What is the advantage of using vCenter Orchestrator over scripting or programing ?

vCO provides an orchestration platform that runs on top of scripted operations (vCO actions) and programs (vCO plug-ins). This platform provides the following facilities:

• A stateless workflow engine server. All the process flows and data flows are stored in a database.
• Centralization. No scripts scattered across all the orchestrated entities.
• Checkpointing. The ability to resume a workflow from the point at which it stopped in case of system maintenance or failure.
• A policy engine to trigger workflows on events.
• Version history.
• Several internal object helpers.
• An advanced vCenter plug-in that provides authentication, session management, object caching, exception handling and event handling.
• Other multi-purpose plug-ins (detailed later).
• A drag and drop workflow development environment with a library of modular, re-usable workflows.
• A workflow packaging mechanism that supports digital rights management.
• Different interfaces from which to start a workflow.
• A library with hundreds of building-block workflows and actions which you can chain together in your own workflows.

As a result, vCO eases the development, execution, troubleshooting, and maintenance of custom processes across different technologies.