ManageIQ Automation Engine

Automation Engine for the ManageIQ project.

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#nose
\_/   \______________/\_________/ \_________/ \__/
|           |            |            |        |

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

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/ManageIQ/manageiq-automation_engine.

License

See LICENSE.txt.