Getting started with creating and designing
cloud templates in VMware Aria
AutomationLast Updated February 19, 2025
VMware Aria
Automation
You use the Design page in
Automation Assembler
to create and design VMware Aria
Automation
cloud template specifications for the machines and
applications that you want to provision, including property groups, custom resources, and
resource actions.How to use the Design page
To create a cloud template from scratch, go to . Then, click .
Note that other options allow you to
create the template from either existing Terraform code or from another, existing
Automation Assembler
template to
which you have access.Once you have created the template, you
can populate it by adding and configuring resources as shown below.
- Locate resources.
- Drag resources to the canvas.
- Connect resources.
- Configure resources by editing the cloud template code.
Selecting and adding resources to the
design canvas
Resources appear at the left of the design page for
selecting and dragging.
Cloud agnostic
resources | You can deploy cloud
agnostic resources to any cloud vendor. At provisioning
time, the deployment uses cloud specific resources that
match. For example, if you expect a cloud template to deploy
to both AWS and vSphere cloud zones, use cloud agnostic
resources. |
Cloud vendor
resources | Vendor resources,
such as those specific to Amazon Web Services, Microsoft
Azure, Google Cloud Platform, or VMware vSphere, can only be
deployed to matching AWS, Azure, GCP, or vSphere cloud
zones. You can add cloud
agnostic resources to a cloud template that contains cloud
specific resources for a particular vendor. Just be aware of
what the project cloud zones support in terms of vendor.
|
Configuration
management resources | Configuration
management resources depend on your integrated applications.
For example, a Puppet resource can monitor and enforce the
configuration of the other resources. |
Connecting resources
Use the
Automation Assembler
design canvas graphical controls to connect
resources.Resources must be compatible for a connection. For
example:
- Connecting a load balancer to a cluster of machines.
- Connecting a machine to a network.
- Connecting external storage to a machine.
A solid line connector requires
that the two resources be deployed in the same cloud zone. If you add
conflicting constraints to the resources, deployment might fail.
For example, you can't deploy
connected resources where constraint tags force the placement of one to a
zone in us-west-1, and the other to a zone in us-east-1.
Solid or dashed arrows only
indicate a dependency, not a connection. For more about dependencies, see
Creating bindings and dependencies between resources in Automation Assembler.
To connect, hover over the edge of a resource
to reveal the connection bubble. Then, click and drag the bubble to the target
resource and release.
In the code editor, additional code for the
source resource appears in the target resource code.
In the figure, the SQL machine and private network are connected, so they must be
deployed in the same cloud zone.
Editing cloud template code
The code editor allows you to type, cut,
copy, and paste code directly. If you're uncomfortable editing code, you can click a
resource that's already in the design canvas, click the code editor
Properties
tab, and enter values there. Property values
that you enter appear in the code as if you had typed them directly.
Note that you can copy and paste code from
one cloud template to another.
Video - Creating and designing cloud templates
Refer to this VMware channel YouTube video
for a helpful overview on how to create and design cloud templates in VMware Aria
Automation
.