(No) Sneak Peek on upcoming vCO release :-)

UPDATE: I quickly got a lot of friendly and some not so friendly response to this post, so here the updated version only with information you already can find in the community forums, on youtube, word of mouth …

My main purpose of this article was to let the people know there will be some changes when integrating with vCO.
So, if you plan to integrate with vCO, please talk to your VMware Representative before you start in the wrong direction or learn old and outdated technologies!
So, if you are a VMware Representative: Please give the users/customers a future-proof point of view. Customizing Webviews and spending a lot of effort to dig deep into the current SOAP-API is not.

Disclaimer: The following article represents my personal point of view and the words and rumors I got. All that stuff is not official yet, the roadmap may change, do not ask for specific dates…. You got the point.
However, if you plan to leverage vCO as a partner or end customer, consider to contact your VMware representative; especially if you plan to integrate with vCO because of the changing Webservice API (details below).

Two weeks ago at VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) in Las Vegas there were a couple of sessions which included vCO (compared to last year I saw an increase by  ***ERROR(DIVISION BY 0)*** % from 0 to 5 sessions covering vCO)

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vCenter Orchestrator Versions

vCenter Orchestrator is bundled with vCenter (and will be in future), so the platform has the same release cycle as vCenter. (Plugins are relesead independently, as you can see on the many plugins released in the last quaters)

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New Features

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New REST-based Webservice API

The current version 4.x of vCO contains an (old) SOAP-based Webservice API which allows you to call and monitors workflows from external systems (see the articles in the this category for how-tos).

This API opens vCO to be integrated as headless orchestration layer, called by external systems like a ticket-system, a nice-looking Web-Interface/Self-Service Portal (helloooooo, Wavemaker!) or a more business process focused Workflow engine. Another  great use-case for this API is to automate tests around workflows, actions and plugins.

From the numbers of requests I get related to my examples to call workflows e.g. from Powershell, this API is quite often used (and I can double this with my field experience: In every larger vCO project workflows are to be called by external systems eventually)

However, the old API is quite limited (see details in this article) right now.
With  vCO 5.1 a new REST based API will be available. Along the information I have, this API will be much more powerful and easier to use. The REST-based access strategy for instance could make it very easy to access inventory objects as input parameters for workflows, which was a real pain in the current SOAP-API.

AFAIK the old SOAP API will be marked as deprecated, but still stay available and supported “as-is”. So you have a smooth migration path if you already leverage the API.

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I can’t wait to get my fingers on the new version. From my point of view this will be the biggest milestone in the history of vCO since Dunes’ aquisition by VMware back in 2007. It’s about time.