VMware recently released the newest version of their cloud management platform, vRealize Automation 8.1. This version of vRA presents a major change from the vRA 7 platform. With these changes, comes a new way to integrate core network services from Infoblox such as DNS and IPAM.
The new Infoblox plugin for vRA, available on VMware Solution Exchange marketplace, provides integration with vRA 8.1 and vRA Cloud. The Infoblox plugin works with vRA Cloud Assembly using Action Based Extensibility (ABX), VMware’s serverless function capability. Using the Infoblox plugin extensibility actions, you can allocate IP space for on-demand networks, allocate IP addresses for virtual machines, create DNS records for these new VMs, and cleanup unused resources. Additionally, extensible attributes in the Infoblox Grid are used to store valuable data about your VMware deployments and resources.
The current 1.1 version of the Infoblox plugin comes with a collection of eight actions in three categories:
Data Collection Actions:
- Validate Endpoint: This action verifies administrator credentials and availability of services on the NIOS endpoint.
- Get IP Ranges: This action discovers networks and reserved IP ranges from the Infoblox Grid which can be used for IP allocation on existing VMware networks.
- Get IP Blocks: This action queries the Infoblox Grid for network container objects which can be used in the allocation of IP ranges for on-demand networks.
Resource Creation Actions:
- Allocate IP Range: This action finds and reserves the next available IP range of a specified size from the selected Infoblox network container object.
- Allocate IP: This action finds the next available IP address for a virtual machine in a specified network and creates a DNS Host record for the VM in the Infoblox Grid.
- Update Record: This record sends metadata on newly provisioned networks and virtual machines back to Infoblox, updating extensible attributes and other data.
Resource Cleanup Actions:
- Deallocate IP Range: This action removes a network object from the Infoblox Grid as the network is deleted in the VMware cloud.
- Deallocate IP: This action releases the IPs of virtual machines which are no longer needed and removes their associated host records from the Infoblox Grid.
To see the Infoblox IPAM plugin for vRA 8.1 in action, take a look at this video which demonstrates a common use case for this integration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u35vk81J8VE&feature=youtu.be
For detailed, step-by-step guidance on configuring Infoblox NIOS and installing/using the Infoblox plugin in vRealize Automation 8.1, see our deployment guide on Infoblox.com.
The Infoblox plugin for vRA 8.1 extends your Infoblox DDI services into the VMware cloud management environment. With Infoblox, you can automate IPAM and DNS services when deploying or tearing down resources in your VMware cloud.
