Figure 9.13 A basic Orchestrator runbook
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Running PowerShell scripts to perform actions
through Orchestrator is great, and error checking and updating of other applications
such as Service Manager are benefits. But you can run PowerShell without
Orchestrator. If you look again at Figure 9.13, you will see on the right side a list of
activity groups, known as integration packs, including System Center Virtual Machine
Manager, System Center Configuration Manager, and VMWare vSphere. Each
integration pack contains activities specific to the target. For vSphere, there are
activities for virtual machine creation and management; the same types of activities
are available for SCVMM and for Configuration Manager, including deploying
software. Using integration packs for systems, the built-in Orchestrator activities, and
most commonly PowerShell, it is possible to automate any action related to the
private cloud (and anything else) and to customize those actions based on exactly how
your organization functions. The general direction for automation is PowerShell over
using the integration packs in Orchestrator, so by all means use Orchestrator, but my
guidance is to focus most of the functionality of the runbook as PowerShell called
through .Net Script activities rather than utilizing the integration pack activities,
which are not being maintained anymore. Once you create the runbooks, they can
then be called by the rest of System Center or triggered automatically. Here are some
great scenarios for using Orchestrator:
Creating a new cloud based on an IT request though a service catalog that calls a
created Orchestrator runbook
Deploying a new virtual machine or service instance