Architecture

The components that comprise the TrueSight Orchestration product enable you to implement run book automation in your IT environment. The TrueSight Orchestration platform provides a highly scalable and fault-tolerant environment for automatically deploying and executing workflows.

This page provides product descriptions and a brief overview of each component. The following platform server and development components comprise the TrueSight Orchestration platform:

The platform components also compose a load-balanced cluster, known as the TrueSight Orchestration grid, as shown in the following figure. For more information about how you would deploy the platform components, see Installing.

BMC_Atrium_Orchestrator_basic_grid_new

TrueSight Orchestration Platform

TrueSight Orchestration is built on a grid architecture that offers high-availability, load-balancing, and industry-leading performance out of the box.

Repository

The repository stores TrueSight Orchestration content, such as adapters and workflow modules, in a central location. As the source of record, the repository is accessed by a multitude of users, including workflow developers, software testers, and system administrators. The repository enforces versioning and keeps a history of workflow modules through their revisions. It also offers role-based access control to ensure that users can access only the appropriate content. Each environment that you maintain, such as separate production and development environments, has its own repository. The Repository Manager, the user interface to the repository, enables you to manage and transfer content.

Configuration distribution peer

The configuration distribution peer (CDP) is the primary peer in the grid. It is the master application that controls all workflows, including load balancing across the grid of peers. It provides a central administration point and is a workflow execution engine. The CDP houses the TrueSight Orchestration Grid Manager application, which enables administrators to conduct various configuration, activation, and maintenance tasks on the grid. It can also host adapters and workflow modules, which are used by the grid to communicate with external systems. Typical grid configurations include one CDP, although a grid can house two CDPs in high-availability (HA-CDP) mode.

A CDP automatically fails over to another available peer when the host peer becomes inoperative.

For more information about HA-CDP configurations, see Deployment use cases.

Activity peer

An activity peer (AP) executes workflows. Like a CDP, the AP can host adapters, but it does not provide administrative services. When you add an AP to the grid, the AP automatically downloads activated workflows from the CDP to provide high-availability workflow load balancing. If a CDP becomes unavailable, the AP continues to process workflows with the other available peers in the same grid.

Lightweight activity peer

Lightweight activity peers (LAPs) host adapters, but unlike the other peer types, they cannot execute workflows. Because they present a very small footprint, LAPs can be hosted on the same servers that house the third-party applications with which the grid communicates. LAPs are particularly helpful when a third-party system requires the adapter to make calls locally, or an adapter requires access to software libraries that cannot be installed outside of the third-party application.

LAPs connect directly into the grid to traverse network boundaries and provide high availability communications over multiple paths. While they do not add workflow processing capacity, LAPs can offload protocol overhead from a peer, thus increasing system throughput.

TrueSight Orchestration Operator Control Panel

The TrueSight Orchestration Operator Control Panel software is a web-based interface that enables operators, such as service desk personnel, network operators, and IT technicians, to run workflows in a semi-automated mode. Using TrueSight Orchestration Operator Control Panel, operators can fulfil requests for IT services more accurately and efficiently while maintaining full control of workflow execution. Operators can manually launch a workflow, follow its progress in a graphical view, step-through workflows interactively, and debug workflows. Each instance of TrueSight Orchestration Operator Control Panel can attach to only one peer and provides access to a single grid.

BMC Remedy Single Sign-On

TrueSight Orchestration uses Remedy Single Sign-On (Remedy SSO or RSSO) authentication service for authentication and authorization.

Remedy SSO supports LDAP and local user authentication.

You may be using one of the following Remedy SSO options:

Embedded Remedy SSO, which is installed with TrueSight Orchestration Platform CDP, repository, and HA-CDP components
External Remedy SSO

The embedded version does not require an external database. It uses the TrueSight Orchestration's internal HSQL database (HSQLDB). The embedded version uses TrueSight Orchestration's Platform capabilities for high-availability (resulting in easier HA configuration management).

For more information about external Remedy SSO, see Remedy Single Sign-On architecture.

TrueSight Orchestration Development Studio

TrueSight Orchestration Development Studio is a graphical authoring tool used to create, modify, and test workflows. It is a thick-client application that can be installed on Windows operating system. Using TrueSight Orchestration Development Studio, you can edit rules and schedules to trigger workflows automatically by external events or at regular intervals. Your developers can maintain control of workflows in their local TrueSight Orchestration Development Studio environment or through an external source code management (SCM) system. However, before the workflows can be activated on a grid, they first must be exported to the repository.

TrueSight Orchestration Content

TrueSight Orchestration Content includes base and application adapters, operations actions and workflows, and run books. Operations actions and workflows are groups of processes, schedules, rules, and configuration items for specific operational disciplines. The processes, schedules, rules, and configuration items are based on the IT infrastructure Library (ITIL).

You can use TrueSight Orchestration content to develop additional workflows specific to your environment.

Adapters

Adapters establish connections and facilitate communications between TrueSight Orchestration workflows and the external applications and support systems. TrueSight Orchestration provides the following classes of adapters:

Base adapters, which interact with external systems using standard protocols, such as JDBC, Telnet, SSH, JMS, and through the native operating system command line. They are system integrators, gateways, or connectors used to translate Operations Actions to standard access protocols for integration of workflows with third party applications or devices.
Application adapters, which interface with the API of an external application to issue remote calls to the application. They are system integrators, gateways, or connectors used to translate Operations Actions to vendor-specific application actions using vendor APIs (such as BMC Remedy AR System or Microsoft Active Directory).

Modules

TrueSight Orchestration Operations Actions Management modules and utilities are collections of predefined workflows that automate common IT tasks. These "building block" processes can be used individually or incorporated into larger, more complex workflows.

Operations Actions Management modules contain workflows that perform tasks that are common to a specific system type, such as Create Changes and Update Incidents in a Change Management system.
Operations Action Utilities contain workflows that perform tasks that are common to an operating system, such as Create Directory and Delete File.

Run books

TrueSight Orchestration run books contain solutions to specific use cases. They include predefined adapter and module workflows that perform functions that offer solutions to targeted IT management problems.