Accepted Solutions
Pretty much have the whole thing figured out end to end.
Decided to:
1. Use a Base Reservation as the "Golden Reservation".
2. Create a vRO element to hold the Base Reservation ID.
3. Bind it to a workflow that does a REST application/json GET of the data and outputs a string variable containing the response.
4. Create another workflow that calls the prior one and add a Script Task that takes a ReservationName and BusinessGroupID (subtenantRefId) Input and overwrites the output response of the prior workflow with a new variable output.
5. Run another newly created workflow that takes a string input and passes it to the reservation-service/api/reservations as a (serialized) POST.
This way the Base Reservation can be changed and when the clone workflow runs, it will be able to take the Golden Reservation's values versus supplying all of them as inputs.
I guess I would call this functional... but I would still prefer to have a direct Plugin API to the reservation service. Give me a businessGroup.createReservationFromTemplate(reservationTypeObject) and life would be easy. 
Pretty much have the whole thing figured out end to end.
Decided to:
1. Use a Base Reservation as the "Golden Reservation".
2. Create a vRO element to hold the Base Reservation ID.
3. Bind it to a workflow that does a REST application/json GET of the data and outputs a string variable containing the response.
4. Create another workflow that calls the prior one and add a Script Task that takes a ReservationName and BusinessGroupID (subtenantRefId) Input and overwrites the output response of the prior workflow with a new variable output.
5. Run another newly created workflow that takes a string input and passes it to the reservation-service/api/reservations as a (serialized) POST.
This way the Base Reservation can be changed and when the clone workflow runs, it will be able to take the Golden Reservation's values versus supplying all of them as inputs.
I guess I would call this functional... but I would still prefer to have a direct Plugin API to the reservation service. Give me a businessGroup.createReservationFromTemplate(reservationTypeObject) and life would be easy.
Hey Sean,
Would you mind posting your actions / workflows here? I am trying to get the exact same thing done, and this would save me some wall head butting
Well... the way that I wrote it isn't version dependent, but I suspect there is a much easier way to do it once you are on the vRA 6.2 plugin in vRO. See I am running vRA 6.2.x with the VCAC 6.1.x plugin on VCO 5.5.x. I won't go into the reasons why... but let's just go with a need for release stability and the things the upgrades broke outweighed the need to upgrade.
We are upgrading our Lab environment to the latest (with a hotfix for broken resource actions) tomorrow (6.2.1 across the board).
What I have discovered is that there are a couple of different ways to handle REST calls from the plugins in VCO (vRO). I will call one the easy way... and the other the hard way.
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THE EASY WAY
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The easy way leverages the vCAC (vRA) plugin's coded REST access through the cafeHost.createRestClient(SERVICE) method. You just supply the SERVICE you want to connect to and you can do a POST, GET, DELETE... as you see fit. The benefit to this... why this is the EASY way... is all the authentication and authorization has been done for you based on the plugin. You do not have to get a BEARER key for authorization. You just run a set of methods to do you work and voila.
I put together an instructional workflow for my team that shows how this is done...
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//only variable is a cafeHost (vCACCAFE:VCACHost)
// Parameterized Variables
var restJSON = {
//Place Your REST from Firebug Here
//You will need to parameterize some items like user and catlog item
//you can hardcode any values (like if you want to just call one catalog item and know the ID
}
// you have to serialize the request due to how the plugin is created
restJSON = System.getModule("org.dojotoolkit.dojo.json").serialize(restJSON);
//There are only a few services that are defined that you can POST to or GET from
//If you are not using these services, you have to set up a REST host to do this work
// Catalog Requests go through the CATALOG_SERVICE. So that is the primary one we would use.
// All Current Services (6.1)
// ADVANCED_DESIGNER_SERVICE, APPROVAL_SERVICE, AUTHENTICATION_SERVICE, AUTHORIZATION_SERVICE
// CATALOG_PROVIDER_SERVICE, CATALOG_SERVICE, EVENT_LOG_SERVICE, NOTIFICATION_SERVICE, WORK_ITEM_SERVICE
var catalogRest = cafeHost.createRestClient(vCACCAFEServicesEnum.CATALOG_SERVICE);
var response = catalogRest.post("consumer/requests",restJSON); // this is a post but gets are possible too
System.log(response);
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you look at the bolded items above... those are the services. You see one that is missing? How about the RESERVATION_SERVICE? Yeah so in the 6.1 plugin it didn't exist because in 6.1 VCAC there were no REST capabilities for Reservations. That became available in 6.2. So what I suspect... if you are running the latest 6.2 plugin, you will see one more service usable by that "createRestClient(SERVICE) method off of the cafeHost. And if that is true... then all you would need to do is do a JSON GET against a GOLDEN reservation, modify it through script/string manipulation, and then POST it back to the REST service top level and it will create a new reservation. Depending where you are on the road of scripting these things, that may seem complicated... but once the light bulb goes off... you will see it is relatively straightforward.
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THE HARD WAY
---------------------------------------------
I am an impatient FOOL for doing it this way. You should TOTALLY do it this way, too. Actually... you should do it the easy way found above.
The hard way doesn't use the VCAC (vRA) plugin. It uses the REST plugin and treats vRA 6.2 as just a normal REST endpoint. I had to build custom helpers as the REST helpers in the plugin are overly complicated for what I needed to do. (which was to have workflows that behave like the methods built out in the vRA 6.2 plugin).
1. You need a ticket to ride with REST services. For VRA, that means reaching out to the identity appliance to get a BEARER Key. Be careful productionalizing this method... break it out into a helper that can be replaced later if VMware should decide to change their authentication provider. Also be careful with the ticket because if it is intercepted, a malicious party can use it to impersonate.
2. You need to use your bearer token when you reach to a Service to GET the data you want as your baseline (e.g. your golden reservation). The GET payload.
3. You need to use your bearer token when you reach out to a Service to POST the data you want to create (e.g. your new reservation). The POST payload.
Each of those is a workflow built out as a helper in my environment. So then I can get access, get my data, edit it through scripting, and finally post my data.... from any service. (add a Delete and Update workflow for full CRUD-ness)
I can show you a picture of this (which includes a custom action to get Provisioning Groups... a faster way to get Business Group Name or ID).... but I cannot share the full workflows publicly at this time.
For the JSON edit... I just do a pretty standard Array load, change values, and then put the array back into a string. (of course I am doing it completely wrong -positional awareness-... some better developer would say... but it works). The script I can show you for reference as you need to be able to edit JSON strings no matter what you do... from a REST call perspective.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
var jsonArray = new Array();
var newJson ="";
//System.log(jsonResponse); // came from the GET.. the golden reservation
//System.log(provGroupId); // came from an action that looked up the Business group ID using faster provisioning group
//System.log(provGroup); // the name of the Business Group
jsonArray = jsonResponse.split(",");
/*
for each (statement in jsonArray){
System.log(statement);
}
*/
jsonArray.shift(); // take off ID
jsonArray[0] = '{"name":"'+ provGroup + ' Base Reservation"'; // setup name correctly
jsonArray[3] = '"subTenantId":"'+provGroupId+'"'; // set correct Business Group
jsonArray[5] = '"priority":1'; // Set priority to 1
for (var i = 0; i < jsonArray.length; i++){
newJson = newJson.concat(jsonArray[i],",");
}
jsonPayload = newJson.slice(0,(newJson.length-1));
System.log("Payload =" + jsonPayload);
Bummer.... I guess I get more miles out of the Hard Way.
Can you look here? (search for vCACCAFEServicesEnum) I guessed on the service name... maybe it is just called something else.
.
