Recommendations can identify ways to remediate problems indicated by an alert. Some of these remediations can be associated with actions defined in your VMware Aria Operations instance. You can automate several of these remediation actions for an alert when that recommendation is the first priority for that alert.

You activate actionable alerts in your policies. By default, automation is deactivated in policies. To configure automation for your policy, in the menu, click Operations > Configurations, and then click the Policy Definition tile. Then, to edit a policy, access the Alert / Symptom Definitions workspace, and select Local for the Automate setting in the Alert / Symptom Definitions pane.

When an action is automated, you can use the Automated and Alert columns in Recent Tasks under Administration > Control Panel to identify the automated action and view the results of the action.

  • VMware Aria Operations uses the automationAdmin user account to trigger automated actions. For these automated actions that are triggered by alerts, the Submitted By column displays the automationAdmin user.
  • The Alert column displays the alert that triggered the action. When an alert is triggered that is associated to the recommendation, it triggers the action without any user intervention.

The following actions are supported for automation:

  • Delete Powered Off VM
  • Delete Idle VM
  • Move VM
  • Power Off VM
  • Power On VM
  • Set CPU Count And Memory for VM
  • Set CPU Count And Memory for VM Power Off Allowed
  • Set CPU Count for VM
  • Set CPU Count for VM Power Off Allowed
  • Set CPU Resources for VM
  • Set Memory for VM
  • Set Memory for VM Power Off Allowed
  • Set Memory Resources for VM
  • Shut Down Guest OS for VM

Roles Needed to Automate Actions

To automate actions, your role must have the following permissions:

  • Create, edit, and import policies in Operations > Configurations > Policy Definition.
  • Create, clone, edit, and import alert definitions in Operations > Configurations > Alert Definitions.
  • Create, edit, and import recommendation definitions in Operations > Configurations > Recommendations.
Important: You set the permissions used to run the actions separately from the alert and recommendation definition. Anyone who can modify alerts, recommendations, and policies can also automate the action, even if they do not have permission to run the action.

For example, if you do not have access to the Power Off VM action, but you can create and modify alerts and recommendations, you can see the Power Off VM action and assign it to an alert recommendation. Then, if you automate the action in your policy, VMware Aria Operations uses the automationAdmin user to run the action.

Example Action Supported for Automation

For the Alert Definition named Virtual machine has chronic high CPU workload leading to CPU stress, you can automate the action named Set CPU Count for VM.

When CPU stress on your virtual machines exceeds a critical, immediate, or warning level, the alert triggers the recommended action without user intervention.