4 (in words: FOUR) new Plugins for vCenter Orchestrator released

Last Friday VMware released FOUR new Plugins for vCO (read from the source here: http://blogs.vmware.com/orchestrator/2011/12/vmware-releases-four-new-vmware-vcenter-orchestrator-plug-ins.html )

• The SQL Plugin makes it possible to access external Databases within workflows (in a much more comfortable and reusable way than the already existing plain JDBC-calls)
• The Auto Deploy Plugin automates the new vSphere 5 Auto Deploy mechanism, which absolutely makes sence to orchestrator the deployment of ESXi hosts.
• The vCO Multi Site Plugin allows you synchronize, execute and monitor Workflows on other vCO-hosts (this also was possible in the past via the “Nested Workflows”-Element, but now its murch more powerful and flexible). There are several use-cases for this, expect a more detailed blogentry here soon 😀
• The PowerShell Plugin allows you to call external PowerShell Scripts on other systems, via OpenSSH or WinRM. The plugin also implements a “piping” methodology in your workflows, so if you’re familiar with PowerShell, you can build workflows in a comparable way. Calling external PowerShell scripts is very powerful, and was also available in the past (see http://www.vcoportal.de/powersshell-plugin/ and http://www.vcoportal.de/2011/03/vco-powershell/ ).
  You may ask, what’s the difference and overlapping points between VMware’s PowerShell Plugin and my PowerSSHell-Plugin for vCO… expect more details about this soon as well

So, the list of available plugins for vCO gets longer and longer, it seems VMware is on the right way to establish a good ecosystem around vCO…