HCL Workload Automation, Version 9.4

Overview

Use the Application Lab to create, run, and monitor a set of simple business processes that address specific business needs.

This is an interface dedicated to persons who require control and autonomy when driving workloads, but that are not required to handle complicated workload automation concepts. They can deliver business value faster with an easy-to-use interface.

Your organization might have a team of IT experts that automate complicated workloads. However, there might be individuals, or groups of individuals who could benefit from an easy-to-use tool to automate their personal business tasks. These individuals could be considered application developers. With the assistance of an administrator, they can be set up to use the Application Lab to develop their own sequence of steps or process and then choose to either automate the process or just run it on-demand when needed.

You can use Application Lab to accomplish a number of business tasks. Create a process to run any number of steps where steps can perform an array of business tasks. A step can perform simple operations such as:
  • Transfer files to and from a server using FTP, SSH, or other protocols.
  • Run a command on IBM® i systems.
  • Run a program or script either locally or remotely
  • Call a web service
  • Run a Java™ class
  • Allow Java applications in the same network to send and receive messages to and from a JMS destination.
  • Run queries, SQL statements, and other actions on databases.
By integrating with external applications, it can also perform more complex operations such as:
  • Collect, analyze, and assemble insightful business reports using IBM Cognos®.
  • Integrate high volumes of data on demand from multiple data sources using IBM InfoSphere® DataStage®.
  • Control SAP process integration communication channels.
  • Invoke Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) providers to manage automation and provisioning resources.
  • Integrate with IBM SmartCloud® Provisioning to create an on-demand network environment.
  • Run Sterling Connect: Direct programs to transfer one or more files from a primary node to a secondary node.
  • Enable communications among applications that run in different distributed environment at different times, basing on WebSphere® MQ message exchange.
  • Execute Salesforce batch APEX classes.
  • Automate ERP workflows containing Oracle E-Business and Oracle PeopleSoft applications.
  • Run SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence reports.
  • Help enterprises find insights into new and emerging types of data by running BigInsights for Hadoop workbooks and applications.
  • Schedule JSR 352 Java Batch applications and integrate them into more composite workflows, providing monitoring and restart capabilities.
  • Manage Internet of Things devices connected to an MQTT message broker.
  • Integrate with Apache Oozie to simplify and manage the execution of Oozie workflows and Hadoop jobs like MapReduce, Hive, Pig, and Sqoop.
  • Run actions on the IBM Cloudant database, on its documents, or attachments.

Another way application developers can quickly create a process is to import an existing Cron or Windows Task scheduler job and benefit from the full set of HCL Workload Automation capabilities to better manage your workload automation. You eliminate the burden of maintaining multiple schedulers and HCL Workload Automation processes are not host-dependent and can be run and monitored on a multiple workstations.

In addition to defining the steps to be performed as part of your process, you also decide whether to run your process on demand or schedule your process to run daily, weekly, monthly, or every 3 days, or just on non-working days. You might even choose to run it when a particular event occurs. You define triggers to determine when your process runs. Whatever the schedule may be to run your process, you can also choose to publish your process to the Self-Service Catalog. The process is mapped to a service and you can conveniently submit the service to run from a mobile device whenever needed.

The interface contains contextual user assistance reducing the complexity of the tasks to assist users in completing them without the necessity of consulting additional documentation.

In some cases, to integrate with external applications you might need to complete some prerequisite steps. To find information about prerequisite steps see the user interface or, if you want to deepen your knowledge, see Creating job definitions in the Dynamic Workload Console User's Guide.