Automating database resource increase

Increasing database resources can address customer's increased usage, performance issues, and data growth and scaling needs. The resource increase ensures high performance, reliability, and enhanced experience. As a BMC SaaS Operations team member, you can scale up a customer's database resources by upgrading storage or increasing CPU, RAM, and disk IO. You can increase resources on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) for improved performance. Only the Postgres database is supported.

Related topics

Automating-Service-Management-and-Operations-Management-tasks 

Benefits

Automating the database resource increase process offers the following benefits:

  • Decreased manual effort and time required to fulfill these requests.  
  • Automatic sending and tracking of approvals to multiple teams before initiating a change request.  
  • Automated creation of normal and emergency change requests. 

Scenario

Database resources

Apex Global has identified that one of its customers, Calbro, is facing slow performance and increased latency due to a surge in users and data. Apex Global's SaaS Operations team analyzes the performance issues and identifies that increased load on the database is causing these issues. The team decides to increase the database resources dedicated to Calbro. The team submits a service request that upgrades the database instance and increases the storage capacity to improve performance, accommodate the increased workload, and ensure optimal performance for all users. 

Automation workflow

The DBA Postgres team submits the BMC Helix Digital Workplace DB Resource Increase catalog service request. Access to these requests is restricted to DBA team members. The request triggers an automation workflow and is circulated to various teams for approval. Once approved, a change request is generated. The fulfillment steps differ based on whether the request is normal or urgent.  After the request is completed, the status is updated, the user is notified, and the request is closed.

The automated process performs the following steps:

  1. Sends the request to the DBA team for approval.
  2. After the DBA team approves the request, sends it to the SaaSOps Cloud Approval team.
  3. After the request is approved, creates a change request.
  4. Performs the following steps for a normal change request:
    1. Moves the status from Draft to Request for authorization.
    2. Transitions the request status in the following order: Request for change > Request for authorization > Planning in progress > Scheduled for review.
    3. Sends an approval request to the Postgres team.
    4. Sends an approval request to the customer when the Postgres team approves the request, and then moves the status to Scheduled for approval.
    5. Sets the status to Scheduled after the customer approves.
    6. Implements the database resource increase on the date specified in the request.
    7. Completes the change request, notifies the user, and closes the request.
      The following image outlines the automation process for a normal change request:
      Automation process for a normal change request
  5. Performs the following steps for an emergency change request:
    1. Moves the status from Draft to Implementation in progress.
    2.  Implements the database resource increase.
    3. Completes the change request, notifies the user, and closes the request. 
      The following image outlines the automation process for an emergency change request:
      Automation process for an emergency change request
  6. If any approval is rejected, the change request remains in the Planning in progress status, and the Postgres team manually processes it.

 

 

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