Nutanix X-Play is a simple low-code/no-code automation tool built into the Nutanix Prism management controller  that helps you automate routine operations and tasks, and provides the ability to auto-remediate issues that may occur.

Using the X-Play tool, you can define a set of actions or a series of actions (called a “playbook”) based on a trigger, such as an event, alert, or an incoming webhook. The actions you can configure allow you to perform actions on your infrastructure, such as adding resources or running scripts. You can also integrate with APIs and 3rd party tools.

With the release of Prism Central 2021.7 comes four new out of the box X-Play actions to make life as an IT admin a little bit easier.

The 4 new actions are:

Add to Category - add a VM, host, or cluster to one or more categories

The ability to add a VM, host, or cluster to a category automatically has been an anticipated feature and is a great addition to the action gallery. Categories allow you to define security and protection policies among groups of VMs based on their category. With this feature you can create a playbook that will run when VMs are created that match a specific criteria. For example, you can construct a playbook that will act on a VM creation event and add the VM to a specific category if it matches a specific naming convention (using the string parser action to parse out this information).

Remove from Category - remove a VM, host, or cluster from one or more categories

The reverse of the first action, this action allows you to automatically remove a VM, host, or cluster from a category if desired. For example, if you have a VM that is overprovisioned you could trigger a playbook to add it to a specific category. The next time this VM is powered off, X-Play could trigger a playbook to automatically check to see if it is still overprovisioned, and if it is, take advantage of the VM being powered off to right size it (by reducing CPU or memory), and then remove it from the category.

Microsoft Teams - send a message to Microsoft Teams

Are you team Slack or team... Teams? There is already a built-in action for sending a message to Slack and now you can send a message directly to Microsoft Teams. Previously, you could accomplish this by using the REST API action but now instead of having to construct an API call all you need to do is provide your channel webhook URL and a message.

Ansible  - Trigger an Ansible workflow or job template

With this action, you can now trigger an Ansible workflow automatically upon an event or alert trigger. For example, it could act on a VM creation event and if the VM(s) contained the name "webserver" you could kick off an Ansible workflow to set up a LAMP stack on the VM(s).

Get hands on with your own Nutanix cluster and be guided through setting up your own playbook from start to finish by taking the Nutanix AIOps & Automation Test Drive.

To learn more about Nutanix’s AIOps & Automation solutions, please check out the following links:

• Nutanix Developers Community (code samples and API reference)
• Nutanix Prism
• Nutanix Calm
• YouTube Playlist

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