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Brocade Launches Workflow Composer, an Open Network Automation Platform for Greater IT Agility and Operational Efficiency
Published Jun 13, 2016
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Organizations today are embracing digital transformation to unleash new levels of business and IT agility that drive rapid innovation and competitive success. To help customers on this journey, Brocade is bringing network automation to IT operations with Workflow Composer—a network automation platform that leverages StackStorm technology to enable cross-domain workflows. BROCADE WORKFLOW COMPOSER provides DevOps-style NETWORK AUTOMATION for provisioning, validation, troubleshooting and remediation of multivendor networks -- while integrating with workflows across multiple IT domains for end-to-end automation.
Yarob Sakhnini, regional director MEMA at Brocade says, “Despite the fact that IT organizations largely aspire to emulate hyperscale cloud architectures in their own data centers, most network operations teams are still using tools and methodologies developed in the 1990s. The command-line interface (CLI) remains king, making device configuration and troubleshooting laborious and time-intensive. Traditional enterprise network management applications are also not agile or extensible enough to keep up with increasingly dynamic network requirements. As a result, far too large a percentage of network budgets are utilized simply for network maintenance, rather than for enabling the network to be a platform for innovation.”
As companies move to digitize their business, they need an underlying network architecture, including automation, which supports business agility. This New IP architecture enables the network to become a platform for innovation and for developing, delivering and securing new applications. According to a GLOBAL CIO SURVEY[1], 75 percent of respondents stated that the network is impacting their organizations' ability to achieve business goals. The lack of network automation and integration of the network with other IT operations and tool chains is the single biggest inhibitor to capitalizing on digitization.
Cross-Domain Automation Delivers IT Agility
The IT infrastructure is only as agile as its least agile component. The current lack of network automation and alignment of the network with IT operations and tool chains is the single biggest inhibitor to organizations capitalizing on digitalization. Well understood by organizations such as the mega-scale cloud providers, business agility cannot be achieved simply by automating and orchestrating one silo within the services delivery chain. Functional silos such as network, compute, storage, and applications must be stitched together to optimize service delivery.
Cross-domain automation enables on-demand services delivery and business agility by allowing the network to programmatically participate with other domains in the services delivery chain. The result is services execution that is measured in minutes, rather than in days or weeks.
The transformation to cross-domain automation can be challenging, as businesses add new skill sets and implement the necessary changes to network infrastructure, organizational, and operational models. The solution is breaking these tasks into digestible, evolutionary steps that businesses can navigate at their own pace.
Workflow-Centric Automation
To enable cross-domain automation, organizations must think in terms of workflows. A workflow is an execution plan expressed as a directed series of tasks. Workflows are a proven mechanism for converting business rules and policies into IT services delivery at scale. Given that a workflow is a collection of tasks which in many cases were once executed manually, they serve as a good foundation for developing automation.
Brocade Workflow Composer takes a workflow-centric approach to bringing network automation into IT operations. This approach can benefit organizations that are just starting or are well along the path to digital transformation. Brocade Workflow Composer is a highly flexible solution that provides turnkey, customizable, or do-it-yourself network workflow automation for network lifecycle management and integration with tool chains and processes from other IT domains.
Executing Workflows with a Microservices Framework
Brocade Workflow Composer is built on an open, extensible, microservices-based framework that leverages the power of DevOps methodologies, popular open source technologies, industry best practices, and a thriving technical community for peer collaboration and innovation. The Workflow Composer framework allows Brocade or third-party-developed workflows to be executed on physical or virtual networking platforms from Brocade and other vendors using community-preferred technologies and services.
With this open, workflow-centric approach, Workflow Composer enables automation across the entire network lifecycle–initial provisioning, configuration validation, troubleshooting, and remediation with event-driven automation. Workflow Composer leverages StackStorm technology, which includes over 1000 customizable sensors and actions for popular platforms and applications that help IT organizations implement automation quickly.
Automated Intelligence
The heart of Workflow Composer is a logic engine that includes customizable “if this then that” (IFTTT) logic, which responds to Workflow Composer’s customizable code-based sensors and workflows to determine and execute actions. For example, Workflow Composer could perform auto-remediation actions in response to data gathered by pre-configured sensors that continually review switch port health in the data center IP fabric. Detecting an intermittent failure on a switch port could trigger a remediation workflow that sends an alert to the on-duty IT operator. After gathering results on the operator course of corrective action, another workflow could later be developed to automatically execute this same corrective action to achieve a closed-loop remediation workflow that eliminates human involvement.
Collective intelligence added over time empowers Workflow Composer to identify and seamlessly respond to known conditions or deliver alerts for less common issues. Eliminating human involvement in time-consuming and often error-prone network changes enables IT operations to be more responsive and focus on innovation, rather than routine maintenance and troubleshooting.
Next-Generation Efficiency
The megascale cloud providers have proven that cross-domain automation workflows are critical to meeting agility and efficiency goals. Networks must be transitioned from siloed, manually intensive processes to cross-domain and programmable automation that leverages DevOps methodologies, popular open source technologies, and a broad software ecosystem to foster and achieve innovation. Workflow Composer takes the workflow-centric approach of stitching different workflows together to create an event-driven, closed-loop operation that allows the network to be managed and programmed, just like an application.
Programmable network automation opens new opportunities for innovation that administrators can create or obtain from the open source community. It’s a your-pace, your-way path to a powerful and readily usable network automation platform that can support the most advanced networks for the new digital era.
Packaging and Availability
Acquired by Brocade in March 2016, StackStorm built a thriving open source project and community which Brocade will continue to support and contribute to under the StackStorm name. StackStorm cross-domain integrations are available today on GITHUB.
Brocade Workflow Composer leverages StackStorm open source technology as well as other organic and open source technologies, while adding enterprise-class features and support. A trial version of Brocade Workflow Composer is available today. The product is currently scheduled to be released in the third quarter of 2016.
Posted by
VMD - [Virtual Marketing Department]
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