7.3

Choosing a Life Cycle Extensibility Scenario
You can use vRealize Orchestrator or vRealize Automation Designer to extend machine lifecycles.
You can extend machine lifecycles by using vRealize Automation Designer to call out to
vRealize Orchestrator, or by using vRealize Orchestrator directly. Both approaches allow you to inject
custom logic into predetermined stages of the IaaS machine lifecycle by creating custom
vRealize Orchestrator workows and then insert the custom workows into the state change workow
stubs. However, you can only restrict custom state change logics to particular blueprints if you are using
vRealize Orchestrator directly, and you can only restrict the execution of workows to specic Distributed
Execution Managers by vRealize Automation Designer.
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.
Table 1‑2. Choosing a Lifecycle Extensibility Scenario
Scenario Procedure
Inject custom logic into predetermined stages of the IaaS
machine lifecycle and apply that custom logic to specic
blueprints.
“Extending Machine Lifecycles by Using vRealize
Orchestrator Checklist,” on page 7
Inject custom logic into predetermined stages of the IaaS
machine lifecycle and apply that custom logic globally to
all of your blueprints.
“Extending Machine Life Cycles By Using vRealize
Automation Designer Checklist,” on page 44
Restrict execution of workows to specic Distributed
Execution Managers by using skills in vRealize
Automation Designer. Skills are similar to a tag that you
can apply to both workows and DEM Worker instances.
For example, you might want to restrict cloud provisioning
workows to a specic DEM running on a host with the
required network access to Amazon URLs.
“Associate Workows and DEM Workers by Using Skills,”
on page 62
Extending Machine Lifecycles By Using vRealize Orchestrator
You can inject custom logic into predetermined stages of the IaaS machine lifecycle by creating custom
vRealize Orchestrator workows and then using vRealize Orchestrator to insert the custom workows into
the lifecycle of machines built from specic blueprints.
Extending Machine Lifecycles by Using vRealize Orchestrator Checklist
The extending machine lifecycles by using vRealize Orchestrator checklist provides a high-level overview of
the steps required to install and congure vRealize Orchestrator to customize IaaS machine lifecycles.
Table 1‑3. Extending Machine Lifecycles by Using vRealize Orchestrator Checklist
Task Details
Congure a vRealize Automation host for your
vRealize Orchestrator.
“Add a vRealize Automation Host,” on page 8
Congure an IaaS host for your
vRealize Orchestrator.
“Add an IaaS Host,” on page 9
Install the vRealize Orchestrator
customizations for extending IaaS machine
lifecycles.
“Install vRealize Orchestrator Customization,” on page 10
Chapter 1 Life Cycle Extensibility
VMware, Inc. 7