Brief History of Event Driven Automation (aka RunBook Automation); plus practical Workflow patterns for IT/devops automation.

1. Event Driven Automation
and Workflows
Dmitri Zimine
CTO, StackStorm
#Stack_Storm

2. About myself
• Past:
– Opalis Software (now aka M$ SC Orchestrator)
– VMware
• Present:
– StackStorm CTO & co-founder
– Mistral core team member
– I don’t ops (but most Stormers do)

3. Agenda
1. High level:
Brief History Of Event Driven
Automation
2. Into the weeds:
Workflow patterns for IT automation

4. Business Process Management

9. VMware
CA
BMC
OpsWare HP
CISCO
Microsoft
BMC
Citrix

12. The Problem is Bigger
than it was
5 years ago

15. More tools…

16. Still…
• Manual operations
• Custom scripts

18. Solution
• Event Driven Automation – with modern twist
– FBAR (saving 1532 hours/day)
– Salt Conf - Event Driven Infrastructure
– Microsoft – new Azure Automation (RunBooks)

19. Solution: Event Driven Automation

20. Event Driven Automation
Actions
Trigger
Rules
Infrastructure – Cloud – Applications – Tools – Processes
{.}
Sensors
Call
Workflows
/
/

21. WORKFLOWS

22. Zoom to Workflow, and Get Practical
• From now on I focus on workflow
• Reminder: EDA != Workflow, but Workflow is a
big part of it.

23. Patterns vs Practice
• ~100 patterns
http://www.workflowpatterns.com/
• Practice – IMAO: only few sufficient
• Workflow do two things well:
– Keeps state
– Carry data across systems

24. Basic: Sequence
...
tasks:
t1_update_config:
action: core.remote_sudo
input:
cmd: sed -i -e"s/keepalive_timeout
hosts: my_webserver.example.com
on-complete: t2_cleanup_logs
t2_cleanup_logs:
action: core.remote_sudo
input:
cmd: rm /var/log/nginx/
hosts: my_webserer.example.com
on-complete: t3_restart_service
t3_restart_service:
action: core.remote_sudo cmd="servic
t1 t2 t3

25. Basic: Data Passing
t1.code=0
msg=“Some string..”
t1 t2
examples.data_pass:
input:
- host
tasks:
t1_diagnose:
action: diag.run_mysql_diag
input:
host: <% $.host %>
publish:
- msg: <% t1_diagnose.stdout.summary %>
on-complete: t2_cleanup_logs
t2_post_to_chat:
action: chatops.say
input:
header: Returned <% $.t1_diagnose.code %>
details: <% $.msg %>

26. Basic: Conditions
t1
t3
t2
tasks:
...
t1_deploy:
action: ops.deploy_fleet
on-success: t2_post_to_chat
on-failure: t3_page_ops
t2_post_to_chat:
action: chatops.say
input:
header: Successfully deployed <% $.t1_diag
t3_page_admin:
action: pagerduty.launch_incident
input:
details: Have to wake up dude...
details: <% $.msg %>

27. Basic: Conditions on Data
t1
t3
t2
t1_diagnose:
action: ops.run_mysql_diag
publish:
- code: <% t1_diagnose.return_code %>
on-complete:
- t2_post_to_chat: <% $.code == 0 %>
- t3_page_mysql_admin: <% $.code > 0 %>
t2_post_to_chat:
action: chatops.say
input:
header: "mysql checked, OK"
t3_page_mysql_admin:
action: pagerduty.launch_incident
input:
details: Have to wake up dude...
details: <% $.t1_diagnose.stdout %>
t1.code==0
t1.code >0

28. THAT’S THE BASICS!
SUFFICIENT.
THERE’S MORE…

29. More: Parallel Execution
t1
t4
t2
...
t1_do_build:
action: cicd.do_build_and_packages
on-success:
- t2_test_ubuntu14
- t3_test_fedora20
- t3_test_rhel6
t2_test_ubuntu14:
action: cicd.deploy_and_test distro="UBUNTU14"
t3_test_fedora20:
action: cicd.deploy_and_test distro="F20"
t4_test_rhel6:
action: cicd.deploy_and_test distro="RHEL6"
t3

30. More: Join
t5
t4
t2
t3t1

31. More: Join
t5
t4
t2
t3t1
16 ways to join

32. More: Join – Simple Merge
t5
t4
t2
...
t2_test_ubuntu14:
action: cicd.deploy_and_test distro="UBUNTU14”
on-success: t5_post_status
t3_test_fedora20:
action: cicd.deploy_and_test distro="F20"
on-success: t5_post_status
t4_test_rhel6:
action: cicd.deploy_and_test distro="RHEL6"
on-success: t5_post_status
t5_post_status:
action: chatops.say
input:
header: Test completed!
t3
http://www.workflowpatterns.com/patterns/control/basic/wcp5.php
Simple Merge
t5
t5

33. More: Join – AND Join
t5
t4
t2
...
t2_test_ubuntu14:
action: cicd.deploy_and_test distro="UBUNTU14”
on-success: t5_post_status
t3_test_fedora20:
action: cicd.deploy_and_test distro="F20"
on-success: t5_post_status
t4_test_rhel6:
action: cicd.deploy_and_test distro="RHEL6"
on-success: t5_post_status
t5_tag_release:
join: all
action: cicd.tag_release
t3
http://www.workflowpatterns.com/patterns/control/new/wcp33.php
Full AND Join

34. More: Join - Discriminator
t5
t4
t2
...
t2_test_ubuntu14:
action: cicd.deploy_and_test distro="UBUNTU14”
on-failure: t5_report_and_fail
t3_test_fedora20:
action: cicd.deploy_and_test distro="F20"
on-failure: t5_report_and_fail
t4_test_rhel6:
action: cicd.deploy_and_test distro="RHEL6"
on-failure: t5_report_and_fail
t5_report_and_fail:
join: one
action: chatops.say header=“FAILURE!”
on-complete: fail
t3
http://www.workflowpatterns.com/patterns/control/advanced_branching/wcp9.php
Discriminator

35. More: Multiple Data
t1 t2
ip_list=[...]
...
t1_get_ip_list:
action: myaws.allocate_floating_ips num=4
publish:
- ip_list: <% $.t1_get_ip_list.ips %>
on-complete: t2_create_vms
t2_create_vms:
with-items: ip in <% $. ip_list %>
action: myaws.create_vms ip=<% $.ip %>

36. And More Details…
• Nesting
– Nothing to say except
– Input and output
– Nested workflow is an action, not a task
• Retries, Waits, Pause/Resume
• Default task policies

37. Recap: Workflow Operations
• Sequence
• Data passing
• Conditions (on data)
• Parallel execution
• Joins
• Multiple Data Items

38. What else
• Other than pattern support:
• Reliability
• Manageability – API, CLI, DSL, infra as code…
• Good to have: good GUI

39. Summary
• Event Driven Automation is coming back
– with a new twist
• EDA > Workflow,
but Workflow is a key component
• Shameless plug
StackStorm is covering it all

40. • OpenSource Event Automation Platform
• Github: github.com/stackstorm/st2
• Twitter: Stack_Storm
• IRC: #stackstorm on FreeNode
• www.stackstorm.com