README.md

ManageIQ::AutomationEngine

Automation Engine plugin for ManageIQ.

Engine Description

There are two types of storage for the Automation Engine:

The Automation Datastore is the persistent storage and it can be viewed/edited by the EVM Automate Object Explorer. The data lives in SQL Tables beginning with miq_ae: miq_ae_namespaces, miq_ae_classes, miq_ae_fields, miq_ae_values, miq_ae_instances, miq_ae_methods. The Automation Workspace is the transient storage of the in-memory object hierarchy. There is a SQL Table called miq_ae_workspaces, but it is not currently leveraged and can be ignored for now.

Each Automation Engine invocation runs in an isolated Workspace.

Automate Engine is invoked with a URI and leverages URIs throughout. So, a solid understandings of URIs is a must. A URI stands for Uniform Resource Identifier and can be read about here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Identifier and http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986.

Here is a grammar for a URI:

 URI         = scheme ":" hier-part [ "?" query ] [ "#" fragment ]

 hier-part   = "//" authority path-abempty
             / path-absolute
             / path-rootless
             / path-empty

Here is a typical example:

foo://example.com:8042/over/there?name=ferret#mouth
\_/   \______________/\_________/ \_________/ \___/
 |           |             |           |        |
scheme   authority        path       query   fragment

The Automation Engine supports two schemes (currently):

Scheme	Description
miqaedb	get an object from the Automation Datastore
miqaews	get an object from the Automation Workspace

Database Layout:

MIQ_AE_NAMESPACES Table (each row defines a NAMESPACE in the system)
  id            ==> ID           of the Namespace
  parent_id     ==> ID           of the parent Namespace (NULL if root)
  display_name  ==> Display Name of the Namespace
  description   ==> Description  of the Namespace
  name          ==> Name         of the Namespace
  created_on    ==> ctime (Creation     Timestamp)
  updated_on    ==> mtime (Modification Timestamp)

MIQ_AE_CLASSES Table (each row defines a CLASS in the system)
  id            ==> ID           of the Class
  display_name  ==> Display Name of the Class
  description   ==> Description  of the Class
  namespace_id  ==> ID           of the Namespace
  name          ==> Name         of the Class
  type          ==> Type         of the Class (abstract ==> No Instances Allowed, ...)
  inherits      ==> Name         of the Inherited Class (NULL if no inheritance)
  visibility    ==> Private ==> only visible within Resolution; Public ==> accessible to caller of Resolution
  owner         ==> Owner        of the Class
  created_on    ==> ctime (Creation     Timestamp)
  updated_on    ==> mtime (Modification Timestamp)

MIQ_AE_FIELDS Table (each row defines a FIELD in the system)
  id            ==> ID           of the Field
  name          ==> Name         of the Field
  display_name  ==> Display Name of the Field
  description   ==> Description  of the Field
  aetype        ==> AE Type      of the Field      (assertion, attribute, relationship, method, state)
  datatype      ==> Type         of the Field Data (string, integer, boolean, ...)
  priority      ==> Order        of the Field      (within the Class)
  owner         ==> Owner        of the Field
  scope         ==> Scope        of the Field
  default_value ==> Default      of the Field      (the default value)
  substitute    ==> Substitution Enabled?
  message       ==> Message   that this Field responds to
  visibility    ==> Private ==> only visible within Resolution; Public ==> accessible to caller of Resolution
  collect       ==> Collection/Aggregation definition
  condition     ==> Condition (IF/UNLESS) that indicates whether to process
  class_id      ==> ID           of the Class  that this Field belongs to
  method_id     ==> ID           of the Method that this Field belongs to
  created_on    ==> ctime (Creation     Timestamp)
  updated_on    ==> mtime (Modification Timestamp)

MIQ_AE_INSTANCES Table (each row defines an INSTANCE of a specific class)
  id            ==> ID           of the Instance
  name          ==> Name         of the Instance
  display_name  ==> Display Name of the Instance
  description   ==> Description  of the Instance
  class_id      ==> ID           of the Class  that this Instance belongs to
  inherits      ==> Name         of the Inherited Class (NULL if no inheritance)
  created_on    ==> ctime (Creation     Timestamp)
  updated_on    ==> mtime (Modification Timestamp)

MIQ_AE_VALUES Table (each row defines a VALUE of a specific field in a specific instance)
  id            ==> ID           of the Value
  display_name  ==> Display Name of the Value
  value         ==> VALUE        of the Value
  instance_id   ==> ID           of the Instance
  field_id      ==> ID           of the Field
  collect       ==> Collection/Aggregation definition
  condition     ==> Condition (IF/UNLESS) that indicates whether to process
  created_on    ==> ctime (Creation     Timestamp)
  updated_on    ==> mtime (Modification Timestamp)

MIQ_AE_WORKSPACES Table (keeps instantiated trees)
  id            ==> ID           of the Workspace
  guid          ==> GUID         of the Workspace
  uri           ==> URI          of the Workspace
  workspace     ==> Binary representation of the Workspace
  setters       ==> Binary representation of attributes overridden externally
  created_on    ==> ctime (Creation     Timestamp)
  updated_on    ==> mtime (Modification Timestamp)

Dynamic Instantiation Process (AE_DIP)

• Add display_name for namespace and value (for STEP field and completeness)
• Add condition for field and value (IF/UNLESS)
• Add collect for value (overrides definition in FIELD)
• Define new type of field called STEP
• AE_DIP should process steps as follows:
  1. Should convert steps to relationships appending #${#ae_message}
  2. Dynamically call methods before_step and after_step (or on_state_change)
  3. Should roughly internalize working of provision_state_machine to allow for others to be defined easier

Development

See the section on plugins in the ManageIQ Developer Setup

For quick local setup run bin/setup, which will clone the core ManageIQ repository under the spec directory and setup necessary config files. If you have already cloned it, you can run bin/update to bring the core ManageIQ code up to date.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the Apache License 2.0.

Contributing

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request