Service Manual

Provisioning and Extensibility Overview of Dell VIS Self-Service Creator
Page 7
process is not completely automated end-to-end, this also provides an opportunity for manual
intervention.
With custom integration, workflows may be modified to allow the approval actions via email or through
external systems such as Microsoft SharePoint.
Provisioning Workflow
Since all environments are not the same, VIS Self-Service Creator offers a variety of workflows to
integrating with your existing environment. Integration options are available at multiple touch points
enabling maximum flexibility. In this section, we will discuss provisioning by VMware templates, WIM
provisioning, and RHEL Kickstart. Refer to the VIS Self-Service Creator User Guide and Support Matrix
for details on other provisioning methods.
Pre- and Post-Provisioning Scripts
Prior to the execution of the workload provisioning process, some organizations require preparatory
work to be executed. VIS Self-Service Creator can be configured to execute a pre-provisioning script to
complete any necessary preparatory work. Some potential uses for pre-provisioning scripts include the
pre-configuration of enterprise certificates. Since this script executes through the scripting
framework, it will have access to read or modify the custom properties. These custom properties can
be utilized to pass name-value pairs to other scripts executed during post-provisioning.
Once the provisioning process is complete, a second script can be executed to complete any post-
provisioning work. For instance, information regarding the new workload may need to be populated in
a configuration management database or network management system. Through the scripting
framework, a customer created script may access custom properties including machine owner,
workload description, and lease time for use in updating the configuration management database
(CMDB) or network management system (NMS).
VMware Templates
The most popular method of virtual machine provisioning is by leveraging VMware clones. In many
mature VMware environments, VMware Template clones are utilized for most, if not all, provisioning
requests. VIS Self-Service Creator leverages the functionality of vCenter to instantiate these clones to
provisioned workloads.
Figure 3: VMware Template Extensibility Overview
Requestor
`
VM
Script Repository
VMware vCenter
1) User Places Request
12) User Notified on Success
3) Request to vCenter
Clone VM
Customization Spec
4) vCenter : Clone VM /
Sysprep/Customization
5) Power-On VM
8) VIS-SSC Agent : Retrieve Script
6) Windows Sysprep Process
9) VIS-SSC Agent : Execute
Post-Provisioning Script
Customer Specific
Post-Provisioning Script
11) Post-Provisioning Script
7) VIS-SSC Agent : Requests Instructions
10) VIS-SSC Agent : Notifies Creator of Success
VIS Self-Service Creator
Customer Specific
Pre-Provisioning Script
2) Pre-Provisioning Script
`