7.3

Life Cycle Extensibility 1
Using vRealize Orchestrator with vRealize Automation, you can extend how you the manage the life cycle
of IaaS machines.
Extending vRealize Automation requires you to use provided vRealize Orchestrator workows and to
create custom workows.
This chapter includes the following topics:
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“Machine Extensibility Overview,” on page 5
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“Extending Machine Lifecycles By Using vRealize Orchestrator,” on page 7
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“Conguring Workow Subscriptions to Extend vRealize Automation,” on page 12
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“Extending Machine Life Cycles By Using vRealize Automation Designer,” on page 44
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“Workows and Distributed Execution Management,” on page 61
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“CloudUtil Command Reference,” on page 63
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“vRealize Automation Workow Activity Reference,” on page 74
Machine Extensibility Overview
Provisioning or decommissioning a new machine, especially for mission-critical systems, typically requires
interacting with a number of dierent management systems, including DNS servers, load balancers,
CMDBs, IP Address Management and other systems.
Machine Life Cycle Extensibility
You can inject custom logic at various predetermined IaaS life cycle stages by leveraging IaaS state change
workows, known as workow stubs. You can use the workow stubs to call out to vRealize Orchestrator
for bi-directional integration with external management systems.
N The workow stubs are replaced by the event broker workow subscriptions. They are still available,
supported, and they can be used, but expect them to be removed in a future version of vRealize Automation.
To ensure future product compatibility, you should use the workow subscriptions to run custom
workows based on state changes. See “Conguring Workow Subscriptions to Extend vRealize
Automation,” on page 12.
Creating a state change workow enables you to trigger the execution of a workow before the IaaS master
workow enters a specic state. For example, you can create custom workows to integrate with an external
database and record information at dierent stages of the machine life cycle.
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Create a custom workow that runs before the master workow enters the MachineProvisioned state to
record such information as machine owner, approvers, and so on.
VMware, Inc.
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