VMware vSphere Integration Pack for System Center 2012 - Orchestrator

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Applies To: System Center 2012 - Orchestrator, System Center 2012 R2 Orchestrator, System Center 2012 SP1 - Orchestrator

The integration pack for VMware vSphere is an add-on for System Center 2012 - Orchestrator that assists you in automating actions in VMware vSphere, enabling full management of your virtualized computing infrastructure.

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Known Issues

You might see the following issues when using this VMware vSphere integration pack.

  • The Set VM Networks activity supports VMs with a maximum of four network adapters. If you use this activity on a VM with more than four adapters, you will see an “Index was out of range” error.

  • The Reconfigure VM activity provides an options list for the number of CPUs ranging from 1 to 4, even if the vSphere server supports VMs with more than 4 CPUs. To work around this limitation, you can enter the valid number in the field manually.

  • In the Add Network Adapter activity, you can manually enter any Network label for the adapter. This network will be applied to the adapter in vSphere even if it is unavailable or does not exist.

  • The Create VM activity does not provide an option to browse for valid networks for each of the NIC properties.

  • In the Reconfigure VM activity, the return values of After Power On Script, After Resume Script, Before Guest Standby Script, and Before Guest Standby Script do not match the input values supplied.

  • The Add VM Disk activity does not provide the option to browse for available data stores.

  • The Set VM CD/DVD to ISO Image activity can be supplied with a Relative File Path to a non-existent file. The activity completes successfully rather than producing an error message.

  • The Clone Windows VM and Clone Linux VM activities do not filter unavailable resource pools from the Resource Pool Path browser.

  • The Clone Windows VM and Clone Linux VM activities do not filter source VMs based on their guest operating system.

  • If you inadvertently import the Opalis global configurations, you might see the following errors:

    • When adding or editing configurations:

      Failed to load the assembly containing the service class

    • When editing the properties of any vSphere activity:

      Failed to load the assembly containing the service class

      Runtime Error! …
This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the application’s support tem for more information.

  • If you attempt to start a VM that is already powered on by using the Start VM activity, supplying a Timeout value of greater than 2,147,483 will cause the integration pack to report success even though the vSphere server indicates that the VM cannot be started.

  • Exporting workflows that contain vSphere activities from Opalis Integration Server 6.3 and importing them into Orchestrator corrupts vSphere configurations stored in Orchestrator. To address this issue, omit the global configurations from the import process, and then manually create the matching configurations in Orchestrator.

    Workaround: Use the following steps when exporting and importing Opalis workflows.

    Warning

    It is highly recommended that you perform a full backup of the Orchestrator database before importing runbooks. Importing global configurations from another system can overwrite local changes or leave the Orchestrator database in an unstable state. If the Runbook Designer or runbook server exhibit problems after performing a runbook import, restore the Orchestrator database from the backup.

    Stage 1: Export the Opalis workflows and import them into Orchestrator.

    1. Export the workflows from Opalis Integration Server Client using the conventional method. No changes to this process are required.

    2. In the Orchestrator Runbook Designer, import the runbooks to the appropriate location using the Import option from the folder context menu or the Actions item from the main menu.

    3. In the Import dialog, select the file the location of the .ois_export file.

    4. Configure the options under Import the following global settings as necessary for your runbooks.

    5. Ensure that the Import global configurations checkbox is not checked. This will prevent Opalis global configurations from being imported into Orchestrator.

    6. Click Finish.

    Stage 2: After the workflows are imported, create new vSphere configurations:

    1. Record the details of the vSphere configuration settings used by the exported workflows from the source Opalis 6.3 system. These can be found in the Options -> VMWare vSphere item in the main menu of the Opalis Integration server client.

      Note the Name, Server, User, Password, and SSL property values for each vSphere configuration. The Name of the configuration is case-sensitive.

    2. In the Orchestrator Runbook Designer, create a new vSphere configuration for each configuration used by the imported runbooks.

      1. Click Options, and then click VMWare vSphere to open the Prerequisite Configuration window.

      2. Click Add to add a new configuration.

      3. Enter the name for the configuration as it appeared in the Opalis 6.3 system. Note the Name field is case-sensitive.

      4. Select the configuration Type of vSphere Setting.

      5. Enter the Server, User, Password, and SSL property values as recorded from the Opalis 6.3 system.

        The Port and Webservice Timeout settings can be left blank at this stage.

      6. Click OK to save your changes and create a new configuration.

    3. Repeat step 2 for all the configurations used by the imported runbooks.

    4. When you have created all the configurations used by the imported runbooks, click Finish on the Prerequisite Configurations window.

    5. Test that the imported runbooks run successfully.

  • The activity Get Resource Pool Runtime Info fails with an empty Resource Pool (without any VMs under it). The error summary is “StartIndex cannot be less than zero. Parameter name: startIndex.”

  • When clicking on a vSphere activity in the Runbook Tester, the following error may appear:

    “Error
    Details: password
    Exception: IntegrationPackException
    Target site: ServiceBase.Design”

    This message can be safely ignored; however, the options list of various properties will not be automatically populated in the Runbook Tester. If required, the value of these properties may be edited manually.