After you deploy cloud templates, you can run actions in Cloud Assembly to manage the resources. The available actions depend on the resource type and whether the actions are supported on a particular cloud account or integration platform.

The available actions also depend on what your administrator entitled you to run.

As an administrator or project administrator, you can set up Day 2 Actions policies in Service Broker. See How do I entitle consumers to Service Broker day 2 action policies

You might also see actions that are not included in the list. These are likely custom actions added by your administrator. For example, a vMotion action.

Caution:

To change a deployment, you can edit its cloud template and reapply it, or you can use day 2 actions. However, in most cases you should avoid mixing the two approaches.

Lifecycle day 2 changes such as power on/off are usually safe, but others require caution, such as when adding disks.

For example, if you add disks with a day 2 action, and then take a mixed approach by reapplying the cloud template, the cloud template could overwrite the day 2 change, which might remove disks and cause data loss.

Table 1. List of possible actions
Action Applies to these resource types Available for these cloud types Resource origin Description
Add Disk Machines
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Add additional disks to existing virtual machines.

If you add a disk to an Azure machine, the persistent disk or non-persistent disk is deployed in the resource group that includes the machine.

When you add a disk to an Azure machines, you can also encrypt the new disk using the Azure disk encryption set configured in the storage profile.

You cannot add a disk to an Azure machine with an unmanaged disk.

When you add a disk to vSphere machines, you can select the SCSI controller, the order of which was set in the cloud template and deployed. You can also specify the unit number for the new disk. You cannot specify a unit number without a selected controller. If you do not select a controller or provide a unit number, the new disk is deployed to first available controller and assigned then next available unit number on that controller.

If you add a disk to a vSphere machine for a project with defined storage limits, the added disk must not exceed the storage limits. Storage limits consider the actual capacity for thick and thin resource provisioning so that you cannot over-provision using thin provisioning.

If you use VMware Storage DRS (SDRS) and the datastore cluster is configured in the storage profile, you can add disks on SDRS to vSphere machines.

Attach SaltStack Resource Machines
  • Amazon Web Services
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Attach a SaltStack Resource to a deployment resource so that you can install a Salt minion and update the Salt configuration on the virtual machine. You can use this action to update a configuration on a resource or attach the resource and install the minion on another resource in the deployment.

The Attach Salt Resource action is available if you configured the SaltStack Config integration.

To apply a configuration, you must select an authentication method. The Remote access with existing credentials uses the remote access credentials that are included in the deployment. If you changed the credentials on the machine after deployment, the action can fail. If you know the new credentials, use the Password authentication method.

The Password and Private key use the user name and the password or key to validate your credentials and then connect to the virtual machine using SSH.

If you do not provide a value for the Master ID and Minion ID, Salt creates the values for you.

Cancel
  • Deployments
  • Various resource types in deployments
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Cancel a deployment or a day 2 action on a deployment or a resource while the request is being processed.

You can cancel the request on the deployment card or in the deployment details. After you cancel the request, it appears as a failed request on the Deployments page. Use the Delete action to release any deployed resources and clean up your deployment list.

Canceling a request that you think has been running too long is one method for managing deployment time. However, it is more efficient to set the Request Timeout in the projects. The default timeout is two hours. You can set if for a longer period of time if the workload deployment for a project requires more time.

Change Lease Deployments
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Change the lease expiration date and time.

When a lease expires, the deployment is destroyed and the resources are reclaimed.

Lease policies are set in Service Broker.

Change Owner Deployments
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Changes the deployment owner to the selected user or Active Directory group. The selected user or AD group must be an administrator or a member of the same project that deployed the request. Only users or AD groups defined in the project are available to become the owner. Custom groups are not eligible to be the target owner.

When a cloud template designer deploys a template, the designer is both the requester and the owner. However, a requester can make another project member the owner.

You can use policies to control what an owner can do with a deployment, giving them permissions that are more restrictive or less restrictive.

Change Project Deployments
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • NSX-T
  • NSX-V
  • VMware Cloud Director
  • VMware Cloud Foundation
  • VMware Cloud on AWS
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Migrated
  • Onboarded

You use the change project action to move a deployment from one project to another project.

The change project action is available for deployments with deployed resources, deployments with migrated resources, and deployments with onboarded resources. This action is not supported for deployments that contain any combination of deployed, migrated, and onboarded resources.

Supported resources include the following resource types and constraints:
  • Deployments with deployed resources can contain virtual machines, disks, load balancers, networks, security groups, Azure groups, NATs, gateways, custom resources, Terraform configurations, and Ansible and Ansible Tower resources.
  • Deployments with migrated resources can contain virtual machines, disks, load balancers, networks, security groups, NATs, gateways, and custom resources.
  • Deployments with onboarded resources can contain virtual machines, disks, and networks.
  • If you add an unsupported resource type to any deployment type, deployed, migrated, or onboarded resources, you cannot run the change project action.
Roles, considerations, and constraints for deployments with deployed or migrated resources:
  • To change the project of a deployment with deployed or migrated resources, the initiating user must have the following role:
    • Cloud administrator.
  • You can only change the project when the target project contains all the cloud zones where the deployment's machines and disks are deployed. The moved deployment is then subject to the configured limits of the target project, including instance count, memory, CPU, and storage. After the move, the current usage is released from the source project.
  • After you move a deployment to the target project, it is subject to the policies of target project. For example, lease, day 2 actions, resource quota, and other polices. To move a deployment, the deployment lease defined by the lease policy of the target project cannot expire in the next 24 hours.
  • The Change Project action is available for deployments where the custom resources are scoped to be available to any project. The lifecycle and day 2 actions for each custom resource in the deployment must be shared with all projects to ensure that you can continue to manage the custom resource using lifecycle actions or day 2 actions after you move the deployment to the new project.
  • The extensibility constraints of the target project must match the vRO integration or the same ABX FaaS provider as the source project. The integrations and providers must match so that you can manage the custom resource using lifecycle actions or day 2 actions after you move the deployment to the new project.
  • The Change Project action is available for deployments with Terraform configurations where all the content sources are shared. If any content sources used in the deployment are not shared, the Change Project action fails validation and does not run.
  • If a Change Project action fails because a Terraform GitHub repository content source was not shared, you can note the corresponding ID that you must share and then share the source. To share the source repository, select Infrastructure > Integrations and select the GitHub integration. In the open integration page, click the Projects tab, expand the project that contains the repository for the failed action and turn on the sharing for that repository. You can also use the API to share the content source repositories.
  • The Change Project action might not be available if you migrated a deployment that contains a custom resource, where the custom resource includes an update action, and you have performed an iterative update of the deployment by redeploying the cloud template.
Roles, considerations, and constraints for deployments with onboarded resources:
  • To move a deployment with onboarded resources, the initiating user must have at least one of the following roles:
    • Cloud administrator.
    • Manage Deployments permission. This permission can be defined as a custom role.
    • Project administrator of the target project.
    • Project member of the target project and the deployments are shared between all users in the target project.
  • While you can move onboarded resources to a project that does not contain the same cloud zones, if the target project does not have the same cloud zones, any future day 2 actions involving cloud account / region resources that you run might not work.
General considerations:
  • If you are an administrator who is moving the deployment, you might move the deployment to a project where the owner is not a member and therefore loses access. You can add the owner to the target project, move the deployment to a project where they are a member, or use the Change Owner action.
Change Security Groups Machines
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
You can associate and dissociate security groups with machine networks in a deployment. The change action applies to existing and on-demand security groups for NSX-V and NSX-T. This action is available only for single machines, not machine clusters.

To associate a security group with the machine network, the security group must be present in the deployment.

Dissociating a security group from all networks of all machines in a deployment does not remove the security group from the deployment.

These changes do not affect security groups applied as part of the network profiles.

This action changes the machine's security group configuration without recreating the machine. This is a non-destructive change.

  • To change the machine's security group configuration, select the machine in the topology pane, then click the Action menu in the right pane and select Change Security Groups. You can now add or remove the association on the security groups with the machine networks.
Connect to Remote Console Machines
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Discovered
  • Onboarded
Open a remote session on the selected machine.

Review the following requirements for a successful connection.

  • As a deployment consumer, verify that the provisioned machine is powered on.
Create Disk Snapshot Machines and disks
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Create a snapshot of a virtual machine disk or a storage disk.

  • For machines, you create snapshots for individual machine disks, including boot disk, image disks, and storage disks.
  • For storage disks, you create snapshots of independent managed disks, not unmanaged disks.

In addition to providing a snapshot name, you can also provide the following information for the snapshot:

  • Incremental Snapshot. Select the check box to create a snapshot of the changes since the last snapshot rather full snapshot.
  • Resource Group. Enter the name of the target resource group where you want to create the snapshot. By default, the snapshot is created in the same resource group that is used by the parent disk.
  • Encryption Set Id. Select the encryption key for the snapshot. By default, the snapshot is encrypted with the same key that is used by the parent disk.
  • Tags. Enter any tags that will help you manage the snapshots in Microsoft Azure.
Create Snapshot Machines
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Create a snapshot of the virtual machine.

If you are allowed only two snapshots in vSphere and you already have them, this command is not available until you delete a snapshot.

When creating a snapshot for a Google Cloud Platform machine, you can also create a disk snapshot of the attached disks. The combined snapshot allows you to manage the machine as the attached disks as a single entity.

Delete

Deployments

  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Destroy a deployment.

All the resources are deleted and the reclaimed.

If a delete fails, you can run the delete action on a deployment a second time. During the second attempt, you can select Ignore Delete Failures. If you select this option, the deployment is deleted, but the resources might not be reclaimed. You should check the systems on which the deployment was provisioned to ensure that all resources are removed. If they are not, you must manually delete the residual resources on those systems.

NSX Gateway
  • NSX
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Delete the NAT port forwarding rules from an NSX-T or NSX-V gateway.
Machines and load balancers
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • VMware NSX
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Remove a machine or load balancer from a deployment. This action might result in an unusable deployment.
Security groups
  • NSX-T
  • NSX-V
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
If the security is not associated with any machine in the deployment, the process removes the security group from the deployment.
  • If the security group is on-demand, then it is destroyed on the endpoint.
  • If the security group is shared, the action fails.
Tanzu Kubernetes clusters
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Remove a Tanzu Kubernetes cluster from a deployment.
Delete Disk Snapshot

Machines and disks

  • Microsoft Azure
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Delete an Azure virtual machine disk or managed disk snapshot.

This action is available when there is at least one snapshot.

Delete Snapshot Machines
  • VMware vSphere
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Delete a snapshot of the virtual machine.
Disable Boot Diagnostics Machines
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Turn off the Azure virtual machine debugging feature.

This option is only available if the feature is turned on.

Disable Log Analytics Machines
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Turn off the ability to run log queries on Azure virtual machine logs.

Select the name of the extension that you want to deactivate. If there is no extension name to select, then the log analytics are not currently enabled on this machine.

To work with the log analytics, Azure Monitor and the cloud template must be configure to support the workspace. See Log Analytics.

Edit Tags Deployments
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Add or modify resource tags that are applied to individual deployment resources.
Enable Boot Diagnostics Machines
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Turn on the Azure virtual machine debugging feature to diagnose virtual machine boot failures. The boot diagnostics information is available in your Azure console.

The Enable option is only available if the feature is not currently turned on.

Enable Log Analytics Machines
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Turn on the Azure virtual machine to edit and run log queries on data collected by Azure Monitor logs.

You provide the extension name. The workspace ID and key must be the values that are configured in Azure.

To work with the log analytics, Azure Monitor and the cloud template must be configure to support the workspace. See Log Analytics.

Get Terraform State Terraform Configuration
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Display the Terraform state file.

To view any changes that were made to the Terraform machines on the cloud platforms that they were deployed on and update the deployment, you first run the Refresh Terraform State action, and then run this Get Terraform State action.

When the file is displayed in a dialog box. The file is available for approximately 1 hour before you need to run a new refresh action. You can copy it if you need it for later.

You can also view the file on the deployment History tab. Select the Get Terraform State event on the Events tab, and then click Request Details. If the file is not expired, click View content. If the file is expired, run the Refresh and Get actions again.

Example of the Request Details where you can view the Terraform state file.

You can run other day 2 action on the Terraform resources that are embedded in the configuration. The available actions depend on the resource type, the cloud platform that they are deployed on, and whether you are entitled to run the actions based on a day 2 policy.

Power Off

Deployments

  • Amazon Web Service
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Discovered
  • Onboarded

Power off the deployment after first attempting to shutdown the guest operating systems. If the soft power off fails, a hard power off still runs.

Machines

  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Power off the machine after first attempting to shut down the guest operating systems. If the soft power off fails, the hard power off still runs.

Power On

Deployments

  • Amazon Web Service
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Power on the deployment. If the resources were suspended, normal operation resumes from the point at which they were suspended.

Machines

  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Discovered
  • Onboarded
Power on the machine. If the machine was suspended, normal operation resumes from the point at which the machine was suspended.
Reboot Machines
  • Amazon Web Service
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Reboot the guest operating system on a virtual machine.

For a vSphere machine, VMware Tools must be installed on the machine to use this action.

Reconfigure Load Balancers
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware NSX
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Change the load balancer size and logging level.

You can also add or remove routes, and change the protocol, port, health configuration, and member pool settings.

For NSX load balancers, you can enable or deactivate the health check and modify the health options. For NSX-T, you can set the check to active or passive. NSX-V does not support passive health checks.

NSX Gateway port forwarding
  • NSX-T
  • NSX-V
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Add, edit, or delete the NAT port forwarding rules from an NSX-T or NSX-V gateway.
Security Groups
  • NSX-T
  • NSX-V
  • VMware Cloud
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Add, edit, or remove firewall rules or constraints based on whether the security group is an on-demand or an existing security group.

  • On-demand security group

    Add, edit, or remove firewall rules for NSX-T and VMware Cloud on-demand security groups.

    • To add or remove a rule, select the security group in the topology pane, click the Action menu in the right pane, and select Reconfigure. You can now add, edit, or remove the rules.
  • Existing security group

    Add, edit, or remove constraints for existing NSX-V, NSX-T, and VMware Cloud security groups.

    • To add or remove a constraint, select the security group in the topology pane, click the Action menu in the right pane, and select Reconfigure. You can now add, edit, or remove the constraints.
Refresh Terraform State Terraform Configuration
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Retrieve the latest iteration of the Terraform state file.

To retrieve any changes that were made to the Terraform machines on the cloud platforms that they were deployed on and update the deployment, you first run this Refresh Terraform State action.

To view the file, run the Get Terraform State action on the configuration.

Use the deployment history tab to monitor the refresh process.

Remove Disk Machines
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Remove disks from existing virtual machines.

If you run the day 2 action on a deployment that is deployed as vSphere machines and disks, the disk count is reclaimed as it applies to project storage limits. Storage limits consider the actual capacity for thick and thin resource provisioning so that you cannot over-provision using thin provisioning. The project storage limits do not apply to additional disks that you added after deployment as a day 2 action.

Reset Machines
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Force a virtual machine restart without shutting down the guest operating system.

Resize Machines
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Increase or decrease the CPU and memory of a virtual machine.

Resize Boot Disk Machines
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Increase or decrease the size of your boot disk medium.

If you run the day 2 action on a deployment that is deployed as vSphere machines and disks, and the action fails with a message similar to “The requested storage is more than the available storage placement,” it is likely due to the defined storage limits on your vSphere VM templates and the content library that are defined in the project. Storage limits consider the actual capacity for thick and thin resource provisioning so that you cannot over-provision using thin provisioning. The project storage limits do not apply to additional disks that you added after deployment as a day 2 action.

Resize Disk Storage disk
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Increase the capacity of a storage disk.

If you run the day 2 action on a deployment that is deployed as vSphere machines and disks, and the action fails with a message similar to “The requested storage is more than the available storage placement,” it is likely due to the defined storage limits on your vSphere VM templates and the content library that are defined in the project. Storage limits consider the actual capacity for thick and thin resource provisioning so that you cannot over-provision using thin provisioning. The project storage limits do not apply to additional disks that you added after deployment as a day 2 action.

For the vSphere Storage DRS, you can relocate the virtual machine within the cluster of the current LUN lacks sufficient space.

Machines
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Increase or decrease the size of disks included in the machine image template and any attached disks.
Restart Machines
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Shut down and restart a running machine.
Revert to Snapshot Machines
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Revert to a previous snapshot of the machine.

You must have an existing snapshot to use this action.

If you created a snapshot for a Google Cloud Platform machine that included the attached disks, the full snapshot is reverted.

Run Puppet Task Managed resources
  • Puppet Enterprise
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Run the selected task on machines in your deployment.

The tasks are defined in your Puppet instance. You must be able to identify the task and provide the input parameters.

Scale Worker Nodes Tanzu Kubernetes clusters
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded

Increase or decrease the number of Tanzu Kubernetes worker node virtual machines in your deployment.

Shutdown Machines
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
Shut down the guest operating system and power off the machine. VMware Tools must be installed on the machine to use this action.
Suspend Machines
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Pause the machine so that it cannot be used and does not consume any system resources other than the storage it is using.
Update Deployments
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Change the deployment based on the input parameters.

For an example, see How to move a deployed machine to another network.

If the deployment is based on vSphere resources, and the machine and disks include the count option, storage limits defined in the project might apply when you increase the count. If the action fails with a message similar to “The requested storage is more than the available storage placement,” it is likely due to the defined storage limits on your vSphere VM templates that are defined in the project. The project storage limits do not apply to additional disks that you added after deployment as a day 2 action.

There are some properties that cannot be updated using this action. See Deployment properties that you cannot update using day 2 actions in vRealize Automation.

Update Salt Configuration SaltStack Config resource
  • Amazon Web Service
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Add or change the Salt environment, apply state files, or provide variables for the selected Salt resource.
Update Tags Machines and disks
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Add, modify, or delete a tag that is applied to an individual resource.
Update Tanzu Version Tanzu Kubernetes clusters
  • VMware vSphere
  • Deployed
  • Onboarded
Update the current Kubernetes version to a later version.
Unregister Machines
  • Amazon Web Service
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • VMware vSphere
  • Onboarded

The unregister action is only available for onboarded deployment machines.

Unregistered machines are removed from the deployment, along with any attached disks. By removing the resources, you can then re-run the onboarding workflow for the unregistered machine. You might want to onboard the resource again, this time to a new project.

If you make any changes to the machine, for example, add a disk, before unregistering the machine, the unregister action fails.