Simple Orchestrator Runbook to move software to a Definitive Media Library (DML)

While trying to think of an example that I could use to create a runbook in SCORCH using only the standard activities I remembered a situation in my previous role where the Service Desk were responsible for gathering the software and documentation required for calls from users to upgrade systems/install new software.

Because we used the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 and specifically the Applications part of the deployment share as our Definitive Media Library (DML) it was a multi stepped approach to gathering the software from the users, assessing it and then moving it into a structured area via the MDT console.

So I started to knock together an example runbook to help with this process.

Originally I wanted to utilise the PowerShell functionality in MDT, but ran into an issue as Orchestrator uses the 32-bit powershell but being a 64-bit only OS (2008 R2) meant I couldn't install the MDT PowerShell snap-ins to work with the 32-bit PS.

So I went for a more basic runbook that monitors for a definition file (text file with a specific name and specific content) which would then kick off the process of moving and structuring the files in a DML.

Watch the video for the runbook in action:

While this is a very simplistic runbook, it shows the processes of reusing the data on the databus.

I'm limited in my testlab with what I can do for demonstration purposes, but as an example of how this could be enhanced, you could add a SQL query rather than monitoring for a file to query a service desk application for a new Service Request or Change Control being raised of a certain category and take the information from that call using the SQL query and use that in the runbook instead of a text file.

Exported runbook: