Creating Actions Extensions

You can extend the
vSphere Client
by adding actions. You can add actions to existing vSphere objects, or create actions associated with a new type of vSphere object.
In the
vSphere Client
, actions represent commands that the user can issue to manage, administer, or otherwise manipulate the objects in the vSphere environment. Each action in the
vSphere Client
is associated with one or more specific vSphere object types. For example, the user might perform an action to change the power state of a selected Virtual Machine object, or to cause a Host object to enter or exit maintenance mode.
When you add an action extension to the
vSphere Client
user interface layer, you must also extend the
vSphere Client
service layer with a Java service. The Java service is responsible for performing the action operation on the target vSphere object.

Use Cases

You can extend the
vSphere Client
by adding actions associated with an existing type of vSphere object, or with a new type of vSphere object. You might add actions to an existing object type if you have created a custom version of that vSphere object, such as a custom host.
In addition to creating the action extension in the user interface layer, you might need to add a Java service to the
vSphere Client
service layer. This Java service is used to perform the action operation on the target vSphere object.