Exploring Storage Management Efficiencies and Provisioning - Understanding IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center and IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center with Advanced Provisioning

180 Exploring Storage Management Efficiencies and Provisioning

IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center with Advanced Provisioning also provides

the ability to clone and copy any of the provided, custom-made, or created

workflows, so that you may gain productivity by using working examples to make

a start on new development. Additional benefits include the fact that these

workflows are already working, and that they provide some of the standard

names and structures that need to be used in structured approach to

programming.

7.7 Custom workflow creation

It is not our intent to document, step-by-step, how to create a custom workflow of

your own here. Rather, we would like to give you a high-level overview and

breakdown of workflows and their components’ interrelationships to give you an

understanding of the power workflow reuse has, and its potential. You can find

detailed instructions on creating your own custom workflows in the IBM Tivoli

Provisioning Manager Operator’s Guide.

Simply stated, a workflow is a sequenced set of one or more Java plug-ins. It can

be large and complex, contain other nested workflows, or can be as simple as

executing a single Java plug-in. In this way, workflows make it possible to build

powerful library of processes that can be assembled to meet any data center or

storage process requirement.

To be able to configure, customize, and successfully execute various workflows,

you need to create, configure, and manage Java plug-ins, and logical device

operations, as described in detail in the IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager

Operator’s Guide. All the configuration procedures including workflows, Java

plug-ins, and logical device operations are available from the System

configuration and workflow management navigation tree (see Figure 7-11).

Figure 7-11 System Configuration and Workflow Management tab

Chapter 7. Workflows 181

7.7.1 Workflow plug-ins

A Java plug-in is the Java class that contains the interface or the protocol code

that will interact with the devices in the data center, including the IBM Tivoli

Intelligent Orchestrator Service itself (if installed). A simple workflow can be a

wrapper for a Java plug-in, describing the plug-in’s input and output

requirements through its set of input and output variables. You can see a

graphical representation of this in Figure 7-12. The workflow performs an action

on the external environment, such as creating or removing a zone, adding or

removing a zone member, creating or removing a storage volume, mapping a

storage volume to a server, and so on.

Figure 7-12 A workflow executing a Java plug-in

The workflow framework and the plug-in design make it possible to manage any

data center asset. Full editing capabilities for workflow design are provided, and

existing workflows can be copied, referenced, or extended. This allows you to

begin with a standardized process and customize it.

The Deployment Engine supports a standard approach in creating system

solutions. By being able to have multiple references to the enterprise’s standard

workflows, process standards can be established.

Changes to the data center or storage environment made by the Deployment

Engine are reversible in the following way: By implementation, key workflows

that build an environment can also have another workflow to break down that

environment, and return the components to a resource pool.

Attention: We created a video showing how to work with custom plug-ins.

Please take a look at the TPM_Overview video. Please follow the instructions

in Appendix A, “Additional material” on page 223 to download the video.

Outputparameter

Outputparameter

Java plug-in

Inputparameter

Inputparameter

Inputparameter

182 Exploring Storage Management Efficiencies and Provisioning

In case you would like to import your own Java plug-in, you can use the import

Java plug-in function as shown in Figure 7-13.

Figure 7-13 Java plug-in import

To run an already existing Java plug-in, simply create a new workflow, browse

through the left pane until you find the plug-in that you would like to run, and drag

and drop it from the left pane into the right pane where you created your

workflow. This is shown in Figure 7-14.

Chapter 7. Workflows 183

Figure 7-14 Drag and drop plug-in into workflow

Another possibility for how to run your custom Java or Jython applet, using

custom parameters, is shown in Figure 7-15. Here we created a new workflow

and used the Assignment function that is provided with IBM Tivoli Provisioning

Manager. Simply drag and drop the function into the workflow and you can

specify your parameters.