4.0
Table Of Contents
- vCenter Orchestrator Administration Guide
- Contents
- Updated Information
- About This Book
- Introduction to VMware vCenter Orchestrator
- The Orchestrator Client
- Managing Workflows
- Creating Resource Elements
- Using Plug-Ins
- Managing Actions
- Using Packages
- Setting System Properties
- Disable Access to the Orchestrator Client By Nonadministrators
- Disable Access to Workflows from Web Service Clients
- Setting Server File System Access from Workflows and JavaScript
- Set JavaScript Access to Operating System Commands
- Set JavaScript Access to Java Classes
- Set Custom Timeout Property
- Modify the Number of Objects a Plug-In Search Obtains
- Maintenance and Recovery
- Index
Introduction to VMware vCenter
Orchestrator 1
VMware vCenter Orchestrator is a development and process-automation platform that provides a library of
extensible workflows to allow you to create and run automated, configurable processes to manage the VMware
vCenter infrastructure as well as other VMware and third-party technologies.
Orchestrator exposes every operation in the vCenter Server API, allowing you to integrate all of these
operations into your automated processes. Orchestrator also allows you to integrate with other management
and administration solutions through its open plug-in architecture.
This chapter includes the following topics:
n
“Key Features of the Orchestrator Platform,” on page 11
n
“Orchestrator User Roles and Related Tasks,” on page 12
n
“Orchestrator Architecture,” on page 13
Key Features of the Orchestrator Platform
Orchestrator is composed of three distinct layers: an orchestration platform that provides the common features
required for an orchestration tool, a plug-in architecture to integrate control of subsystems, and a library of
workflows. Orchestrator is an open platform that can be extended with new plug-ins and libraries, and can be
integrated into larger architectures through a SOAP API.
The following list presents the key Orchestrator features.
Persistence
Production grade external databases are used to store relevant information,
such as processes, workflow states, and configuration information.
Central management
Orchestrator provides a central way to manage your processes. The application
server-based platform, with full version history, allows you to have scripts and
process-related primitives in one place. This way, you can avoid scripts without
versioning and proper change control spread on your servers.
Check-pointing
Every step of a workflow is saved in the database, which allows you to restart
the server without losing state and context. This feature is especially useful for
long-running processes.
Versioning
All Orchestrator Platform objects have an associated version history. This
feature allows basic change management when distributing processes to
different project stages or locations.
VMware, Inc. 11