System Center Virtual Machine Manager Activities
Applies To: System Center 2012 - Orchestrator, System Center 2012 R2 Orchestrator, System Center 2012 SP1 - Orchestrator
The System Center Integration Pack for System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 adds the Virtual Machine Manager 2008R2 category to the Activities pane in the Runbook Designer. The category contains the following activities:
Security Configuration
The communication protocol used with WinRM and Windows PowerShell Remote can be either HTTP or HTTPS. If HTTP is chosen, the communication is transmitted in plain text, and is subject to the threats of tampering, information disclosure, or denial of service.
In order to prevent this security risk, it is strongly recommended that you configure WinRM to work over HTTPS instead of HTTP. For more information about configuring HTTPS, see Configuring WinRM to Use HTTPS in the Microsoft MSDN Library.
Common Configuration Instructions for all Activities
The following configuration instructions apply to all of the activities in this integration. Links to this section are included in the configuration instructions for each activity.
Activity Properties
Each activity has a set of required or optional properties that define the configuration of that activity. This includes how it connects to other activities or how the activity performs its actions. You can view or modify activity properties when the activity is placed in the current runbook.
To configure the properties for an activity
Double-click the activity. Alternatively, you can right-click the activity and select Properties.
To save your configuration entries, click Finish.
In the activity properties dialog there are several tabs along the left side. These tabs provide access to general and specific settings for the activity. Although the number of available tabs for activity properties differs from activity to activity, all activities will have a General tab, a Details tab, and a Run Behavior tab. Some activities may have additional tabs.
General Tab
This tab contains the Name and Description properties for the activity. By default, the Name of the activity is the same as its activity type, and the Description is blank. You can modify these properties to create a more descriptive name or provide a detailed description of the actions of the activity.
Properties Tab
This tab contains properties that are specific to the activity. All activities in this integration pack have the Configuration Name property at the top of the Properties tab. This property is used to specify the connection to the Virtual Machine Manager server.
To configure the Configuration Name property
- Click the ellipsis (…) button next to the Name field, and then select the applicable connection name. Connections displayed in the list have been previously configured as described in Configuring the System Center Virtual Machine Manager Connections.
Run Behavior Tab
This tab contains the properties that determine how the activity handles multi-value published data and what notifications will be sent if the activity fails to run or runs for an excessive period of time.
Multi-Value Published Data Behavior
The Get activities retrieve information from another activity or outside source, and can return one or more values in the published data. For example, when you use the Get Collection Member activity, the data output from that activity might be a list of computers that belong to the specified collection.
By default, the data from the Get activity will be passed on as multiple individual outputs. These trigger the next activity as many times as there are items in the output. Alternatively, you can provide a single output for the activity by enabling the Flatten option and choosing a formatting option:
Separate with line breaks. Each item is on a new line. This format is useful for creating human-readable text files for the output.
Separate with _ . Each item is separated by one or more characters of your choice.
Use CSV format. All items are in CSV (comma-separated value) format. This format is useful for importing data into spreadsheets or other applications.
The activity will produce a new set of data every time it runs. The Flatten feature does not flatten data across multiple executions of the same activity.
Event Notifications
Some activities are expected to take a limited time to complete. If they do not complete within that time period they may be stalled or there may another issue preventing them from completing. You can define the number of seconds to wait for completion of the action. After this time a platform event will be sent reporting the issue. You can also decide whether to generate a platform event if the activity returns a failure.
To be notified when the activity takes longer than a specified time to run or fails to run
In the Event Notifications box, enter the number of seconds of run time prior to generating a notification.
Select Report if activity fails to run to generate run failure notifications.
For more information about Orchestrator events, see the Troubleshooting section of the Runbook Guide.
Published Data
Published data is the foundation of a working runbook. It is the data produced as a result of the actions of an activity. This data is published to an internal data bus which is unique for each runbook. Subsequent activities in the workflow can subscribe to this published data and use it in their configuration. Link conditions also use this information to add decision-making capabilities to Policies.
An activity can only subscribe to published data from the activities that are linked before it in the Runbook. You can use published data to automatically populate the property values needed by activities.
To use published data
Right-click the property value box, click Subscribe, and then click Published Data.
Click the Activity drop-down box and select the activity from which you want to obtain the data.
To view additional data elements common to all policies, select Show Common Published Data.
Click the published data element you want to use, and then click OK.
For a list of the data elements published by each activity, see the Published Data tables in the activity topic. For information about Common Published Data elements, see Published Data.