8.6.2.1. Orchestration Workflow Creation Control in a vCloud
Before implementing orchestration workflows in a vCloud environment answer the following questions:
Who approved the orchestration workflow?
Why do we need it?
What impact does this orchestration workflow have on the vCloud environment?
Who needs to be informed when this workflow is executed?
Answer these questions for all orchestration workflows that are built into the vCloud. VMware recommends that two separate teams be involved during development of orchestration workflows.
The Orchestration Management team focuses on business requirements gathering and business unit negotiations.
The COE team focuses on technical development of workflows. This provides for the implementation of consistent standards across all orchestration workflows in an organization.
Development of orchestration workflows is very complex. Orchestration engages with multiple internal and external systems in a vCloud environment, so a complete development lifecycle must be followed with dedicated support from the application and business teams.
Appropriate testing should be completed at every stage of development, including unit, system, and integration testing before moving orchestration workflows into production. As part of development testing, operational testing that includes performance and scalability scenarios for end-to-end automation processes must also be completed. In many cases, orchestration workflows themselves may be able to withstand new loads, but external or downstream systems may experience a performance impact. A clear roll-back procedure must be established for exceptions to protect against impacting production functions.