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Using automation with Virtual Machine Clouds

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Applies To: Windows Azure Pack

You can use automation in Windows Azure Pack to orchestrate and integrate best-practice tasks to drive down the cost of datacenter operations, while improving the reliability of IT processes. You can integrate Service Management Automation with VM Clouds to trigger runbooks every time a specific event occurred in the VM Clouds infrastructure. The topic Register Service Management Automation for Virtual Machine Clouds provides instructions on how to associate VM Clouds with Service Management Automation. This topic provides instructions on how to associate Service Management Automation runbooks with events occurring in the context of VM Clouds. If you want to understand how VM Clouds integrates with Service Management Automation at an architectural level, see How is Service Provider Foundation associated with Service Management Automation?

Note

For VM Clouds to trigger runbooks in Service Management Automation, the Service Management Automation web service certificate must be trusted on the computer running Service Provider Foundation.

To associate runbooks with events in VM Clouds

  1. From the management portal for administrators, click the VM Clouds tab.

  2. From the VM Clouds tab, click the Automation view.

  3. From the Automation view, from the command bar, click Add, and specify the following:

    1. For Action Category, select a VM Clouds object, an action on which triggers a Runbook. For the list of objects and the descriptions, see Objects that can be associated with runbooks.

    2. For the Action, select the action that must occur on the selected object for a Runbook to be triggered. Depending on the action category that you selected, the list of actions is populated with the available actions.

    3. For Runbook, select the Runbook that is triggered every time the specified action occurs on the selected object.

      Note

      For a Runbook to be available in this drop-down, it must include the “SPF” tag. For instructions on how to tag Runbooks, see Editing Runbook Properties. If you are using a non-Roman alphabet keyboard, repeat the following steps three times to include the “SPF” tag:

      1. Press and hold the ALT key.

      2. Press the + key on the number pad.

      3. Type the Unicode value 0053 for the letter S.

      4. Release the ALT key.

      5. Repeat these steps two more times by typing values 0050 (for P) and 0046 (for F).

    4. Select the Enable checkbox to enable the association between the object, the action, and the Runbook. This check box can be particularly useful in scenarios where you want the association between the runbooks and events in VM Clouds to come into effect at a later date or time.

    5. Click the check mark to save your changes.

Objects that can be associated with runbooks

In the management portal, when you link an action with a runbook on the Automation tab in Virtual Machine Clouds you must choose the following:

  • An Action Category, such as an Administrator or Tenant, and can also include all resource providers such as usage and notifications.

  • Depending on the category you selected, select the Action. This selects the object whose actions, such as being deleted or updated, can be ascertained and associated with a runbook.

  • A Runbook to associate with the action.

The following sections list the objects and the CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) operations that trigger actions when accessed by web service calls using HTTPS, or when the tenant or administrator changes the state of an object using the management portal for administrators, management portal for tenants, or System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager. For more information on the URLs that access these objects, see Service Management API and Service Provider Foundation URLs.

Subscription object

The subscription object represents a subscription that is created every time a tenant subscribes to a plan. It is triggered by the following actions:

  • CRUD actions: Create, Update, Delete

  • State actions: Activate, Suspend

spfVMM.MicrosoftCompute objects

The following table describes the objects accessed with the spfVMM.MicrosoftCompute prefix, and the operations that trigger an action on these objects.

Object

Description

CRUD actions

State actions

CloudService

A container for a VMRole. Multiple VM roles can be created under a CloudService.For tenants, a cloud service is created for every VMRole deployed using the management portal for tenants.

APIs can create more than one VMRole within any given cloud service, and are not restricted to a one-to-one relationship as required when created by a tenant.

Create, Update, Delete

VM

A child virtual machine within a VM role.

Delete

Restart, Shutdown, Start, Stop

VMRole

A scalable tier for peer VM nodes.

Create, Update, Delete

Repair, Scale

VMRoleVMDisk

The disks attached to a VMRole.

Create, Update, Delete

spfAdmin objects

The following table describes the objects accessed with the spfAdmin prefix, and the operations that trigger an action on these objects.

Object

Description

CRUD operation

State operations

EventRegistration

a mapping between an event in the API and the associated automation.

Create, Update

Role

A user role that maps to an SSU (self-service user) in VMM.

Create, Update, Delete

Server

Any server running Service Provider Foundation.

Create, Update, Delete

SpfSetting

A connection string for either a database connection or for a portal endpoint connection to an Operations Manager data warehouse.

Create, Delete

Stamp

A logical scale unit for servers and instances of System Center components. Typically a stamp represents one VMM server.

Create, Update, Delete

Tenant

A tenant.

Create, Update, Delete

TrustedIssuer

A trusted party used for claims-based authentication.

Create, Delete

VM

A virtual machine.

Delete

Pause, Restart, Resume, Shutdown, Start, Stop

VMRole

A virtual machine role.

Delete

VMRoleGalleryItem

A gallery item object that encapsulates the template using which multi-node VM tiers can be created.

Delete

Publish, Unpublish

spfVMM objects

The following table describes the objects accessed with the spfVMM prefix, and the operations that trigger an action.

Object

Description

CRUD actions

State actions

BGPPeer

The border gateway protocol.

Create, Delete

HardwareProfile

The hardware profiles in VMM the define the hardware attributes of a virtual machine.

Update

Job

A task in VMM and indicates the status of operation in VMM.

Update

NATConnection

A container of NATRule objects.

Create, Update, Delete

NATRule

The inbound port-mapping rule for a VM network.

Create, Delete

RunAsAccount

The VMM RunAs Account.

Create, Update, Delete

Service

A VMM service.

Create, Update, Delete

ServiceTemplate

a VMM service template

Update

StaticIPAddressPool

A VMM static IP address pool.

Create, Delete

UserRole

A VMM user role. A user role can be self-service user, tenant admin, or administrator. This object can be used for applying permissions and scopes.

Create, Update, Delete

VirtualDiskDrive

A VMM virtual disk drive.

Create, Delete

VirtualDVDDrive

A VMM virtual DVD drive

Create, Update, Delete

VirtualMachine

A standalone virtual machine.

Update, Delete

VirtualNetworkAdapter

A VMM virtual network adapter (vNIC).

Create, Update, Delete

VirtualSCSIAdapter

A VMM virtual SCSI adapter.

Create, Delete

VMCheckPoint

A VMM checkpoint

Create, Update, Delete

VMNetwork

A VM network or a virtual network. A virtual machine is connected to a VM network using a virtual network adapter (vNIC).

Update, Delete

VMNetworkGateway

a VMM network gateway. A gateway allows border gateway protocol, NAT, and VPN to be configured on a VM network.

Create, Update, Delete

VMSubnet

a VM subnet and defines subnet ranges within a VM network

Create, Delete

VMtempalte

A VMM virtual machine template used to create virtual machines.

Update

VPNConnection

A VMM VPN connection. This is mapped to the site-to-site VPN connection in the portal. It allows virtual machines on a VM network to connect remotely to another site.

Create, Update, Delete

VPNetworkRoute

A VMM VPN network route. Routes allow virtual machines on a VM network to be able to locate other computers on the remote network on the other end of the VPN connection.

Create, Delete

See Also

Administer Virtual Machine Clouds