With the vRealize Orchestrator plug-ins, you can access and control external technologies and applications. Exposing an external technology in a vRealize Orchestrator plug-in lets you incorporate objects and functions in workflows and run workflows on the objects of that external technology.

The external technologies that you access by using plug-ins include virtualization management tools, email systems, databases, directory services, and remote control interfaces.

vRealize Orchestrator provides a standard set of preinstalled plug-ins, which expose the VMware vCenter Server API, email and authentication capabilities, and other technologies. In addition, the vRealize Orchestrator open plug-in architecture lets you develop plug-ins to access other applications. vRealize Orchestrator implements open standards to simplify integration with external systems.

The standard set of plug-ins is automatically installed with the vRealize Orchestrator server. You might need to configure some of the plug-ins, for example the vCenter plug-in, before you start using them.

Plug-ins extend the vRealize Orchestrator scripting engine with new object types and methods, and plug-ins publish notification events from the external system that triggers events in vRealize Orchestrator and in the plugged-in technology. Plug-ins provide an inventory of JavaScript objects that you can access on the Inventory page of the vRealize Orchestrator Client. Each plug-in contains packages of workflows and actions that you can run on the objects in the inventory to automate the typical use cases of the integrated product.