Dealing with SMA runbooks

SMA runbooks consist of PowerShell workflows, which include PowerShell cmdlets to perform specified tasks in an automated manner.

The Runbooks can be managed from the RUNBOOKS tab under the automation workspace WAP portal. Service providers can write PowerShell workflows and runbooks anywhere, and then import them in the WAP SMA.

The RUNBOOKS tab in the automation workspace provides functionality to perform the following basic operations on runbooks:

• Start the execution of any runbook

• Import a runbook to WAP (PS1 file)

• Export any existing runbook to the PS1 file on a local system

• Delete any existing runbook from WAP

Note that there is no GUI (drag and drop item) available for authoring runbooks such as System Center Orchestrator (SCO); it must be written manually in PowerShell workflows.

Sample runbooks

Windows Azure Pack along with SMA by default provides a few samples of runbooks that can be used and leveraged as a reference to author new runbooks.

The following steps outline...