After exploring how to use the Orchestrator client to run a workflow, let's do the same with the vSphere Web Client. The advantage in using the Web Client is that you do not need to start and log into a separate client, and you can directly make use of the existing objects.
We will now run a workflow using the vSphere Web Client. This method is good to run any workflow. Later, we will run the workflows directly from the vCenter inventory by simply right-clicking on them.
- Open the vSphere Web Client and log in as a user who is a member of the Orchestrator administration group.
- Click on the Orchestrator icon.
- Click on Inventory Trees | Workflows.
- The Orchestrator workflow library will be shown.
- Browse Library | vCenter | Virtual Machine Management | Basic.
- Right-click on Rename virtual machine and select Run a workflow.
- You will be asked to allow the execution of the Orchestrator workflow.
- The workflow input window is displayed. Click on the green + sign to open the Orchestrators vCenter inventory.
- In the inventory, drill down to the VM that we created in the last section and click on Select.
- Enter a new name for the VM and click on Finish.
After clicking on Finish, the workflow will be executed. You can see a new task pop up in the vCenter task bar. As you can see in the following screenshot there are two tasks, were one would have expected to see only one task. Have a closer look. The first one (marked A) is run as the user who is logged into vCenter, and the second (marked B) is the one that is run by Orchestrator against vCenter. This is the case if you have selected one session instead of per-user session when configuring Orchestrator with vCenter (see Chapter 2, Deploying and Configuring the Orchestrator Appliance).
Not all workflows are integrated directly into the vSphere Web Client. We will have a look at how to configure them in a second.
All available workflows for a given vCenter type are shown when you right-click on a vCenter object and then select All vRealize Orchestrator Actions, as shown in the following screenshot:
Before we run a workflow from the vCenter inventory, we will configure a workflow, which will be used in the next chapter, by performing the following steps:
- In the vSphere Web Client, go to the Orchestrator section.
- Click on vRO Home.
- Click on the Manage tab.
- Select Context Actions.
Here you find all the workflows configured for use within the vCenter inventory. In section A, you will find the name of the workflow. Section B shows whether this plug-in is enabled for Multi selection. Multi selection means that you can run this workflow with more than one vCenter object at once. Section C shows for which vCenter object type this workflow will be accessible.
- To add a workflow to the vSphere Web Client, click on the green + sign.
- The Orchestrator workflow library will now open. Browse Library | vCenter | Virtual machine management | Device Management and select Add CD-ROM.
- Click on Add. The workflow will now be added to the selection on the right.
- Search for and click on Virtual Machine to assign this workflow.
The workflow has been added and assigned to a vCenter VM type. You may need to log out of the vSphere Web Client and then log in again to make the change visible.
We will now execute the workflow form the vCenter inventory by performing the following steps:
- In the vSphere Web Client, click on Hosts and clusters.
- Select the VM that we created and then right-click on it.
- Select from All vRealize Orchestrator Actions the Add CD-ROM workflow.
- The workflow input window shows up. The name of the VM that we just right-clicked on is already in it.
- Click on Next.
- Select Connect the CD-ROM when the virtual machine powers on.
- Select from the dropdown Device type, the option Datastore ISO file.
- Enter the path to an ISO file in the format
[datastore] folder/file.
After the workflow has finished, the VM should have a CD-ROM that it didn't have before, and the CD-ROM should be connected to an ISO.