How to Safely Add a New VM to Your VMware DRS Group Using Ansible

Описание: Learn how to add a new VM to an existing `VMware DRS group` with Ansible without affecting the current VMs in the group. This step-by-step guide provides you with the necessary insights and code to achieve your goal effectively.
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/67901231/ asked by the user 'Alex' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/13431458/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/67906607/ provided by the user 'Alex' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/13431458/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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How to Safely Add a New VM to Your VMware DRS Group Using Ansible

Managing your Virtual Machines (VMs) in a VMware environment can be quite challenging, especially when it comes to using automation tools like Ansible. One common problem that users encounter is the need to add a new VM to an existing VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) group without removing the VMs already present in that group. In this guide, we'll tackle this issue head-on and provide you with a step-by-step solution.

Understanding DRS Groups in VMware

Before we dive into the solution, let's clarify what a DRS group is. In VMware:

A DRS group allows you to classify VMs and hosts, enabling resource management and load balancing across your virtual environment.

Changes to these groups can affect the overall performance and allocation of resources, making it crucial to handle modifications carefully.

The Problem

You want to add a new VM to your existing VMware DRS group using Ansible. However, when you try to do so, all VMs in the group are always retrieved, and the new VM is simply appended. This can unintentionally lead to the removal of other VMs from the group.

Solution Overview

The solution we propose involves three main steps:

Retrieve the Current DRS Group Information: This step involves getting current details about the existing VMs in the DRS group.

Create a New VM List: Use the information from the first step to create a new list that includes both the existing VMs and the new VM.

Update the DRS Group: Finally, we will use the updated list to modify the existing DRS group without removing the current VMs.

Step 1: Retrieve Current DRS Group Information

Use the vmware_drs_group_info module to get the details of your existing DRS VM group. Here’s how you can do it:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This code will fetch detailed information about the DRS group and store it in a registered variable called cluster_drs_group_info.

Step 2: Create a New VM List

Next, we need to create an updated list of VMs that includes the new VM while keeping the existing ones intact. We do this using the set_fact module:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Here, we're combining the existing VMs stored in cluster_drs_group_info with the new VM represented by vm_name. This gives us a complete list of VMs to work with.

Step 3: Update the DRS Group

Finally, we utilize the vmware_drs_group module to apply the changes and update the DRS group with the new list of VMs. Here’s how this can be achieved:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This code will update your DRS group dynamically, ensuring that all VMs, old and new, are part of the same group without removing existing VMs.

Conclusion

Adding a new VM to an existing VMware DRS group using Ansible doesn't need to be a complicated process. By retrieving current group information, constructing a new VM list, and then updating the DRS group, you can do this seamlessly while keeping your current VMs intact.

With these instructions and code examples, you should be well-equipped to manage your VMs in a DRS group effectively using Ansible.

If you have any questions or encounter issues while implementing this solution, feel free to reach out in the comments below! Happy automating!