Book Image

VMware vRealize Orchestrator Essentials

By : Langenhan
Book Image

VMware vRealize Orchestrator Essentials

By: Langenhan

Overview of this book

The automation of virtual environments has become the focus of many endeavors. VMware vRealize Orchestrator is a tool that enables you to automate not only your VMware environments, but also the surrounding hardware and software infrastructure. Orchestrator is also a central tool in the VMware cloud initiative and is extensively used by products such as vRealize Automation. In this book, you will learn how Orchestrator is able to help you automate your complete VMware infrastructure as well as its surrounding hardware and software. After deploying and configuring the vRealize Orchestrator appliance, you will learn how to run the existing workflows that are a part of the Orchestrator library. You will also see how the vSphere Web Client integration of Orchestrator reduces the time you spend on your daily admin tasks. The main aspect here is to learn how to create new workflows from existing ones. You will also look at how you can create completely new workflows. This includes learning about JavaScript and using presentation features to improve the layout and user friendliness of your workflows. Toward the end, you will learn to check for errors in your workflows and debug them. By the time you're done with the book, you'll be proficient in managing your workflows.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
VMware vRealize Orchestrator Essentials
Credits
Foreword
Foreword
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Modifying an existing workflow


Copying and then modifying an existing workflow is something that is pretty common. We will go through this by using an example. We will copy and modify the Start virtual machine and wait workflow.

  1. In the Orchestrator Client, browse to the workflow Library | vCenter | Virtual machine management | Power Management | Start virtual machine and wait.

  2. Have a look at the Edit option. It's greyed out. This is because it's a Vendor supplied library workflow.

  3. If we want to modify the workflow, we have to duplicate it. Go ahead and do this, as shown in the last section.

After duplicating the workflow, you can edit it.

The trick with modifying existing workflows is to understand what they are doing. This can be done simply by running the workflow and having a closer look at each element.

The decision element (A) checks the power status of the VM. If it is powered on, it will move to the scripting element (E). If the VM is not powered on, it will go to the startVM action (B...