Creating Visio-Like diagrams for free using VMware stencils

As a MacBook user I little upset when I need to create a Visio diagram due to there is not Visio for Mac. What do you do? Normally I need to power on a Windows VM. Also some official and unofficial stencils templates and stuff were created for Visio. Finally many master diagrams were created for Visio.

Well, not anymore for me.

I found a very amazing tool called draw.io. I have used this tool in the past using the online framework, but I discovered a best way to create diagrams visio-like even using exactly the same icons and stencils.
Here’s one I made yesterday as VMC on AWS template:

Here the draw.io source file for this diagram.  My plan is share all my draw.io files on my public github.com coming soon. Meanwhile you can download the .drawio from here.

The amazing thing is draw.io support many formats even VSSX files, the format for Visio stencils templates. So what ever vssx file could be imported.

First I needed to import stencils from this places (just using the Import from File menu option):

• Visio Stencils for the VMware Validated Designs version 4.3
• Visio Stencils for VMware, Hyper-V and Veeam  
• NSX Stencils 
 

Whilst I don’t see this as a full replacement for Visio. However last time, I just wanted to sketch up a quick concept for our VMware cluster and VMC on AWS architecture and it was great for that.

Also the web online tool, draw.io has announced its desktop clients, which we can download directly from here:

• Windows (.exe) DOWNLOAD
• macOS (.dmg) DOWNLOAD
• Linux (Debian/Ubuntu) DOWNLOAD
• Linux (AppImage) DOWNLOAD

Draw.io has the advantage of including images from Amazon, Microsoft Azure, Veeam, and many others.

Brilliant work guys. Did I tell you it's free? Visio good bye

Regards

VCD 9.7 Custom Branding Logo per-tenant

With release on vCloud Director 9.7 you can set the logo and the theme for your vCloud Director Service Provider Admin Portal and also now you can customize the vCloud Director Tenant Portal of each tenants.

 

 Provider Portal Branding

vCloud Director 9.7 UI can be modified for the following elements:

• Portal name
• Portal color
• Portal theme (vCloud Director contains two themes – default and dark.)
• Logo & Browser icon

 

Customize Portal Name, Portal Color and Portal Theme

To configure the Cloud Provider Portal Branding , make a PUT request to vCloud Director end point in to tenant organisation as below: ( T1 is my org Name)

• Headers
  
  • Accept: application/*;version=32
  • Content-Type: application/json
• PUT – https://<vCD Url>/cloudapi/branding/tenant/T1
• BODY –
  {
    "portalName": "Private Cloud",
    "portalColor": "#009AD9",
    "selectedTheme": {
      "themeType": "BUILT_IN",
      "name": "Default"
    },
    "customLinks": [
      {
        "name": "help",
        "menuItemType": "override",
        "url": "http://www.vlabware.com"
      }
    ]
  }

 

Customize Logo

To change the Logo, you need to define the Headers and PUT request.

• Headers
• Accept: image/*;version=32
• Content-Type: image/png

Note: Unfortunately some references like VMTECHIE has wrong the Content-Type field, due to it add an extra ";version=32", but this is wrong, if you used it you will receive this message on the Chrome Console:

Refused to load the image ‘unsafe:data:image…’ because it violates the following Content Security Policy directive: “img-src * data: blow: ‘unsafe-inline'”.

but using the header "Content-Type" only with "image/png", it will works well each per-tenant.

• PUT https://<vCD Url>/cloudapi/branding/logo 
  
  
  
• Body – This is bit tricky since we need to upload an image as a body.
  • In Postman client inside “Body” click on “Binary” which will allow you to choose file as body and select your logo.
  
  
  
  
  For a particular tenant, you can selectively override the default logo. Any value that you do not set uses the corresponding system default value.
  
  By default, no org-specific branding will be shown outside of a logged in session that means it would not appear on login and logout pages. We don't show per-tenant branding outside a logged in session (it makes it possible for tenants to "discover" one another
  
  if you wish to allow branding outside of logged in sessions, you can use the cell management tool to execute the following command:
  
  

   /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool manage-config -n backend.branding.requireAuthForBranding -v false
  

  
  The result of the command is:
  
  
  
  
  Here the result on Login Page:
  
  
  
   Inside you could see this:
  
  
  
  
  
  Amazing.
  
  Regards
  

What is HCX Multi Site Services Mesh?

What is HCX Multi Site Services Mesh?

The Multi-Site Service Mesh enables the configuration, deployment, and serviceability of Interconnect virtual appliance pairs with ease. Now you have the choice to deploy/manage HCX services with the traditional Interconnect interface or with the new Multi-Site Service Mesh. To deploy the HCX IX’s you will choose either of the method. 

Before you plan to use HCX Multi-Site Service Mesh, let’s have a look at few benefits which we get out of this feature: 

• Uniformity: the same configuration patterns at the source and remote sites.
• Re-usability: Once a compute profile is created it can be used to connect to multiple HCX sites. Hence the site administrator need not define the same things again and again.
• Multisite Ready: Compute Profiles and Network Profiles can be shared across multiple sites.
• Ease of reconfiguration: New capability to pool datastores or modify them post-Interconnect deployment.
• Scale-out deployment: The HCX-IX can be deployed per cluster or a single HCX-IX can be shared across multiple clusters.

Apart from that the are few usability enhancements that have been introduced:

• Improved interfaces display a clear deployment diagrams.
• New task tracking features give step by step details of the progress of operations
• Preview of required firewall rules for ease of configuration.

Typically a compute profile looks like as shown in below image

Once the compute profile is created in both cloud side and on-prem, we initiate the service mesh creation from on-prem side. Service mesh can’t be created from cloud side.

During service mesh creation we map the compute/network profile of on-prem with the profiles created in cloud side. Once service mesh mapping is done, we can initiate the deployment of IX appliances. 

Once the appliances are deployed in both on-prem and cloud side, we can start consuming the HCX services. 

Regards