Part 1 – Deploy and Configure Aria Automation 8.18.1

Aria Automation (vRA) is a self-service portal that automates virtual machine deployment to Public and Private Clouds based on specific blueprints/templates. With vRA, users can provision VMs on the fly via a central dashboard instead of submitting VM build requests to IT admins. Service providers primarily use vCloud Director (vCD), while private organizations use Aria Automation (vRA) to automate VM builds. It is important to note that Aria Automation does not have an embedded authentication manager, so vidm or workspace one is required.

Understanding the Deployment Architecture

A standard Aria Automation deployment includes three core components:

Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM)

Handles deployment, configuration, certificate management, patching, and lifecycle operations for the entire Aria Suite.

Workspace ONE Access (vIDM)

Provides identity, SSO, MFA, and conditional access. Aria Automation does not include a native identity provider, so vIDM is mandatory.

Aria Automation Appliance

Delivers the vRA services: Cloud Assembly, Service Broker, Code Stream, and Orchestrator.

You can deploy these components in:

• Standard Mode — one vRA appliance
• Clustered Mode — three vRA appliances for scale and HA

For most production environments, clustering is preferred, but this guide walks through the standard deployment first

Required DNS Records

Before starting the installer, ensure the following A‑records exist:

Key Components of vRA

• Cloud Assembly: Management plane responsible for creating infrastructure blueprints and deploying VMs to providers.
• Service Broker:  This provides a self-service portal that allows end users to request infrastructure and application services in a self-service manner from a catalog.
• Code Stream: Provides CI/CD pipelines to build, test, deploy and release software.
• Aria Orchestrator: Used for custom scripts, 3rd party integrations ( eg: Puppet )

Installation types

Download the Aria Automation Easy Installer ISO for version 8.18.1.

Mount the ISO and launch installer.exe (Windows) or the equivalent for macOS/Linux.

Select Install

Click Next

Accept the EULA

Provide vCenter connection details

Choose the target datacenter, cluster, and datastore

Select Thin Provisioning

Enter the network configuration

Network: 
IP Assignment: 
Subnet Mask: 
Default Gateway: 
DNS Servers: 
Domain Name: ash.local
Provide NTP Server for the appliance: 

Provide a password for vRSLCM,vRA,viDM admin & root account

Provide the following information to continue with the Lifecycle Manager Configuration.

• Virtual machine name
• IP address
• Hostname
• Datacenter Name
• vCenter Name
• Set Increase Disk Size in 0
• Leave FIPS Mode Compliance to Default.

The next step is about configuring the Identity Appliance or WorkSpace One. vIDM will be used later for tenant identity, SSO, and MFA.

Provide the following settings:

• Virtual Machine Name
• IP Address
• Hostname
• Default Configuration Admin: configadmin
• Default Configuration Email: 
• Node Size: Medium

Enable “Sync Group Members When Adding Group”

Now, we provide the necessary information for the Automation appliance. Choose the deployment type as standard or clustered

• Provide the license key
• vRA environment name
• Node Size: Medium
• FIPS Compliance Mode: Disabled

In the Aria Automation Primary Node Details section, enter the Virtual Machine Name, IP Address and FQDN for the vRA Primary Node.

Review the summary and click Submit.

The installer will now deploy the vRA appliance and configure it automatically.

You can monitor progress both in the LCM installer UI and directly in vCenter.

Once all steps are completed, you can access the vIDM to continue your private cloud environment.

Login to vIDM to confirm login using configadmin and the password

Click QuickStart to begin configuration

You can connect the endpoints directly from here.

Choose the cloud zones

In the next blog, we will go through the manual process to register these components.