Part2 : How to use PowervRACloud with ABX Powershell Actions as Catalog Item

In the Part2, of the 3 blog series, I will show how to write Extensibility Action Script and use it as Service Broker Catalog Item. I will be generating the Deployments Report and sending it via Email by executing the PowervRACloud ABX Action from Service Broker Catalog Item.

 

 

 

If you haven\’t checked Part1 where I shared the procedure on how to write Extensibility Action Script with Event Subscriptions. You can Click Here 

Quick Recap of What is vRA ABX and PowervRACloud

What is vRA ABX?

vRealize Automation Action Based Extensibility (ABX) supports Powershell as one the scripting language for writing ABX actions.  ABX actions are small, lightweight scripts of code used to specify an action and how that action is to perform

What is PowervRACloud ?

PowervRACloud is a PowerShell module that abstracts the VMware vRealize Automation Cloud APIs to a set of easily used PowerShell functions.

 

Procedure to Generate  Deployments Report from Service Broker Catalog Item

The following steps describe the procedure for creating an extensibility action that uses the Onprem FaaS provider in the vRA 8 environment 

 

If you are using vRA Cloud then you will need to Deploy and Configure a Cloud Extensibility Proxy and add Onprem Integration by referring the documentationThis step is NOT required for vRealize Automation deployed on-premises. 

Creating Action 

Navigate to  Extensibility > Library > Actions & Click New Action. 

Enter a name for your action and select a project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Select the Powershell as the action runtime

Select Write Script

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First, we will specify the following

Dependencies 

@{
PowervRACloud = ‘1.4’
}

Inputs

server - vRA Server
Username - Username for vRA Server
Password - Password for vRA Server
toaddress - Specify Email of the recipient 
fromaddress - Specify the Senders Email 
emailserver - Email Server which should be reachable from vRA 

FaaS provider

With PowerShell, FaaS provider will always be On-prem. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the script which you will need to Generate Deployments Report

 

Create Version and Release it to Service Broker

The next step is to create a version of the ABX Action and release it to Service Broker so that it will display as Catalog Item.

 

Screenshots are arranged in the order of the steps. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add Service Broker Content Source and Catalog Item

Open Service Broker service in vRA and navigate to Content & Policies –> Content Sources 

Create New Extensibility Action Content Source

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, we will need to Add Items for Content Sharing

Navigate to Content Sharing –> Select the Project and Add Items

You will see the Extensibility Action which we released. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Request Deployment from Catalog Item

Now we will request deployment from Catalog Item and validate if the ABX run gets triggered

It will ask you to validate the default inputs or change them if required

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

As you can see how easily PowervRACloud can integrate with ABX to extend vRA functionalities.  

Thank you for using PowervRACloud. Please reach out on Twitter if there are any queries  

What\’s next?

In Part 3, I will show how to create Zip Package which will include the PowervRACloud module. This will be helpful if you have an Airgap environment that doesn\’t have direct access to Powershell Gallery. 

 

 

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