VMware Communities : All Content - Orchestrator APIs

Plugin Object Attributes - how are they accessed

BlueDevilDan — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:24:45 GMT

Further experimentation makes me think the following.

For attributes, first it looks for get/set methods, then if none are found it directly accesses the class members.

However, in looking for setter methods in particular, it does not make a completely correct decision which to use based on the type of the parameter. In my case I had multiple array type attributes on a plugin object class. I also had a setter with a List<T> signature and an overload with a T[] signature. Some of my property sets from the JavaScript worked and some failed with a script Array to Java List conversion failure. To work around this reliably I had to eliminate the List<T> setter methods so that only the attribute setter with the correct signature could be found. I suspect this is an issue in the Rhino code where it just takes the first setter returned by the reflective inspection of my class rather than looking to see if one with a compatible parameter type is available.

So, I have been able to resolve my issue, but there is some indeterminism in the selection of overloaded setters with Rhino that should be investigated and resolved.

I'm marking this thread as answered but if any of this is incorrect, it would be good for someone on the VMO team to provide that information.

Orchestrator API documentation

AngelaS — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:11:27 GMT

For the Orhestrator web services APIs, please refer to the section Developing Web Services Client in vCenter Orchestrator Developer's Guide.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vco_40_developers_guide.pdf

The Orchestrator web services APIs enables you to develop client applications which can access the workflows and execute them thorugh a network.

For complete documentation on workflows and scripting, refer to the vCenter Developr's Guide.

Hope this helps.

Passing JavaScript Array to a Plugin

BlueDevilDan — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:25:59 GMT

Did some looking into the Rhino libraries that are being used within Orchestrator to support this. Looks like the only thing supported is Java arrays to JavaScript arrays translation. It appears that Java List objects are translated to JavaScript arrays when handed back to the scripting environment, but the reverse translation is not supported out of Rhino (would be a great enhancement to have there).

So it looks like I need to modify the implementation of my plugin to have Java array members that I expose as JavaScript object attributes.

Plans for generic SOAP support within workflows?

philsttr — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:01:44 GMT

I tend to think of the operations defined in a WSDL as just another type of building block from which to create workflows/action. Yes, some additional intelligence is required, but no more so than is already required to piece together actions or cli calls, or whatever other building blocks are required to construct a workflow.

I guess there is a slightly grey area of responsibility between the plugin developer and the VMO admin who is creating workflows. I can certainly see a plugin developer using SOAP internally within a plugin to build higher level constructs to expose to VMO. But on the otherhand, I can also see a WSDL that already defines high level operations that can be exposed directly in VMO without the need of a "higher" level interface. Does that make sense?

I can imagine a plugin that just exposes a SOAP interface would need the following

An interface through which soap operations can be called
Classes for the schema elements/types used by the operations

Obviously, with a Java soap toolkit like Axis or CXF, you can generate get these for Java automatically.

But, to expose them in VMO, you have to somehow provide a vso.xml that defines the types. I can imagine that a plugin developer would try to generate this vso.xml file automatically (from either the WSDL, or the toolkit generated bindings). It seems like this logic would be common to any plugin trying to expose a WSDL directly, and could therefore be implemented in a common fashion by VMO itself.

Plugin Objects being available as Types in the Orchestrator UI

stuartclements — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:26:24 GMT

Hi Dan,

Thanks for identifying this gap in the docs. I'll add a description of Finders and FinderResults in an uncoming release of the docs.

Thanks again,

Stuart

vCenter Orchestrator Tech Pubs

Plugins and Java Methods that throw exceptions

BlueDevilDan — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:17:58 GMT

Thanks for the reply. I was wanting to confirm what I was seeing since I didn't see any definitive information on this in the developer guide.

I only had one main facade class that I was exposing that threw method exceptions and those exceptions contained a couple custom values. What I did was created a decorator class to wrap it and had that decorator catch the exception and put those custom exception fields into attributes of the decorator class and exposed them to the Java Script layer. So my script basically needs to check for the error rather than catch the exception. That will work for my case.

Relationship of plugins and classloaders

Cédric — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:02:54 GMT

If you want to send me an email, it should be great.

For example, being able to access the VI plugin from any other plugins, I think...

Missing item in Plugin Schema question

Cédric — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:08:11 GMT

In the <object>, use a <attributes> collection and the iterate each <attribute>

Sample:


<scripting-objects>
    <object script-name="MyScriptingObject" ... >
        <attributes>
            <attribute script-name="MyValue" .....>
                 <![CDATA[http://Custom field values.]|http://Custom field values.]]>
            </attribute>
             ...
        </attributes>
    </object>
</scripting-objects>

vCenter Orchestrator API - Technology Exchange Developer Day Session

heyitspablo — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:13:39 GMT

http://vmweb.vmware.com/vmworld/2009/techexchange/DE01.html

Better documentation for plugin XML structure

Cédric — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:06:17 GMT

Hi,

The result type is one of your scripting objects type or base type. It's here "only" for documentation (when the scripting documentation is auto generated for each plug-in)

Can I drive UI automation thru Orchestrator

mateenhussain — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:44:46 GMT

Hi Lu

The way our software works (data secure software) is it locks up the hard drive and requires you to enter user name and password to unlock it. From that point onwards the OS (i.e Windows) boots up (like regular boot) and then asks for its own username & password. So you see we have to enter two different sets of usernames and passwords, one to unlock the Hard Drive (i.e during real-mode) and then one for the OS.#

I've looked at WASP homepage and it seems I need to learn Powershell, which I'm going thru right now.

Thanks,

Mateen

Orchestrator license question

gchi — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:25:38 GMT

Hi,

I mean that I have a license Foundation, but what do I do to install a licenza Vmware Standar Edition?

Exists in the market to upgrade from version to version Standard Foundation to VMware Server?

Many thanks in advance

Regards

Gianluca

how to disconnect a SCSI device by a virtual machine before running VMotion

Cédric — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:52:06 GMT

Hi,

I don't have a server here, but I'll try to help you:

if your Virtual Machine is in a variable named vm:

vm.config.hardware.device contains all the devices. You have to iterate all the devices to get the one you want. Access their backing, and use the vm.reconfig to set the new backing. Have a look at some workflows in the library, you will find samples...

Orchestrator is it a right solution ?

Cédric — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:13:37 GMT

It should help as you could use it to orchestrate the operations you'll need to move the VM. If I'm right, you cannot move the VM because it's attached to a "raw" device. You have to disconnect or remove the device, move the VM and reconnect / add the device on the new host. This could be done easily with orchestrator if you have the workflow that do this operations.

Technology Exchange Developer Day - vCenter Orchestrator

navadavuluri — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:36:25 GMT

Hello,

We are happy to announce about our hands-on demo at Technology Exchange Developer Day 2009, vCenter Orchestrator

Presenter: Stefan Hochuli Paychere

Demo ID: DS-09

Time: 1:30 - 2:15 PM

Abstract:
This demo will walk you through the modification of a vCO plug-in. This will touch on modifying the base Java code, adapting the plug-in API implementation accordingly and create workflows to use the modification. As a result, you will gain a better understanding of all aspects of developing with the Orchestrator.

Try to do some remote operations of VCenter without VCenter

Cédric — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:21:57 GMT

All solutions are pretty the same: vCO (solutions provided by Sia) use the VI API, but allow you to easily show your "code" (workflows) to end users using the web views.

About the "remote installation of OS", I think you'll need (in both case) some answer file (for Windows, it's named unattend.txt or .inf)

'persistence.xml' file placement to enable direct DB access from a Plug-in

Cédric — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:23:17 GMT

Seems to be an error from the JPA implementation in Java 1.5

objects with dynamic icons in inventory view

Cédric — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:35:54 GMT

For now, the Solar System sample plug-in do not demonstrate the IPluginNotificationHandler uses.

Orchestrator's purpose and sample code?

DougBaer — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:59:00 GMT

Thank you!

This is exactly what I was looking for

How to access VC Plugin object from Workflow script or other Java plugin

siayiu — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:45:08 GMT

Moved to Developer Community > Vmware Orchestrator APIs, since the forum is more appropriate for plugin API discussion.

Thanks,

Sia

PowerShell snapin/module ?

LucD — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:40:23 GMT

I'm in fact interested in both.

PS from vCO:
For example using PowerCLI functions in the custom vCO actions, instead of the provided Java functions.
Since we use PowerCLI for our vSphere automation it avoids us learning and using a 2nd language.
And we could reuse part of our existing PowerCLI scripts.

vCO from PS:
Creating, starting and monitoring Tasks from a PS script.
Our vSphere automation is not done from the vSphere client but from a centralised tool (SCOM in our case).
Being able to call Task management from this PS-based environment would avoid "console sprawl" for our admins and operators.

can´t select operators like eqal, not equal and so on

Cédric — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:17:18 GMT

Hi,

This is a known bug (and will be fixed in the next update). The work around is to use the custom decision box.

Tech Exchange Developer Day Session - Integrating with the vCenter Orchestrator API - DE-01

heyitspablo — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:30:08 GMT

Folks,

Newly added abstract for the upcoming Technology Exchange - Developer Day. Hope to see you there.

http://communities.vmware.com/community/developer/techexchange

Session ID: DE-01
*Session Title(:Integrating with vCenter Orchestrator

In this session we will discuss the key integration points of the VMware vCenter Orchestrator (vCO). We will discuss the web service API which allows developers to find and run workflows. The plugin API: which allows developers to create vCO plugins which present an external API to the Orchestrator, providing Inventory, Choosers, Scripting extensions and Event generation. This session is ideal for developers looking to integrate with the VMware vCenter Orchestrator APIs. We will also have hands on demos and opportunities to meet the teams from PM and R&D.
Level Advanced

Stefan Hochuli Paychère runs the R&D unit responsible for VMware’s Orchestration platform. Stefan has more than fourteen years experience in computer hardware and software development areas going ranging from real time embedded systems to multi-tiered enterprise business systems.

Proper debugout method for Plug-in apps

Cédric — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:08:02 GMT

You can edit the log4j.xml file (in app-server/server/vmo/conf). You can add a Category (look at the end of the file) for your (Java) package name.

Recieving error with a VMO Plugin that has a JMS stack built-in

siayiu — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:03:08 GMT

Moving thread to the forum that is more appropriate. Please post plugin API & web service API related topics in the Orchetrator API forum.

Thanks,

Sia

Welcome Orchestrator API Developers !

heyitspablo — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:27:02 GMT

Folks - just wanted to welcome our vCenter Orchestrator API developers out there. Please join us, ask questions, share ideas, help us build a robust community.

Regards,
Pablo
ps. We will have an Orchestrator API Session at our VMware Developer Day - August 31st, 2009 @ VMworld