The Self-Healing Data Center Part 5: Configure an Alert to Trigger the vRO Workflow

Now that we have configured the Translation Shim and vRealize Orchestrator the next task before testing is to configure vR Ops to send an alert to the shim.  This will be the final post in this series and when you complete this, you will be ready to apply this solution to automate any alerts you desire by simply creating the appropriate workflow and alert settings.

I am using vR Ops version 6.4 in the steps below, but this should work with any 6.0 or higher version of vR Ops.  We are also using Endpoint Operations to monitor the state of a service on a Linux OS.  Endpoint Operations is NOT required to use this shim, I am only using that because it provides a way to easily trigger an alert by stopping a service on a monitored OS.  It also shows that any automated remediation or activity is possible, not just automation of virtual infrastructure.

The Self-Healing Data Center Part 4: Configuration of the vRO Example Workflow

So far we have discussed the reasoning behind the Translator Shim, installed it, configured it, started and tested the shim server.  In this blog post, we will set up things on the Orchestrator side so that the workflow is ready to go when an alert is fired from vR Ops.

This blog post assumes you have familiarity with vRealize Orchestrator and some experience with importing workflows and working with the HTTP-REST plugin.  If these are new concepts for you, please don't be discouraged.  Some great references to get comfortable with Orchestrator are:


HOL-1721-SDC-5 - Introduction to vRealize Orchestrator
Blog from vcoteam.info on using the REST plugin
Postman + vRO = HTTP-REST Plug-in Operations

Let's dive in.

The Self-Healing Data Center Part 3: Configuring and Testing the Orchestrator Translation Shim

So far, we've walked through installing the Translation Shims.  In this blog post we'll configure the Orchestrator shim for use.  The Orchestrator shim is but one of the handful of shims included in the solution.  More are being added via the community.  Participation is encouraged!

The Self-Healing Data Center Part 2: Installing the Translation Shims for Automating vR Ops Alerts

In the previous post, I explained some of the capabilities and limitations with vR Ops alert notifications for automation of alert notifications via the REST Notification Plugin.  I also introduced the Translation Shims for Log Insight and/or vRealize Operations Manager Webhooks as a solution to these current limitations.  By the way, as the name indicates, this solution works great with Log Insight webhooks as well!  In fact, it was originally created for that purpose and later vR Ops support was added.

The Self-Healing Data Center Part 1: Using vR Ops with vRO to Automatically Remediate Alerts

If you are a user of vR OPs, you know that it can monitor your infrastructure, server OS, applications and more.  But as this commercial suggests, monitoring is only part of the answer.  Wouldn't it be much better to have vR Ops attempt some simple fixes before giving up and calling for human intervention?

In this blog post series, I will explain how to activate a vRealize Orchestrator workflow based on a vR Ops alert to fix an issue instead of just alerting you.  First some background.