VMware vRealize Automation Cloud, released in September 2019, has introduced a new capability in VMware Service Broker that enables you to set criteria on how policies run when a consumer requests a catalog item. This feature is called the Service Broker Policy Criteria (catchy name, right?). In this blog post, we’ll dive into what this means for your organization and how it can help you better manage your cloud resources.

First, let’s talk about what Service Broker is and why it’s important. Service Broker is a feature in vRealize Automation Cloud that allows you to expose internal services as catalog items, making them available to consumers within your organization. This can include things like database instances, load balancers, and more. By exposing these services as catalog items, you can easily manage and orchestrate the provisioning of these resources across multiple clouds and environments.

Now, let’s talk about the Service Broker Policy Criteria feature. With this new capability, you can specify criteria that must be met before a policy will run. This means that you can control when policies are executed based on specific conditions or events. For example, you might want to run a policy only when a certain catalog item is requested, or only when a specific event occurs (like a change in the state of a resource).

Here are some scenarios where Service Broker Policy Criteria can be particularly useful:

1. Resource availability: You can use Service Broker Policy Criteria to ensure that policies only run when certain resources are available. For example, if you have a policy that creates a load balancer, you might only want to run that policy when there is enough capacity in your cloud environment to accommodate the new load balancer.

2. Compliance and security: You can use Service Broker Policy Criteria to ensure that policies only run when certain compliance or security requirements are met. For example, if you have a policy that provisions a database instance, you might only want to run that policy when the database instance is located in a specific availability zone or when certain security controls are in place.

3. Cost optimization: You can use Service Broker Policy Criteria to optimize your cloud costs by only running policies when certain conditions are met. For example, if you have a policy that provisions a load balancer, you might only want to run that policy during certain hours of the day or when demand is high.

4. Event-driven automation: You can use Service Broker Policy Criteria to trigger policies based on specific events. For example, if you have a policy that updates a catalog item, you might only want to run that policy when the catalog item is updated by a certain user or through a certain interface.

In summary, the new Service Broker Policy Criteria feature in vRealize Automation Cloud allows you to control when policies run based on specific conditions or events. This can help you optimize your cloud resources, improve compliance and security, and reduce costs. By leveraging this feature, you can create more efficient and effective automation workflows that help your organization achieve its goals.