If you missed VMworld Las Vegas, are reading this blog for the first time, or are just new to vCenter Orchestrator, then maybe you haven't heard the news… 

This year, it's all about plug-ins.

That's why we are very glad to announce two new vCO plug-in releases:

• VMware vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in for vCenter Server 5.0
• VMware vCenter Orchestrator SNMP Plug-in

As promised in a previous post, the vCenter Server 5.0 plug-in adds over 50 out-of-the-box workflows to extend capabilities around networking and storage operations, and to incorporate new features like Storage DRS into fully-automated, end-to-end cloud provisioning scenarios.  As previous versions, the plug-in provides 100% coverage of the 5.0 vSphere API.  With this new plug-in, organizations can now automate a broader number of use cases, such as dynamic scaling-up and scaling-down of vSphere resources, while taking full advantage of the new vCenter Server 5.0 capabilities.

And to complement this new release, we are also glad to announce a sparkling new SNMP plug-in that enables organizations to automatically trigger workflows based on SNMP messages.  SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is one of the most widely used protocols to manage network devices and systems in IP networks and the default alerting mechanism for vCenter Server and ESX/ESXi. 

With the SNMP plug-in, you'll be able to define policies that automatically trigger specific workflows when SNMP traps are received by vCO. For instance, an administrator could configure a workflow that, upon detecting that a vCenter datacenter is nearing full capacity, would reclaim unused resources or provision additional compute and storage resources.  Of course, the SNMP plug-in is able to process events beyond vCenter Server, so the triggers for workflows can come from virtually any device or system that supports SNMP.

Finally, be sure to check our plug-in documentation site often to get information on update releases.  This week, new updates are available for the Cisco UCS Manager, Microsoft Active Directory and VMware vCloud Director plug-ins. 

For additional information, please see the following sites:

• vCenter Orchestrator SNMP Plug-in: release notes, documentation, and download
• vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in for vCenter Server 5.0: release notes, documentation, and download

PS.  We'd like to take all of the credit, but we're far from the only ones building plug-ins.  In addition to Infoblox's recent announcement, we're glad to highlight Radware and Uptime Software, who have already released vCO plug-ins. Be sure to give them a try!