Change-Initiated Job
Goal
The goal of this use case is to be enable a change manager to execute routine and simple automation jobs without the intervention of the operations team.
The following video (04:36 min) explains this use case and provides a quick demonstration of the capability.
In this use case, a change manager initiates and plans a change that requires job execution on selected sets of configuration items (CIs). These jobs are simple and routine jobs such as deployment jobs.
For such routine jobs, task templates having all the job details are configured and enabled in automation system. This task template is leveraged by change management and associated with a Request For Change (RFC). The automation system receives notification to execute the job only when the RFC is approved reaches its schedule time. The job is executed immediately by the automation system.
The automation system sends notification to the change management to update the corresponding change status, once the job is executed with either success or failure. If execution of the job fails, an incident is created.
This use case can be executed in an on premises deployment or in a hybrid deployment.
Products needed in this use case
- An automation system such as BMC Server Automation (running on premises)
- An intermediate transport layer such as BMC Atrium Orchestrator (running on premises)
- A change management system such as BMC Remedy Change Management (running either on premises or on demand)
Benefit
The main benefit of this integration is to expedite simple and routine automation jobs such as File Deploy jobs without the intervention of the operations team.
Workflow
The following diagram depicts the workflow of the Change-Initiated Job use case.
The following table describes the process stages and their descriptions.
Stage | Description |
|---|---|
1 | A job operator configures the job details in the automation system. |
2 | Job details are published to create a task template. |
3 | BMC Atrium Orchestrator sends the job details to the change management system. |
4 | The task template is registered on the change management system |
5 | Change Manager associates the task template to the change record |
6 | Certain changes can occur either in the change record or in the original job definition. |
7 | Change Manager approves the change record and task is activated. |
8 | After the task status is "Ready to Execute", BMC Atrium Orchestrator polls for the updates. |
9 | Automation system runs the job immediately. |
10 | Automation system notifies the job status (Success/Failure) to the change management system. |
11 | If the job execution fails, an incident is created in the incident management system. If the job execution is successful, the RFC is marked as complete. |
Where to go from here