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I am pleased to announce a new Version of the popular OVF Transfer Plugin. The new mayor release Version is 3. My colleague Sascha Bitzer made a lot of Improvements for the plugin.

In this version we include some bugfixes and also new feature. Here are some Highlights:

The OVA/F Transfer plug-in allows you to import and export virtual machines as OVF/OVA template to/from the VMware vCenter via the VMware vCenter/vRealize Orchestrator.

This plug-in provides actions and workflows to use the OVF/A functionalities directly in

your own workflows. It also supports the automated creation of OVF/A Import Workflows, based on provided ovf/ova files.

Nowadays this plugin also supports new features like vRA-Integration, Authentication and simple File upload

This plug-in includes amongst others following features:

• [Export] Export of virtual machines as OVF templates
• [Import] Import of virtual machines as OVF or OVA templates
• [Import] Automated creation of Import workflows based on OVF/A
• [Import] Support for vSS and vDS PortGroups
• [Import] Support for multiple vNics
• [Import] Support for OVF properties and Deployment Options, e.g. used for virtual appliance imports
• [Import/Export] Supported sources/destinations: Locale file, HTTP, HTTPS,FTP, CIFS
• [Import] Import OVF/A using vCAC/vRA – Service Blueprint
• [Import/Export] Support for Basic and Digest authentication
• [Import] Upload of any file to datastore (e.g. ISO)

This plug-in contains two ready to use workflows for importing and exporting virtual machines. It also contains one workflow for extracting and displaying all available OVF

properties usable for the import workflow. For a wizard like experience there is also a workflow for an automated generation of import workflows based on the provided

OVF/A files. This automatically generated workflow will contain all input parameters and options for the given OVF/a file. In addition to those workflows you will now find

two new workflows. The first one is used to upload any kind of file to a target datastore.

This workflow can therefore be used to manage the upload of ISO files/images. The second workflow enables you to integrate the process of importing an OVF/A into your

vRA environment. Now it’s possible to import OVF/A directly with vRA. You can find those workflows in the Workflows folder: SVA/OvaTransfer

The Plugin can be found at the VMware Solution Exchange. Here is the URL:

https://solutionexchange.vmware.com/store/products/vmware-realize-orchestrator-ovf-transfer-plug-in

Have fun and orchestrate the World 😉

Usually you can start the Orchestrator client just via Java WebStart using the link on the welcome page of your vRO server.

However, due to several security restrictions in current Java versions, and OSX versions, that might be quite an effort to configure your system that this actually works (permanently).

In older vCO versions there were direct links to the standalone client installation downloads on the welcome page, but these links disappeared in vRO 6.0 (that comes with vRA 6.2, and the upcoming vSphere release).

So, here’s where you find the installation files: They are zipped in the file

/usr/lib/vco/downloads/welcome-page-resources.zip

on the appliance (it’s about 165MB!). Use for example scp to copy them to your local system (SSH has to be enabled in the appliance configuration):

scp root@your-vro-server:/usr/lib/vco/downloads/welcome-page-resources.zip .

Then you can unzip the file, and voila, find the standalone installation files…

In vCO 5.5.2, when you get error messages “ch.dunes.vso.sdk.SDKTypeConvertor_server$1  cannot be cast to XYZ” or “Unable to serialize object of class : ch.dunes.vso.sdk.SDKTypeConvertor_server$1”, you hit a bug in the vCO platform.

This issue for example occurs if you use the vCAC Plugin, to run vCO workflows as part of vCAC lifecycle processes. Then the “workflow runner” workflow in the Library fails with the error (see screenshot)

To solve the problem, you have to install a patch, the description and the patch download you can find in the VMware KnowledgeBase:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2093444

“Lessons in Software Reliability” is an article recently published on www.javacodegeeks.com. It gives some very valid and valuable tips for “What does it take to build reliable and stable enterprise software?”.

The content not only applies to to software development, but also to workflow development in vCO. You do want your workflow to be reliable, aren’t you?

Here’s the link: http://www.javacodegeeks.com/2011/06/lessons-in-software-reliability.html