7.2

Requesting and Managing Items in the Catalog
The catalog provides a self-service portal for requesting services and also enables business users to manage
their own provisioned resources.
The following example is of a typical life cycle.
Connie, the consumer of IT services, logs in to the vRealize Automation console. On the Catalog tab, she
browses for the service oerings she needs to do her job. The items that are available in the catalog are
grouped into service categories, which helps her nd what she is looking for. After Connie selects a catalog
item, she can view its details to conrm that it is what she wants before submiing a request.
When Connie requests a catalog item, a form appears where she can provide information such as the reason
for her request, and any parameters for the request. For example, if she is requesting a virtual machine, she
might be able to specify the number of CPUs or amount of storage on the machine. If Connie is not ready to
submit her request, she can save it and return to it at a later time.
After Connie submits her request, it might be subject to approval. Connie can look on the Requests tab to
track the progress of her request, including whether it is pending approval, in progress, or completed.
If the request results in an item being provisioned, it is added to Connie's list of items on the Items tab. Here
she can view the item details or perform additional actions on her items. In the virtual machine example, she
might be able to power on or power o the machine, connect to it through Remote Desktop, recongure it to
add more resources, or dispose of it when she no longer needs it. The actions she can perform are based on
entitlements and can also be made subject to approval based on exible approval policies.
Creating and Publishing Catalog Items
Catalog administrators and tenant administrators can dene new catalog items and publish them to the
service catalog. Tenant administrators and business group managers can entitle the new item to consumers.
Typically, a catalog item provides a complete specication of the resource to be provisioned and the process
to initiate when the item is requested. It also denes the options that are available to a requester of the item,
such as virtual machine conguration or lease duration, or any additional information that the requester is
prompted to provide when submiing the request.
For example, Sean has privileges to create and publish blueprints, including software components and XaaS.
After the blueprint is published, Sean, or a catalog administrator or a tenant administrator responsible for
managing the catalog, can then congure the catalog item, including specifying an icon and adding the item
to a service.
To make the catalog item available to users, a tenant administrator or business group manager must entitle
the item to the users and groups who should have access to it in the service catalog.
Services for the Service Catalog
Services are used to organize catalog items into related oerings to make it easier for service catalog users to
browse for the catalog items they need.
For example, catalog oerings can be organized into Infrastructure Services, Application Services, and
Desktop Services.
A tenant administrator or catalog administrator can specify information about the service such as the service
hours, support team, and change window. Although the catalog does not enforce service-level agreements
on services, this information is available to business users browsing the service catalog.
Foundations and Concepts
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