Configure vRB Remote Data Collector

When using remote vCenter endpoints with vRealize Automation, it is important to configure a vRealize Business for Cloud Remote Data Collector (or two) local to the remote endpoint.

Similar to how vROps uses Collectors to delegate the task of gathering endpoint data to send back to the main server, vRealize Business leverages Remote Data Collectors.

When looking into these ‘lesser-spotted’ vRB Data Collectors, I found information a little more scarce on the ground than what’s generally available around vROps Collectors.

Our environment is running the following:

• vRA v7.3.0
• vRB v7.3.1
• vCenter v6.0

The primary steps covered in this post are:

• vRB Remote Data Collector Deployment
• Generate One Time Key for vRB Remote Collection
• Register Remote Data Collector
• Manage vCenter Server Connection

Deployment

Just deploy a vRB appliance from the vRB ova as normal. There is no separate ova or install. There’s not a lot to this, just deploy as standard. We will see when registering the remote data collector how the vRB appliance is configured as a collector only.

Generate One-time Key

• Log in to vRB for Cloud as an administrator. As ours is a vRA-integrated vRB setup, the url was as follows  https://vra-vip/vcac/org/vrs (in format of e.g. https://vRA_hostname/vcac/org/tenant_URL)
• Click the Administration tab.
• Click Business Management
• Click Manage Data Collection
• Select Remote Data Collection.

Click the Generate a new one time use key link. You then see a key on the Success dialog box.

Copy or note down the key, and Click OK. Note: The key is active for 20 minutes only.

Register Remote Data Collector

This is where the persona of the vRB appliance is set to Collector, where we log into the Data Collector UI.

• Log in to the vRB data collection manager on the 9443 port as a root user e.g. https://vrb-c1:9443/dc-ui (where vrb-c1 is our collector name, in format of https://Remote_Data_Collector_IP_address:9443/dc-ui/.

• Expand the Registration with vRealize Business Server option.
• Enter the IP address or the host name of the vRealize Business for Cloud server.
  • In our instance this was https://vrb01.domain.local
• Enter the one-time key that was generated earlier on vRB for Cloud.
• Click Update.
• Inspect/View and Accept SSL certificate as appropriate

• Once Successfully Registered, click OK

Manage vCenter Server Connection

Next step is to to configure the vCenter Server connection. Staying logged into the vRB data collection manager, do the following:

• Click Manage Private Cloud Connections
• Select vCenter Server, and click the add option (plus sign on the far right side).
• Enter the required vCenter details, as displayed below for our vCenter Server instance

• Click Save.
  
  Our instance was not using SSL cert from CA, so a dialog box with untrusted SSL certificate for vCenter connection was displayed. The same notification was displayed for a connection to vROps (possibly because of the service account having vROps privileges also via vCenter). 
   
  Note: vRB for Cloud does not verify the revocation status of the SSL certificate. You must verify the status manually before accepting the certificate.
• Click Install.
• If the credentials are valid, click OK in the Success dialog box, and the instance is added to the vRB for Cloud, as shown below

Back in the main vRA tab for Business Management, we can also verify that all is well by clicking on the Green Status icon in the top-right corner, from where we should be able to then see the status of the various system processes, including vCenter Data Collection.

So there you go. Deploying a vRB Remote Data Collector. Very Rock and Roll 🙂

Resources

• The vRB Cloud Install Guide provides the official information on how to configure the vRB data collector.
• Further design information is available in the VMware Validated Design 4.2 documentation.

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Configure vROps Remote Collectors