Contents
Overview
Scenario
Running the Demo
About Active Endpoints

Release Management User Guide

Overview

This sample demonstrates the how common or routine IT tasks can be automated using process automation and human workflow.  The scenario (described in detail below) revolves around the release management process of a new application. It  demonstrates the use of complex workflows between individuals and departments to package and deploy a new application.  

Some of the benefits for automating this business process include:

• Cost reductions

• Dealing with escalating complexity

• Better utilization of staff
• Grow IT operations without growing staff
• Improve business responsiveness / agility

• Institutionalize best practices

• Risk reduction by eliminating subjectiveness of human facing tasks

Scenario

Title: Application Packaging and Deployment Automation

Actors

Jim: Portfolio Manager

Jennifer: Release Manager

David: Quality Assurance Manager

Lee: Senior Developer

Description

Jim is the portfolio manager for Quantum Financial, a hedge fund, which makes large financial bets on fluctuations in the currency market.  Because of the time-sensitive, market-driven nature of this investment model, Jim needs to act quickly to validate investment opportunities.  Unnecessary delays could potentially represent missing a multi-million dollar opportunity. As such, he needs to expedite a request to deploy a new market analysis application created by Lee, a senior developer.  Deploying a new application involves the interaction between four different groups.  Each group performs a different task required to complete the overall processly.  Jim is ultimately notified when each of the tasks is completed, so he can respond back to the client.

Process Steps

• Lee has built a custom application for multivariate regression analysis and simulation of trading scenarios in politically volatile foreign currency markets

• Lee goes to Quantum’s self-service deployment portal and initiates a workflow to deploy his application.  The workflow creates a number of human tasks that automate the creation of a new 'Appliance Project' and based on the urgency of the request monitors progress for the purpose of escalation.


• For this sample, ActiveVOS Central is used to instantiate the workflow.  If you're interested in exploring how this could be achieved using a Microsoft InfoPath form residing on a SharePoint server, refer to the InvokeWebServiceUsingInfoPath.html document located in ..ReleaseManagement\InfoPath.

• He uploads the binaries and fills in some metadata about the application
• Functional description
• Technical description
• Lifecycle state
• Business Owner
• Technical Owner
• Urgency

• Lee kicks off the workflow which initiates the following processes:
• A task is created for Jim to approve the request
• Jim approves the deployment request
• Jennifer subsequently receives a task to create a system package consisting.  Creation of the system package includes the following offline activities:
• Initiate the Appliance Editor within the rBuilder UI
• Create a new Package using the rBuilder UI
• Upload the binaries to rBuilder
• Jennifer adds Amazon EC2 as an image type for QA testing purposes and Initiates the Build process
• Initiate the Image Generation process when the build completes. This will build both EC2 and VMware images

• She completes her work by filling out and providing the details of the package in the task form.  The information provided is then used by QA for testing

• A task is created For David in QA
• David uses the information provided by Jennifer
• He stress tests the application and confirms that it complies with corporate policy
• When QA is complete, David uses the task form to provide his test results and approves or rejects the build

• Jim and Lee receive a notification that the application has been tested and the image is ready on the internal datacenter
• Lee deploys the image and launches it on the internal VMWare datacenter
• Jim is notified that the application is deployed and running
  

Running the Demo

Demo links

Using the credentials listed below, log on to ActiveVOS Central (http://samples.activevos.com/activevos-central) to:

• Submit a new process request

• Claim and complete tasks

Use the ActiveVOS Admin Console (http://samples.activevos.com/activevos) to view process instance information and configure the server.

Users and roles

 
The following table summarizes the roles and users for use in logging in to ActiveVOS Central.  The purpose of each role should be self evident after reading through the scenario described above.  

Role	UserName	Password
portfolioManager	jim	jim
releaseManager	jennifer	jennifer
qualityAssuranceManager	david	david
seniorDeveloper	lee	lee

Run the Deployed Process

This section describes how to run the deployed process by using a Process Request Form and reviewing the results in the ActiveVOS Console.  

1) Lee logs in to ActiveVOS Central and selects the Requests tab from the left nav bar.
 
2) He then selects the Appliance Creation Request Form from the Release Management Service Forms category and provides values as shown below:  




3) Lee presses the Send Request button to submit the form which invokes the DeployApplication business process

• After submittng the process, the response includes Process-ID (Ref Number) and a status (Comment) as shown above

Review the running process

As an IT operator, or process stakeholder you can use the ActiveVOS Console to view details of process instances that are running, suspended or completed.

1) Log into the ActiveVOS Console at http://samples.activevos.com/activevos/home.action

2) From the ActiveVOS Console select the Home link followed by the Active Processes link in the left side navigation bar as shown in the screenshot below.  The list of active processes should include the process that you just ran.  In the example shown, a process named DeployApplication with a processID of 5 is currently running.  

3) Clicking on either the process ID or Name displays information about the running process instance.  At this point the process is waiting on Jim, the Portfolio Manager to complete his task.

Working with tasks

Jim (Portfolio Manager)

1) Jim logs in to ActiveVOS Central and navigates to his task list.

2) He selects the 'Claim' button, then selects the 'Open In Tab' button (to get more realestate)




3) Jim approves or rejects the request to create a new application.  

• He will approve the task by
• Entering a value of 5 for the Ref Number (the reference number in the subject of the task)

• Selecting a status of approved from the dropdown list

• Entering a comment with additional information

• Selecting the Complete button

 

• Refreshing the Process Detail page in the ActiveVOS Console shows that the process is now waiting on the release manager, Jennifer, to create a system package

Jennifer (Release Manager)

1) Jennifer logs in to ActiveVOS Central and sees a task waiting for her to complete

2) She Claims and Completes the task as shown below

David (QA Manager)

1) David logs in to ActiveVOS Central and sees a task waiting for him to claim and complete

2) He Claims and Completes the task (as shown below)

Lee (Developer)

Now that the application has been tested it needs to be deployed by the developer. 

1) Lee logs in to ActiveVOS Central and sees a task that he needs to complete

2) He Claims and Completes the task (as shown below)

Notifications

Notifications are similar to tasks, but require no action by the user.  They are one-way messages to users typically used for error or status notifications or as a reminder to do something.

This sample application provides notifications to Jim, so he can easily keep track of the progress being made within the process.  For example, while a task is created for Lee to complete the deployment, Jim receives a notification that the application passed through QA.

When Lee completes the deployment task, another notification is sent to Jim.

• The screenshot above shows notifications being sent to Jim.  The first notification is sent in parallel with the creating a deployment task for Lee

When Jim logs into ActiveVOS Central he will see the two notifications as shown below

By double-clicking the notification in the list or selecting Open In Tab he can open any notification to see the details





One more refresh of the Active Processes list on the admin console shows that the process has completed successfully. Notice also, that the rBOTService (a simulated sub-process called from the DeployApplication workflow) was also successfully completed.

About Active Endpoints

Active Endpoints (www.activevos.com) is the leading developer of visual orchestration systems. ActiveVOS empowers line of business project teams to create applications using services and industry standards, making their businesses more agile and effective. Active Endpoints’ ActiveVOS promotes mass adoption of SOA-enabled applications by focusing on accelerating project delivery time with a standards-based, easy to use system. Active Endpoints is headquartered in Waltham, MA with development facilities in Shelton, CT.

To find out how Active Endpoints can help your business, visit www.activevos.com, call +1 781 547 2948, or email us at info@activevos.com.