4.0

Table Of Contents

Managing Workflows 3

A workflow is a succession of actions and decisions that are run sequentially until they arrive at a specific

result. Orchestrator provides a library of workflows that perform common management tasks according to

best practices. Orchestrator also provides libraries of the individual actions that the workflows perform.

Workflows combine actions, decisions, and results that, when performed in a particular order, complete a

specific task or a specific process in a virtual environment. Workflows perform tasks such as provisioning

virtual machines, backing up, performing regular maintenance, sending emails, performing SSH operations,

managing the physical infrastructure, and other general utility operations. Workflows accept inputs according

to their function. You can create workflows that run according to defined schedules, or that run if certain

anticipated events occur. Information can be provided by you, by other users, by another workflow or action,

or by an external process such as a Web service call from an application. Workflows perform some validation

and filtering of information before they run.

Workflows can call upon other workflows. For example, you can reuse in several different workflows a

workflow that starts a virtual machine.

You create workflows by using the Orchestrator client interface’s integrated development environment (IDE),

that provides access to the workflow library and the ability to run workflows on the workflow engine. The

workflow engine can also take objects from external libraries that you plug in to Orchestrator. This ability

allows you to customize processes or implement functions that third-party applications provide.

This chapter includes the following topics:

“Standard Workflows in the Workflow Library,” on page 25

“Workflow Library Additions,” on page 26

“Key Concepts of Workflows,” on page 29

“Set User Permissions on a Workflow,” on page 33

“Run a Workflow,” on page 33

“Respond to a Request for a User Interaction,” on page 35

“Scheduling Workflows,” on page 35

Standard Workflows in the Workflow Library

Orchestrator provides a standard library of workflows that you can use to automate operations in the virtual

infrastructure. The workflows in the standard library are locked in the read-only state. To customize a standard

workflow, you must create a duplicate of that workflow. Duplicate workflows or custom workflows that you

create are fully editable.

For information about the different access rights to the Orchestrator Server depending on the type of vCenter

Server license that you apply, see vCenter Orchestrator Installation and Configuration Guide.

VMware, Inc.