Orchestrator Connections VS. Automation Assets in SMA

When working in Orchestrator and using integration packs you create a lot of Connections to different environments.   This gave you the ability to store encrypted credentials as well as server names to use in your Orchestrator activities. We have the ability to do the same thing in SMA using assets and inline scripts.  To replicate the storing of credentials and servers we will use Automation Assets. To create an asset click on Automation then Assets then Add Settings.   First we will create the encrypted credentials by clicking Add Credential.   Next we will select PS Credential to create credential and give them a name and description that let you know what these credentials are going to be used for.   Next we will add our username and password for the account (you will notice the password is encrypted).   Now that we have our credentials added we need to add our server name. To do this click Add Setting then Add Variable.   Next select String for the variable type and put a description of the server in the Name section.     Next enter the name of the server that you want to connect to. You will notice you can also encrypt the server name if you would like.   Now we are ready to add them to our SMA runbook. To do this we first need to add them at the start of the script as variables.   Now using -PSComputer and -PSCredential we can add them to the end of our inline script and use them to run our script with the Credentials we want on the Server we want.   Our final outcome will look like this. You can use this technique for any credentials or servers.