Workflow Automation
1.1 feature overview
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Agenda
 Workflow Automation (WFA) Overview
 What is WFA?
 Why use WFA?
 WFA Capabilities
 Workflow Automation 1.1 Feature overview
What is Workflow Automation?
 A framework
– Create automated tasks in a consistent way
– “Orchestrator Lite”
 An operations portal
– Click to perform common tasks
– Provide self-service if you like
 A point of integration
– Provide web services for use
by higher-order systems
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The Motivation for Automation
 Identified Gaps
– Processes are mostly manual, with many steps and ad-hoc decisions
– Customers look to automate processes using their own unique settings
– Many storage processes include non-storage (non-ONTAP) components
– Storage teams do not have programming skill sets
– Many operators are not storage experts
 Goals
– Create an extendable storage automation platform
– Allow easy creation of custom workflows
– Make workflow execution simple and accessible
What Can You Do With WFA?
 Automation of operational storage tasks for repeatable
automatic execution
– Create volumes, qtrees, shares, etc.
– Dynamically allocate resources
according to a plan
– Make calls to other services
and systems (e.g. VMware)
 Define templates which can be implemented as policies.
 Integrate with OnCommand Provisioning and Protection
manager - “Storage Catalog” if required
 Customization effort is the limit
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Workflow Automation 1.1 feature list
WFA 1.1 release has the following list of new features.
We will walk through each of these features in this
presentation
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Parallel Execution of Workflows
Resource Reservation
Looping in Workflows
Workflow Approval
Authorization for Workflows
Visualization Enhancements
Cluster Mode Support
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Workflow Automation 1.1 Features , Contd…
 Visualization Enhancements
 Cluster Mode Support
– Cache, Dictionary, Commands, Filters Finders
& Sample Workflows
 Perl support for writing commands
 SNMP Alerts
 Upgrade contents
 Migration process support
 Qualify ONTAP versions and platforms
 Online Help/contextual help
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Pre-defined Workflow Automation Content
The Workflow Automation installation comes with
a feature rich set of pre-defined components.
 Example Workflows:
– Examples of the most common workflows. Only
minor edits required for a ‘custom fit’
 Certified Building Blocks:
– Tested and Supported components used to create
workflows
– Identified by a
 Intent:
– Provide samples & examples as part of the product
– Enable automation as part of the WFA installation
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Workflow Automation
1.1 features in details
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Parallel workflow execution
 Execute more than one workflow at a time
 Supports related and unrelated workflows
 Resource Reservation
– Facilitates separation between workflow
planning and actual execution
– Ensures planned resources availability for
actual execution
– Accounts for multiple scheduled workflows
to complete successfully.
– Consistent previews with what is actually
provisioned.
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WFA 1.1 : Parallel Execution
Parallel Execution
Looping in Workflow
 Main goal is to provide flexibility for implementing
complicated scenario's
 Repeat a row execution for “n” number of times
 Example scenario: Create a vol & 6 qtrees from
“qtree01 to qtree06”
 Dynamic number of iterations
 Example scenario: Create a number of LUNs
according to a total size needed and a max size
per LUN
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Approval process for workflows
 This feature will allow incremental workflow
execution based on certain conditions.
Examples of these conditions would be :
 Time passes
 Response from an higher order system , say an
Orchestrator software
 Upon validation from the first section of the workflow
 This feature will enable
– Resume execution after
 Failure/Abort/Cancel
– Commenting/approval notes an execution.
– Re scheduled execution
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WFA 1.1 : Approval Support for conditional execution
Authorization for workflows
 Provides RBAC like capabilities
 To support Authorization for workflows, categories will
be added.
 Enables self service model where specific operators
are assigned to relevant categories
 Only Architect or Admin will be able to:
– Define categories
– Assign workflow to categories (0 or more)
– Define if a category is used to enables/disable
access control or not (RBAC)
– Assign operators to categories. (Only relevant
when a category is used for RBAC)
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WFA 1.1 : Categories
Enhanced Visualization
 Orchestrator like view for workflow execution
 Graphical representation with color coded
progression.
 Enables more visualized user friendly views
for workflow progression.
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WFA 1.1 : Enhanced Visualization
Cluster Mode ( C Mode) Support
 Cluster Mode support in WFA includes
– Cache – Acquiring cache/inventory data on c-mode
specific objects such as vserver etc.
– Dictionary – Defining dictionary objects needed for c-mode
command-mapping and finders.
– Commands – Defining c-mode specific commands such as
“create vserver” and “volume move” as well as redefining
7-mode commands so they can work in a c-mode cluster.
 Cluster Mode ( C Mode) implementation assures
– The new c-mode content doesn’t break existing 7-mode
workflows.
– C-Mode and 7-Mode workflows can co-exist in a single
WFA installation.
– A single workflow is able to use both 7-mode and c-mode
commands.
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WFA 1.1 : Cluster Mode Support
WFA 1.1 support – Perl , SNMP & Online Help
 Perl support for writing commands
 Validation for User Inputs
 SNMP Alerts
 Migration process support
 Qualify ONTAP versions and
platforms
 Online Help/contextual help
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Where to go for more information?
 The WFA community site provides a wealth of information about
the product including:
– Product brief
– Presentations
– Product demos
– Documentation
– Sample workflows
 For more information contact the following:
– Prakash Subramanian – Product Manager
– Kevin Hill – MEI Solutions Architect
– Yaron Haimsohn - MEI Solutions Architect
– Vishwas H V – TME
– Dave Boon - MEI Solutions Architect
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