Leveraging the power of the Orchestrator Out of Box Standard Activities

[System-Center-Team]

First published on TECHNET on Jun 22, 2011

A common question we get is “Do you have an Integration Pack for <insert a product/solution here>?” Charles even wrote a blog post on this back in the Opalis days!

I wanted to ensure that everyone understood the powerful activities that come Out of the Box with Orchestrator, and all the incredible runbooks you can build without a single Integration Pack !

These activities are called the Standard Activities and are fully documented in the Orchestrator TechNet Library .  Below is a compilation of all the activities that are provided by the Orchestrator Beta.  As you can see, there are a LOT of them, 73 in fact!

Straight from the install, you can create runbooks with these activities, and very effective and powerful runbooks.

So the next question is, what benefits do the Integration Packs bring?  They allow you to compile a set of ready built activities, sometimes encapsulating a number of tasks into a single activity, they allow you to pre-configure activities, define connection string requirements and authentication mechanisms, and in some cases they are required just to hide the complexity of the tasks.  They bring elements of change and version control, and they definitely simplify and speed up the process!  But they are, in most cases, not required . We are updating a number of the Integration Packs for Orchestrator, and are committed to keeping these up to date.  We are also enabling and encouraging the Partner ecosystem and our Vendor community to build more, and then of course there is a growing technical community out there who are creating and publishing their own Integration Packs using the Quick Integration Kit (QIK).

We will be updating the QIK for the Orchestrator Release Candidate, but that’s a topic for another post .

Happy Automating!

Adam

System Activities
Run Program	Run any program or command on any computer in your domain.
Run .Net Script	Run scripts that parse data or run functions against available APIs.
End Process	End processes that are running on the runbook server or on a remote computer.
Start/Stop Service	Start, stop, pause, or restart a Windows service.
Restart System	Restart a computer on your network.
Save Event Log	Save entries from an event log so that they can be used later.
Query WMI	Send a Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) query to a system that you specify and then return the results.
Run SSH Command	Open an SSH connection to a remote server and run shell commands on that server.
Get SNMP Variable	Query a network device for the value of variable that is assigned to the Management Information Base (MIB) address you specify.
Monitor SNMP Trap	Wait for an event to occur either in the Microsoft SNMP Trap Service or on a port that you specify.
Send SNMP Trap	Raise an SNMP event that can be detected by a network systems manager application.
Set SNMP Variable	Modify a variable that is specified by its Management Information Base (MIB).
Scheduling Activities
Monitor Date/Time	Invoke a runbook at a scheduled time.
Check Schedule	Verify that a runbook can run at its scheduled time.
Monitoring Activities
Monitor Event Log	Invoke a runbook when new events that match a filter appear in the Windows Event Log.
Monitor Service	Invoke a runbook when a service has been started or stopped.
Get Service Status	Check the status of a service on any computer.
Monitor Process	Invoke a runbook when a process has been started or stopped.
Get Process Status	Check the status of a running process on any computer.
Monitor Computer/IP	Send a ping to a remote computer or IP address and wait for a response.
Get Computer/IP Status	Send a ping to a remote computer or IP address and wait for a response.
Monitor Disk Space	Invoke a runbook when the disk space on a computer passes a critical threshold.
Get Disk Space Status	Retrieve the current amount of available disk space.
Monitor Internet Application	Invoke a runbook when an internet application server becomes available or unavailable.
Get Internet Application Status	Check the availability of a Web, Email (POP3 or SMTP), FTP, DNS, or custom server.
Monitor WMI	Invoke a runbook when a Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) event is received as a result of the WMI event query you specified.
File Management Activities
Compress File	Compress files into zip archives.
Copy File	Copy files from one directory to another.
Create Folder	Create new folders.
Decompress File	Decompress files contained in a zip archive file.
Delete File	Delete files.
Delete Folder	Delete a folder, sub-folder, or the entire folder tree of a directory.
Get File Status	Verify that a file exists.
Monitor File	Invoke a runbook when files in folders and sub-folder change.
Monitor Folder	Invoke a runbook when a folder or files within a folder change.
Move File	Move a file from one directory to another.
Move Folder	Move a folder and its sub-folders from one directory to another.
PGP Decrypt File	Decrypt a file or an entire folder tree.
PGP Encrypt File	Encrypt a file or an entire folder tree.
Print File	Print text files.
Rename File	Rename files.
Email Activities
Send Email	Send an email message.
Send Exchange Email	Send an email message using an exchange server.
Notification Activities
Send Event Log Message	Create an entry in the Application Windows Event Log.
Send Syslog Message	Create a message on the Syslog server.
Send Platform Event	Create an entry in the Application Windows Event Log.
Utilities Activities
Apply XSLT	Transform XML files.
Query XML	Perform an XPath query on an XML file.
Map Published Data	Transform existing published data or variable items into new content.
Compare Values	Compare two text values or two numerical values and determine whether or not they are equal.
Write Web Page	Create or add information to an HTML file.
Read Text Log	Read lines in a structured text log file.
Write to Database	Write a row into a database table.
Query Database	Query a database and return the resulting rows as published data.
Monitor Counter	Invoke a runbook when a counter has reached a specific value.
Get Counter Value	Retrieve the value of a counter and return it as a published data item.
Modify Counter	Increment and decrement a counter and reset it to its default value.
Invoke Web Services	Run a web service with XML parameters you specify.
Format Date/Time	Transform existing date and time formats into customized formats.
Generate Random Text	Generate random strings of text.
Map Network Path	Map a network path.
Disconnect Network Path	Disconnect a network path.
Text File Management Activities
Append Line	Append a line of text into a text file.
Delete Line	Delete lines from a text file.
Find Text	Find lines in a text file.
Get Lines	Get multiple lines from a text file.
Insert Line	Insert lines into a text file on a line number you specify.
Read Line	Read lines from a text file.
Search and Replace Text	Search for and replaces text in a file.
Runbook Control Activities
Initialize Data	Create a starting point in your runbook.
Return Data	Return data from your runbook to another runbook or to an external system
Junction	Publish data again from any branch.
Invoke Runbook	Run a runbook.

Adam Hall Senior Technical Product Manager

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