YES! A NEW SOFTLAYER PLUG-IN IS AVAILABLE ON TOP OF WORkLOAD AUTOMATION

Would you like to use a virtual machine (VM) for your business but are afraid you will end up spending too much time provisioning, deprovisioning or managing it?
 
Do you need a VM, but you surrender because of the high cost for just a short period?
 
Would you like to schedule a daily/monthly backup of your VM, change its status, stop, restart, resize, or add memory to it, only when it's needed and automatically?

​It’s now possible! HCL Products and Platforms provides a new solution pack on top of Workload Automation, containing plug-ins to automate dynamic provisioning and de-provisioning of virtual machines, on as-needed basis!

We have already talked about this new pack in the previous blog Why you should manage cloud resources as an integral part of your business workflow, but let’s focus your attention on the SoftLayer plug-in functionality. Taking advantage of all the endless capabilities of Workload Automation, the SoftLayer plug-in can perform many of the costly and boring SoftLayer operations in an automated, programmable and highly reliable way.
 
Define a SoftLayer job from the Workload Designer of the Dynamic Workload Console, and simply choose if you want to order a new Virtual Server or manage an existing one.

Ready To Order?

Do you want to provision a new resource? Select “Create New Virtual Server”.

Define the name of the new resource and specify the settings needed, like the operating system you want to install on the instance, the location where your new server must be hosted geographically, the amount of memory you require, and so on. And, after selecting the option for either a monthly or hourly virtual server billing, you are ready to order!

​Click Save and add the SoftLayer job to your business workflow.
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Just wait the job will appear successful from the Monitoring view of the Dynamic Workload Console, and you can start to use the resource as you like!
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What's Next?

Once you've added a Virtual Server to your SoftLayer customer account, you have unlimited interaction with this device. To do that, create a new SoftLayer job and select “Manage Existing Virtual Server”.

Select the virtual server that you want to reconfigure from the list of all the virtual servers associated with your account, and simply select the action that you want to run.
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Do you need to stop, start or restart your machine due to a migration? Simply select the "Change Power State" option and choose the desired action. Would you rather capture an image of the virtual server to quickly replicate its configuration? Select "Take Snapshot" and enter the image name and any comments you need.

Do you no longer need a server? Just select "Remove" and you won’t have to pay for an unused resource any longer!

You can add one or more SoftLayer jobs in the job stream that automates your business process flow, schedule and monitor it to provide a flexible and dynamic allocation of cloud resources to your workload!
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​SoftLayer is just one of the Cloud Automation plug-ins available in the new solution pack provided by HCL Products and Platforms. You can connect to the most important public cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services, for more information read Easily manage your Amazon EC2 resources with Workload Automation.
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If you want to know more about HCL Products and Platforms Solution Pack and the SoftLayer  plug-in, contact:  Gerald Sood at Jerry.sood@hcl.com for US, or FRANCESCA CURZI at francesca.curzi@hcl.com for EMEA.

I’d love to hear about your experiences with the new SoftLayer plug-in, so leave a comment here or send an e-mail to Vincenzina Leone vincenzina.leone@hcl.com.

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Vincenzina Leone 
Software Engineer at HCL
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Vincenzina works as a Software Engineer at HCL Products and Platforms in Rome software development laboratory. She has a degree in Math and she loves seeing a mathematical aspect of everything in daily life!

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