Submit Change Requests

As an Admin Portal user, you can request a change to cloud accounts, services, resources, or virtual resources. Examples of changes that you could request include:

  • Decommission a database.
  • Change the owner of an auto scaling group.
  • Add more memory, CPU, or storage resources to a VM.
  • If you change custom attribute values for a virtual service, its VM children don't inherit the new values. However, if you change ownership or expiry information for a virtual service, its children inherit the new values. For more information, see Order of Precedence for Metadata and Service Settings.
  • Some requests for resource changes may involve an automatic reboot during change request fulfillment. For information on whether a reboot will be performed for resource changes, see Resource Changes That Require Reboots.

Most of the resources and virtual services that belong to cloud accounts added to Commander are considered to be inventoried, which means that users can directly manage them through the Admin Portal.

However, you can also request changes to XaaS (Anything-as-a-Service) resources. These are non-inventoried, generic resources that belong to the following types of deployments:

  • AWS stacks, GCP deployments, and Azure Resource Groups

    For example, you could make changes to a Security Group deployed through an AWS Stack.

    VMs, databases, load balancers, and auto scaling groups are inventoried resources, and they can't be changed using an XaaS change request. For more information, see Generic resources.

  • Terraform resources

    For example, you could make a change request to add a port to a firewall that was deployed through Terraform to VMware NSX.

    Terraform deployment resources are considered to be non-inventoried resources in Commander.

Request changes to resources and virtual services

You can request changes to resources, such as VMs and instances, databases, load balancers, auto scaling groups, or stacks. You can also request changes to virtual services, such as vCenter vApps.

Access:

Views > Inventory

Available to:

All Access Rights Levels

  1. Click the Infrastructure or Applications tab.
  2. Select a service or virtual service from the Inventory tree:

    As you expand the objects in the tree view, it's often easier to select a service or resource from the tabs in the table view that's to the right of the tree.

  3. Select Actions > Change Management > Request Service Change or Actions > Request Service Change.

    The available menu options depend on the selected object type.

    You can also right-click and select an action.

  4. In the Request Service Change dialog, provide the required input in form fields, and click OK to submit your change request.

    If there's no form that requires input for the change request, when prompted, just Confirm to submit your change request.

Request changes to cloud accounts

Access:

Views > Inventory

Available to:

All Access Rights Levels

  1. Click the Infrastructure or Applications tab.
  2. Select a cloud account from the Inventory tree:

    This may be an AWS account, GCP account, Kubernetes cluster, Azure subscription, Microsoft SCVMM server, or VMware vCenter server.

    The requested changes will apply only to the cloud account (that is, the root object in the Inventory tree), not the child inventory or infrastructure elements that belong to the cloud account.

  3. Select Actions > Change Management > Request Service Change or Actions > Request Service Change.

    The available menu options depend on the selected object type.

    You can also right-click and select an action.

  4. In the Request Service Change dialog, provide the required input in form fields, and click OK to submit your change request.

    If there's no form that requires input for the change request, when prompted, just click Confirm to submit your change request.

Request changes to XaaS resources

You can use change requests to make changes to generic, non-inventoried resources that belong to the following deployment types:

  • AWS stacks
  • GCP deployments
  • Azure resource groups
  • Terraform backends

Request changes to cloud deployment resources

You can request changes to the generic resources that belong to the following deployments: AWS stacks, GCP deployments, or Azure resource groups.

Access:

Views > Inventory

Available to:

All Access Rights Levels

  1. Click the Infrastructure or Applications tab.
  2. Select an AWS Stack, GCP Deployment, or Azure Resource Group.
  3. Click the Resources tab.

    The resources that belong to the selected deployment are displayed in Resource tab.

  4. Right-click a non-inventoried, generic resource that you want to run a change request on and select Request Service Change.

    You can determine if a resource is inventoried in the following ways.

    • A distinct icon is displayed in the Type column.
    • If you double-click a resource, a details page will display if the resource is inventoried, and from that page you can access further actions or change requests for the resource.
  5. Select a change request and click OK.

    No selection dialog is shown if only one change request is available.

  6. In the Request Service Change dialog, provide the required input in the form fields, and click OK to submit your change request.

    If there's no form that requires input for the change request, when prompted, click Confirm to submit your change request.

Request changes to Terraform resources

You can request that changes be made to the resources that belong to a Terraform backend. In Commander, these are all considered to be generic resources. For example, you could use a change request to make changes to a target group or a security group.

Access:

Views > Inventory

Available to:

All Access Rights Levels

  1. Click the Terraform tab.
  2. Click the Backends tab.
  3. Click the hyperlinked name of a backend that lists the deployed resources you want to change.
  4. Click the Resources tab.
  5. Select the resource you want to run a change request on and click Request Change.
  6. Select a change request and click OK.
    • Only change requests that have been configured for an XaaS Resource will be available.
    • No selection dialog is shown if only one change request is available.
  7. In the Request Service Change dialog, provide the required input in form fields, and click OK to submit your change request.

    If there's no form that requires input for the change request, when prompted, just Confirm to submit your change request.