Data models are at the core of what makes Intersight both powerful and flexible for managing and integrating not only Cisco devices, but also third-party integrations and custom extensibility by end users.
Data models, which are built into Intersight, allow for any specific type of data object or physical device being managed by Cisco Intersight to have their own individual structure, including properties (attributes) and methods (actions that can be taken against the object/device).
These devices are described within Intersight through the data model built by the vendor, which allows for any specific device type to be developed so that it can include any functionality accessible via API to be exposed within Intersight, whether these are Cisco or third-party vendor devices.
However, users of Intersight Cloud Orchestrator can extend the platform even further using custom data types, which users define. If no other data type such as a string or integer meets the needs for a workflow, these custom data types allow for defining a new type object within Intersight.
These custom data types can be simple or complex objects that can be used at workflow inputs, they can leverage any combination of one or more string/integer/float/boolean/enum/JSON inputs, and they can have specific constraints and validations assigned.
Custom data types can be defined and used against any API, whether an Intersight claimed device, any public API accessible from Intersight, or a private/on-prem API that is accessible via an Intersight Assist appliance.
Custom data types used within tasks or workflows can also be exported from Intersight, so that they can be used by anyone else who imports that workflow.