Brocade Workflow Composer Overview
Brocade Workflow Composer is a robust network automation platform designed to streamline and automate the entire network lifecycle, from initial provisioning and validation to troubleshooting and remediation. This platform is built on an open, extensible, microservices-based framework and leverages the power of DevOps methodologies, popular open source technologies, and industry best practices.
Key Features
1. Cross-Domain Automation
Brocade Workflow Composer enables cross-domain workflows, integrating network automation with other IT domains and tool chains. It can recognize events from any network device, cross-domain platform, or application and invoke actions by other tools and applications to execute automated workflows.
2. Lifecycle Management
The platform automates the entire network lifecycle, including provisioning, configuration validation, troubleshooting, and auto-remediation. This ensures seamless management of multivendor networks from start to finish.
3. Customizable Integration Points
Workflow Composer offers over 1,900 customizable integration points for popular platforms and applications such as Linux, Windows, vSphere, AWS, Azure, CloudFoundry, OpenStack, Docker, Kubernetes, and various monitoring and support tools like Splunk, PagerDuty, and VictorOps.
4. Event-Driven Automation
The platform uses customizable sensors and actions to automate workflows based on specific events. Sensors monitor external systems for events, which then trigger corresponding workflows, while actions request changes to these systems.
5. StackStorm Technology
Brocade Workflow Composer is built on StackStorm technology, an open, event-driven automated framework that integrates various enterprise apps, services, and workflows. This includes tools like Chef, Puppet, Ansible, GitHub, and more, allowing for comprehensive automation across different tech stacks.
6. Flexible Automation
The platform supports turnkey, customizable, or do-it-yourself network workflow automation, catering to the needs of various organizations. This flexibility allows IT organizations to develop and execute their automation strategy at their own pace.
7. DevOps and ChatOps
Workflow Composer adopts DevOps-inspired methodologies and supports ChatOps, enabling seamless collaboration and automation within teams. This includes features like creating, updating, and managing support tickets via platforms like Zendesk directly from communication channels like Slack.
Functionality
- Provisioning and Validation: Automates the initial setup and validation of network devices and services.
- Troubleshooting and Remediation: Automatically detects issues and executes remediation workflows to resolve problems quickly.
- Cross-Domain Integration: Integrates with various IT domains and tools to ensure end-to-end automation across the organization.
- Customizable Workflows: Allows users to define, visualize, and change workflows easily, using “If this, then that” style rules.
- Event-Driven Workflows: Executes workflows based on events detected by sensors, ensuring real-time automation.
In summary, Brocade Workflow Composer is a powerful tool for automating network operations, enhancing IT agility, and integrating network management with broader IT processes. Its flexibility, extensive integration capabilities, and adherence to DevOps principles make it a valuable asset for enterprises and cloud service providers seeking to optimize their network management and automation strategies.