On my journey of getting to know the content management feature of vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager I stumbled across something that might need some explaining. With vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager it is possible to manage the life cycle of vSphere templates and customisation specifications. This is done through a vCenter Content Endpoint. So, I thought lets set it up, but I found out that this was not as simple as it seems (no thanks to the documentation).
Preparation
Before started with the content management part of vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager I wanted to upgrade it to the latest version, so I did. I am now running version 2.0. For the record, capturing vSphere content was introduced in version 1.3. If you want to learn about all the enhancements that have been made with version 2.0 check out this page.
I also setup a content library in my vCenter server because this is needed if you want to mange the content with vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager.
To manage content with vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager you should first enable this feature. This can be done during the installation or afterwards from the settings menu.
The recommended number of vCPU’s is 4 so be sure to set this up if you have not enabled this feature during the installation (because then the installation takes care of it). Also be mindful of the fact that SSH is required and will be enabled when you enable the content management feature.
vCenter content endpoint
Naturally I started at the Content Management -> Endpoints section to add my vCenter endpoint. I was surprised to see the following message and not the form I expected.
Verify or check if a vCenter Template Repository is created by your System Administrator.
In my mind I linked this to the content library I had set up in vCenter so I was like, but I have this. So I started a data collection of the vCenter server to see if this information would become available, but still no go. I even changed the way I publish my content library but the message remained. Now I turned to the documentation, but that clearly states that to create a vCenter endpoint all you need to have is ‘Verify that you have added at least one vCenter endpoint’. I had already added the vCenter endpoint previously. This is not to be confused with vCenter Content Endpoint which is the one I could not add.
Google also did not help much so I started thinking I might be a bug or an issue with my browser or even my home lab setup.
vSphere Template Repository
And suddenly there it is. While clicking through the different content management options I spot the tab called vSphere Template Repository (not vCenter Template Repository).
This is the missing link that was not described in the documentation. When I filled out the information and pointed this to my content library I was able to set up the vCenter Content Endpoint as expected.
Finally I have my configured vCenter Content Endpoint.
Conclusion
It took me a while but I managed to figure out how to set up the vCenter Content Endpoint in my vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager appliance. From here on I can start working on managing the life cycle of my vSphere templates and configuration specifications. I will follow up on this with VMware because the documentation could be more descriptive. In my opinion it should state that as a prerequisite for a vCenter Content Endpoint it is required to have this vSphere Template Repository in place and point you in the right direction on how to set it up (this information appears to be in a different section of the documentation, but the two are not linked as such).
