vMA Use Cases

This section lists a few typical use cases.

Writing or Converting Scripts

You can run existing vSphere CLI or vSphere SDK for Perl scripts from vMA. To set target servers and initialize vi-fastpass, the script can use the VmaTarget.login() method of VmaTargetLib.

Writing or Converting Agents

Partners or customers can use vMA to write or convert agents.

■	A partner or customer writes a new agent in Perl.

When a partner or customer writes a new agent in Perl, the Perl script must import the VmaTargetLib Perl module and all vSphere SDK for Perl modules. Instead of calling the vSphere SDK for Perl subroutine Util::Connect(targetUrl, username, password), the agent calls VmaTargetLib::VmaTarget.login().

■	A partner or customer runs an agent written in Perl or Java in the service console and wants to port the agent to vMA.

The agent uses code similar to the following Perl-like pseudo code to log in to ESXi hosts:

LoginToMyEsx() {

SessionManagerLocalTicket tkt = SessionManager.AcquireLocalTicket(userName);

UserSession us = sm.login(tkt.userName, tkt.passwordFilePath);

}

The partner changes the agent to use code similar to the following pseudo-code instead:

LoginToMyEsx(String myESXName) {

VmaTarget target = VmaTargetLib.query_target(myESXName);

UserSession us = target.login();

}

This pseudo-code assumes only one vMA target. For multiple target servers, the code can specify any target server or loop through a list of target servers.

■	A partner or customer runs an agent written in Perl outside the ESXi host and ports the agent to vMA.

Instead of calling the vSphere SDK for Perl method Util::Connect(), the agent calls the vifp library method VmaTargetLib::VmaTarget.login().