7.3

n
Customize a virtual machine’s system specifications, such as adding multiple disk drives.
n
Customize the guest OS for a machine, for instance, by including specified users in selected local
groups.
n
Specify network and security settings.
n
Add additional control options such as drop-down menus to make input and selection options
available to the consumer at request time.
When you add a property to a blueprint, reservation, or other form you can specify if the property is to be
encrypted and also if the user must be prompted to specify a value when provisioning. These options
cannot be overridden when provisioning.
For an example of how to additional control options to dynamically set a custom property based on a
consumer's selection from a list of predefined options, see the Adding a Network Selection Drop-Down in
vRA 7 blog post.
A property specified in a blueprint overrides the same property specified in a property group. This enables
a blueprint to use most of the properties in a property group while differing from the property group in
some limited way. For example, a blueprint that incorporates a standard developer workstation property
group might override the US English settings in the group with UK English settings.
You can apply properties in reservations and business groups to many machines. Their use is typically
limited to purposes related to their sources, such as resource management. Specifying the characteristics
of the machine to be provisioned is generally done by adding properties to blueprints and property
groups.
Understanding Custom Properties Precedence
Properly authorized users can specify custom properties for blueprints, endpoints, business groups, and
reservations. When the same property exists in more than one source, vRealize Automation follows a
specific order of precedence when applying properties to the machine.
You can add custom properties that apply to provisioned machines to the following elements:
n
A reservation, to apply the custom properties to all machines provisioned from that reservation.
n
A business group, to apply the custom properties to all machines provisioned by business group
members.
n
A blueprint, to apply the custom properties to all machines provisioned from the blueprint.
n
Property groups, which can be included in a blueprint, to apply all the custom properties in the group
to all machines provisioned from the blueprint.
A blueprint can contain one or more property groups.
n
A machine request to apply the custom properties to the machine being provisioned.
n
An approval policy, if advanced approval support is enabled, to require approvers to provide values
for the machine being approved.
Custom Properties Reference
VMware, Inc. 9