VMware released the vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in for vCloud Director 5.1

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VMware has just made available its Orchestration plug-in leveraging vCloud Director 5.1 latest and greatest features. This is the most complete automation solution for vCloud Director and is a free download !

To put things in perspective the 1.0 version of the plug-in was released months after vCloud Director 1.0, the 1.5 release weeks after vCloud Director 1.5, the 5.1 version is released together with vCloud Director 5.1. Kudos to the VMware engineering team who have automated the plug-in build process so much that the plug-in could accomodate the changes in pre-release vCloud Director version so quickly.

Please note that the vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in for vCloud Director requires using vCloud Director 5.1 and vCenter Orchestrator 5.1. vCO 4.X is not supported since this plug-in takes advantage of some specific vCO 5.1 functionality. Taking advantage of the new vCloud Suite makes a lot of sense since its components have a high level of integration bringing a lot of new features such as being able to run your custom workflows (including vCloud) from the vSphere web client (i.e Right click on a resource pool / Import these VMs in vCloud Director). If your vCenter Orchestrator server is already running the 1.5 plug-in it is recommended to perform a new installation of vCO 5.1 and the vCD 5.1 plug-in instead of performing an upgrade. If you wrote custom workflows that you run in production a vCloud 1.5 to 5.1 workflow compatibility guide will be published soon to validate these in a 5.1 environment. To make it clear: Do not upgrade your production vCO from the 1.5 to the 5.1 plug-in.

If you have vCenter Orchestrator 4.1.x or 4.2.x and vCloud Director plug-in 1.x, and you upgrade to Orchestrator 5.1 and vCloud Director plug-in 5.1, some actions and workflows from the plug-in's previous version might remain in the library, but cannot work with version 5.1.

Here are the list of new features and improvements:

  • Objects / methods of the plug-in, now auto generated and cover the entire 5.1 API.
  • Actions are also auto generated so you should be able to author automation workflows without using a single line of script.
  • Library workflows ported to 5.1. 40 new workflows added to the library.
  • API documentation has been improved a lot.
  • SSO Authentification: Authenticate using SSO in vCO or in vSphere Web Client and the credentials are used to authenticate in vCLoud DIrector as well.
  • Error messages are more verbose.
  • Stability and performance improvements.

Links:

  • vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in for vCloud Director 5.1 release notes.
  • vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in for vCloud Director 5.1 documentation.
  • vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in for vCloud Director 5.1 download.