamar 7.2, vSphere 6, NSX 6.2.1 or vRA 6.2.3

You can find more detailed information about all these topics in the solution documentation here:

https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-42168

Please let us know if you need more details on any particular topic.

Kind Regards

Inigo Olcoz

Allan,

thank you for your question.

vRealize Automation version included in the 3.5 solution release is 6.2.3.

You can review the supported versions of the solution components in EMC Simple Support Martix (ESSM) for the Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 3.5, available with this link: https://elabnavigator.emc.com/vault/pdf/Fed_EHC_3.5_ESSM.pdf.

Please let us know if you have any additional questions!

Kind Regards,

Karol

Thanks Karol.  vRA 7 was announced last year- any details on why that was not used?

yes- thanks!  The first paragraph would have worked for me  :-)

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