With the release of RES Wisdom 2011 hopefully dropping in our laps by the end of this calendar year, I thought it would be wise to revisit the Orchestration Pack for Wisdom. Having delivered many, many training courses this year, it is something that is discussed during both the RES Wisdom 2009 and RES PowerFuse 2010 courses. However, that is it – generally it is just a passing mention! I think this will be changing with RES Wisdom 2011 so we’d better get to grips with it.
RES Orchestra was always going to be the 3rd product in the RES Software suite, but RES instead rebranded it and announced it as an add-on for RES Wisdom (announced back in August 2009). The theory behind the Orchestration Pack is to be able to add business logic and workflows to both RES PowerFuse and RES Wisdom. When all three products are combined together we end up with a very powerful solution, driven by the business and not the IT department.
At a high level we define a “Catalog” of “Services” that are available to “Subscribers”. These Services could be anything that the business offers that requires some automated process and/or workflow to be performed (you’re only limited by your imagination). To get you off to a flying start we normally start with the basics; like granting access to applications or provisioning of a new user. These are IT related tasks, but they help you “get what Orchestration is all about.”
Let’s take our typical RES Wisdom Run Book example; provisioning a new user. You might have a Run Book defined within RES Wisdom that creates the user account in Active Directory (and configures it), creates their Exchange mailbox, creates the user’s home directory and then secures it. In addition you may have multiple Run Books that adds the user account into different sets of AD groups or creates MS SQL accounts depending on the user’s role.
Here is a “typical” new user (with RES Wisdom) workflow:
- A manager in the business requests a new employee.
- HR authorises the request and passes the request to IT.
- IT provisions the user (via the RES Wisdom Run Book!).
- IT adds the user to the relevant AD groups for the proposed role (via another RES Wisdom Run Book(s)).
- IT send the details of the new user account to HR.
- HR forwards the details back on to the requesting business manager.
In the above example, the RES Orchestration Pack will enable us to encapsulate the business logic and the workflow processes via the Orchestration Client (32-bit client executable) or via email and the Orchestration Web Client (hosted on IIS). We can offer the “New Employee” “Service” via the “Catalog” to the business managers. The RES Orchestration Pack will allow the business manager to complete the new starter request via an internal web site (with all the required new starter information) and automatically notify the HR department. Once HR approves the request, the RES Wisdom Run Book is automatically started to create the AD user account and mailbox etc. Once complete the details of the user account can then automatically be sent back the business manager.
We can take this process further and define what happens when the “New Starter” request is reversed. Now we have the power to start an alternative Run Book to decommission the user account when initiated by HR.
So what about “The Power Of 3?”, I hear you ask. We can connect the RES Orchestration Pack to RES Wisdom, but what about RES PowerFuse? Well, it’s good news here too. Within RES PowerFuse 2010 we have the ability to assign access control principal to a RES Orchestration Pack “Service”. When a “Service” is provisioned/authorised then we can grant access to RES PowerFuse 2010 applications. Here is a scenario that takes our HR example another step further on:
- A user can request a “Service”, i.e. Adobe Acrobat.
- The request is sent to the user’s line manager for approval.
- If the business manager approves it then a notification is delivered to the account department for recharging.
- Once a user has been granted access to the “Service” we can now make applications available to the user automatically via RES PowerFuse.
- We can configure RES PowerFuse to launch a RES Wisdom module to check for the existence of the application prior to launch.
- If it’s not installed, pop up a message and install it on demand.
- Once installed, it will launch.
- If the user is revoked access in due course, RES PowerFuse will not display the application to the user.
Now we can automate the business workflow, authorisation, delivery, presentation and installation of services and/or applications without being involved. The business has the power to decide where and when things happen, not IT. That my good friends, is the power of 3; RES Wisdom, RES Orchestration Pack and RES PowerFuse!
