Execute VRO workflow from Ansible

Ansible is a suite of software tools that enables infrastructure as code. It is open-source and the suite includes software provisioning, configuration management, and application deployment functionality.

Using the ansible playbook with set of tasks make it easier to execute the VRO workflow. We're using the uri module to call the VRO REST APIs.

Related

• Ansible Role
• uri module
• Ansible CLI
• vRealize Orchestrator REST API

Ansible Role

Roles let you automatically load related vars, files, tasks, handlers, and other Ansible artifacts based on a known file structure. After you group your content in roles, you can easily reuse them and share them with other users.

Created a role called execute-vro-workflow which can

• check if the workflow exist
• Execute the workflow
• wait and check the execution status of workflow.
• show error if workflow is failed.

Role Structure

root
│   README.md
│   execute-vro-workflow.yml
└──execute-vro-workflow   
│  └──defaults
│      │ main.yml
│  └──tasks
│      │ check-workflow.yml
│      │ execute-workflow.yml
│      │ main.yml
│  └──templates
│      │ workflow-input.json

Playbooks and Files

• execute-vro-workflow.yml - Top entry level playbook to execute the role.
• defaults/main.yml - contains the defaults parameters like VRO url, credentials, workflow_id.
• tasks/main.yml - segregate the logic to execute other playbooks.
• tasks/check-workflow.yml - contains the logic to check if workflow is exist.
• tasks/execute-workflow.yml - contains the logic to execute the workflow and check the status.
• templates/workflow-input.json - workflow input in json format for REST call.

Inputs

Variable Name	Description	Defaults
vro_server_url	Provide the FQDN of VRO	stored in defaults var
vro_workflow_id	Workflow ID to execute	stored in defaults var
vro_server_user	User account for REST API	stored in defaults var
vro_server_pwd	Password for the same account	stored in defaults var
yourName	Workflow input-parameter	runtime input as extra-vars

The workflow I'm using has only one input-parameter called yourName and to differenciate it I'm using a local variable as wf_yourName which is also part of templates/workflow-inputs.json (json payload for REST API)

NOTE: Need to create as many inputs as the VRO workflow contains.

Execution

This role can be executed via ansible command

ansible-playbook <playbook_name>.yml --extra-vars "<var_name>=<var_value>"

Example.
ansible-playbook execute-vro-workflow.yml --extra-vars "yourName=Harshit"

Author

Harshit Kesharwani