Last Friday VMware released the Orchestrator plugin for Active Directory v1.0. With the plugin it is possible to manage Active Directory objects straight from within Orchestrator.

For those of you that don’t know what VMware Orchestrator is:

VMware vCenter Orchestrator provides out of the box workflows that can help administrators automate existing manual tasks. Administrators can utilize sample workflows from VMware vCenter Orchestrator’s workflow library and provide a blueprint for creating additional workflows.

VMware vCenter Orchestrator exposes the building blocks to enable more detailed workflows to be created for VMware vSphere.

  • Easily drag and drop components into workflows
  • Automate any of the over 800 tasks possible withinVMware vCenter Server (create vm, start vm, clone vm, etc.)
  • Link VMware Infrastructure technologies and capabilities together instead of using manual steps
  • Simplify your cloud management using the VMware vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in for vCloud Director by automating routine tasks, building workflows, and scripting complex operations across multiple products with ease.

The plugin contains the following workflows:

  • Create a computer in a group or OU
  • Delete a computer
  • Enable or disable a computer
  • Create or delete an OU
  • Create a user in an OU or group, with or without password
  • Add or remove a user from a group
  • Delete a user
  • Change password for a user
  • Enable or disable a user
  • Add or remove users, groups or computers to and from a group
  • Create or remove a user group in a group or OU
  • Favorites Management, like add or remove a favorite computer, OU or group

The plugin can be installed by going to the Orchestrator Configuration website, install the plugin (install application) and restart Orchestrator. If you published the web operator you can start using these workflows from your browser right away.

If you want to try out VMware Orchestrator, no problem. Orchestrator  is included with vCenter. Check out the documentation and start automating your IT infrastructure.

Right now the following plugins are available from the VMware site:

With this plugin VMware gets a little closer to a holistic view on management for your entire IT infrastructure.