7.1

Custom Resources
You must create a custom resource so that you can create an XaaS blueprint for provisioning with the option
to access and manage the provisioned items. Custom resources dene the items for provisioning, and you
can use them to dene post-provisioning operations that the consumers can perform.
You create a custom resource to dene a new type of provisioned item and map it to an existing
vRealize Orchestrator object type. vRealize Orchestrator object types are the objects exposed through the
APIs of the vRealize Orchestrator plug-ins. The custom resource is the output type of a blueprint workow
for provisioning and can be the input type for a resource action workow.
For example, if you have a running vCenter Server instance, and you also have the vCenter Server plug-in
that is congured to work with vRealize Orchestrator, all of the object types from the vCenter Server API are
exposed in vRealize Orchestrator. The vCenter Server plug-in exposes the vSphere inventory objects in the
vRealize Orchestrator inventory. The vSphere inventory objects include data centers, folders, ESXi hosts,
virtual machines and appliances, resource pools, and so on. You can perform operations on these objects.
For example, you can create, clone, or destroy virtual machines.
For more information about the vRealize Orchestrator object types exposed through the vCenter Server API,
see the vCenter Server Plug-In API Reference for vCenter Orchestrator.
Resource Mappings
You create resource mappings between the vRealize Automation catalog resource type and the
vRealize Orchestrator inventory type to manage resources provisioned outside of XaaS.
For example, you might want to create an action so that users can take a snapshot of their Amazon
machines. For this action to work on an Amazon machine provisioned, the three components involved,
XaaS, vRealize Orchestrator, and IaaS, need a common language You create that common language by
adding a resource mapping in XaaS that runs a vRealize Orchestrator scripting action or workow to map
the IaaS Cloud Machine resource type to the vRealize Orchestrator AWS:EC2Instance inventory type.
vRealize Automation provides resource mappings, and the underlying vRealize Orchestrator script actions
and workows, for vSphere, vCloud Director, and vCloud Air machines.
XaaS Blueprints
An XaaS blueprint is a complete specication of a resource.
With XaaS blueprints, you publish predened and custom vRealize Orchestrator workows as catalog items
for either requesting or provisioning. Blueprints for requesting run workows with no provisioning and
provide no options for managing a provisioned item. Before you create a blueprint for provisioning, you
must map the workow output parameter as a custom resource. Then you can assign resource actions that
dene post-provisioning operations.
Resource Actions
You can create custom resource actions to congure the post-provisioning operations that the consumers can
perform.
To create post-provisioning operations, you must publish vRealize Orchestrator workows as resource
actions. To create a resource action for an item provisioned by using XaaS, you use a custom resource as an
input parameter for the workow. To create a resource action for an item that is provisioned by a source
dierent from XaaS, you use a resource mapping as an input parameter for the workow. When you entitle
the resource actions, they appear in the Actions drop-down menu of the provisioned items on the Items tab.
Foundations and Concepts
32 VMware, Inc.