Deploy VMware Event Broker Appliance

Customers looking to seamlessly extend their vCenter by either deploying our prebuilt functions or writing your own functions can get started quickly by deploying VMware Event Broker Appliance with Knative as the Event Processor

Deploy VMware Event Broker Appliance

Requirements

6 vCPU and 8GB of memory for VMware Event Broker Appliance
vCenter Server 7.x or greater
- The VEBA UI requires vCenter Server 7.0 or greater
vCenter TCP/443 accessible from Appliance IP address
Account to login to vCenter Server (readOnly is sufficient)

Step 1 - Download OVA

Download the VMware Event Broker Appliance (OVA) from the VMware Fling site.

Step 2 - Deploy OVA

Deploy the VMware Event Broker Appliance OVA to your vCenter Server using the vSphere HTML5 Client. As part of the deployment you will be prompted to provide the following input:

Networking (Required)

Hostname - The FQDN of the VMware Event Broker Appliance. If you do not have DNS in your environment, make sure the hostname provide is resolvable from your desktop which may require you to manually add a hosts entry. Proper DNS resolution is recommended
IP Address - The IP Address of the VMware Event Broker Appliance
Network Prefix - Network CIDR Selection (e.g. 24 = 255.255.255.0)
Gateway - The Network Gateway address
DNS - DNS Server(s) that will be able to resolve to external sites such as Github for initial configuration. If you have multiple DNS Servers, input needs to be space separated.
DNS Domain - The DNS domain of your network
NTP Server - NTP Server(s) for proper time synchronization. If you have multiple NTP Servers, input needs to be space separated.

Proxy Settings (Optional)

HTTP Proxy Server - HTTP Proxy Server followed by the port (e.g. http://proxy.provider.com:3128)
HTTPS Proxy - HTTPS Proxy Server followed by the port (e.g. http(s)://proxy.provider.com:3128)
Proxy Username - Optional Username for Proxy Server
Proxy Password - Optional Password for Proxy Server
No Proxy - Exclude internal domain suffix. Comma separated (localhost, 127.0.0.1, domain.local)

OS Credentials (Required)

Root Password - This is the OS root password for the VMware Event Broker Appliance
Enable SSH - Check the box to allow SSH to the Appliance (SSH to the appliance is disabled by default)
Endpoint Username - Specify the username to authenticate against the VEBA endpoints (e.g. /bootstrap, /events, /top, etc.)
Endpoint Password - Specify the password to authenticate against the VEBA endpoints.

vSphere (Required)

vCenter Server - This FQDN or IP Address of your vCenter Server that you wish to associate this VMware Event Broker Appliance to for Event subscription
vCenter Username - The username to login to vCenter Server, as mentioned earlier, readOnly account is sufficient
vCenter Password - The password to the vCenter Username
vCenter Username to register VEBA UI (Optional) - Username to register VMware Event Broker UI to vCenter Server for Knative Processor
vCenter Password to register VEBA UI (Optional) - Password to register VMware Event Broker UI to vCenter Server for Knative Processor
Disable vCenter Server TLS Verification - If you have a self-signed SSL Certificate, you will need to check this box
vCenter Checkpointing Age - Maximum allowed age (seconds) for replaying events determined by last successful event in checkpoint (default 300s)
vCenter Checkpointing Period - Period (seconds) between saving checkpoints (default 10s)

Note: The minimum vSphere Privileges that is required for proper VEBA UI functionality are: Register Extension, Update Extension (Installing Plugins) and Manage Plugins (Updating Plugins)

Note: For more information about the Checkpointing feature, see here: Event Delivery.

Horizon (Optional)

Enable Horizon Event Provider - Enable Horizon Event Provider
Horizon Server - IP Address or Hostname of Horizon Server
Horizon Domain Name - Active Directory Domain the username to login to the Horizon Server belongs to (e.g. corp)
Horizon Username - Username to login to Horizon Server (UPN-style not allowed)
Horizon Password - Password to login to Horizon Server
Disable Horizon Server TLS Verification - Disable TLS Verification for Horizon Server (required for self-sign certificate)

Note: The minimum Horizon Role that is required to retrieve events is the "Collect Operation Logs" Role (located under Logs)

Webhook (Optional)

Enable Webhook Event Provider - Enable Webhook Event Provider
Basic Auth Username (Optional) - Username to login to webhook endpoint
Basic Auth Password (Optional) - Password to login to webhook endpoint

Custom TLS Certificate Configuration (Optional)

Custom VMware Event Broker Appliance TLS Certificate Private Key (Base64) - Base64 encoded custom TLS certificate (.PEM) for the VMware Event Broker Appliance
Custom VMware Event Broker Appliance TLS Certificate Authority Certificate (Base64) - Base64 encoded custom TLS certificate (.CER) for the VMware Event Broker Appliance

Syslog Server Configuration (Optional)

Hostname or IP Address - Specify the Hostname (FQDN) or IP Address of the Syslog Server
Port - Syslog Server Port
Protocol - Choose the Transport Protocol (TCP, TLS or UDP)
Format - Choose the Syslog Protocol Format (RFC5424 or RFC3164)

zAdvanced (Optional)

Debugging - When enabled, this will output a more verbose log file that can be used to troubleshoot failed deployments
POD CIDR Network - Customize POD CIDR Network (Default 10.99.0.0/20). Must not overlap with the appliance IP address

Step 3 - Verification

Power On the VMware Event Broker Appliance after successful deployment. Depending on your external network connectivity, it can take a few minutes while the system is being setup. You can open the VM Console to view the progress. Once everything is completed, you should see an updated login banner for the various endpoints:

Appliance Configuration

Install Logs: https://[hostname]/bootstrap
Resource Utilization: https://[hostname]/top
Events: https://[hostname]/events
Webhook: https://[hostname]/webhook

Appliance Provider Stats

Webhook: https://[hostname]/stats/webhook

NOTE: If you enable Debugging, the install logs endpoint will automatically contain the more verbose log entries.

You can verify that everything was deployed correctly by opening a web browser and accessing one of the endpoints (/bootstrap, /events, /top, etc.) along with the associated admin password you had specified as part of the OVA deployment.

Deploy a Function

At this point, you have successfully deployed the VMware Event Broker Appliance and you are ready to start deploying your functions!

Check the Knative Echo Function to quickly get started

Documentation