VMware released the vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in update for vCloud Director 1.5

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I will re-iterate what I have said about nine months ago : Today VMware released the most complete automation solution for vCloud Director as a free download ! This is a plug-in for vCenter Orchestrator allowing to orchestrate vCloud Director 1.5 with a large collection of out of the box workflows. The previous version of this plug-in (1.02) is used at several service providers and enterprise customers.

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As before in terms of functionality the plug-in allows:

  • Tenants to automate catalogs and vApp provisioning and decommissioning operations within their organization.
  • Service providers to automate the configuration and management of the tenant organizations, their virtual data centers and their resources.
  • Service providers to automate the addition and carve up of new Virtual Infrastructure resources such as Provider vDC, External networks and network pools.

Technically the plug-in implements the User, Admin, and Admin Extensions APIs using the latest release of the vCloud Java SDK. The vCloud Java SDK communicates with vCloud Director REST API. All this complexity happens in the background by being abstracted for the vCO Admin. The plug-in provides a total of 138 building block workflows and 250 actions. Some high level workflows are also provided and are great examples of the combination of these.

So what is new ?

  • The blocking tasks and notifications. Using this plug-in in combination with the AMQP plug-in allows vCO to dynamicaly respond to vCloud Director tasks and notifications.
  • The query service. The query service allows to gather information on a lot of objects very quickly.
  • 47 new out of the box workflows and 142 new actions allowing to develop complex automation in a lot less time than with any other solution.
  • The support of the 1.5 API adds a LOT of new objects (close to 500 instead of about 160 before !!!).
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Network related workflows VM related workflows

There were also a lot of other improvements such as better cache handling / object fetching, new objects in the inventory and several fixes.

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The vCenter Orchestrator virtual appliance can be deployed in minutes for being used in combination with this plug-in to automate your cloud and integrate it with other solutions.

If you are new to vCenter Orchestrator, you can leverage the video tutorials to create your own workflows. Then you can share your experience, ask questions on the VMware vCenter Orchestrator Communities.

The VMware vCenter Orchestrator plug-in for vCloud Director 1.5 release runs on VMware vCenter Orchestrator 4.1 and the subsequent update releases, as well as VMware vCenter Orchestrator 4.2.

For more information, check the vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in for vCloud Director release notes.

The vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in for vCloud Director is is available for download here and the user guide for the plug-in is here.