Operations

Operations applications provide capabilities to create, operate, and delete service instances managed by IBM® Telco Network Cloud Manager - Orchestration. Operations capabilities can be accessed through two different pages depending of the preferred method to find and view existing service instances. Creation of a new service instance can be performed equally through both pages.

Recent Assembly Instances

The Recent Assembly Instances page, functioning also as the default page after login, provides direct access to the latest assemblies, i.e. service instances, and their status. The Last 20 assemblies having had intents executed on them are shown in the list.

Each Assembly Instance is listed on a new line within the list, showing:
  • Name
  • Current State
  • Assembly Descriptor it is built upon
  • Last intent that was executed
  • Status of the last intent executed
  • Date & time of the last intent execution

For each listed service instance there are options available to trigger a new lifecycle intent (Make Inactive, Upgrade or Uninstall) by clicking the “New Intent” button. Triggering any intent will activate the execution view, described later in this section, to see the timeline of steps executed to complete the intent.

Navigation to the topology of the service instance is available by clicking the “Open” Button.

Additionally, there are navigation items available through the “more items” menu represented as an ellipsis icon (“…”) on the far right-hand end of each Assembly Instance row. Available options include:
  • “Open Execution” to see the details of the last intent and its execution steps.
  • “Open Design” to open designer and view or modify the service design the service instance is based on.
  • “Execution History” to see the lifecycle history of the service instance.

Creation of a completely new service instance can be done by clicking the “Create” button in the top right corner of the page.

Topology

The Topology view of the service (displayed by using the “Open” button on the Recent Assemblies list) shows the service structure and all the elements instantiated as part of the service.

The view is made up of the following:
  • Top header bar – This provides basic information about the topology being viewed and an indicator as to whether any new intents have been executed.
  • Right-hand properties and relationships panel – This has individual sections that can be expanded/collapsed and a button that allows a new intent to be executed.
  • Bottom tab bar – This allows the user to easily switch between the Topology view and the Process Execution View

The Top-level service is indicated as “Box” symbol on a dark background on top of the main view. Service elements have their own symbols depending on their type: an individual resource or sub assembly is indicated as a single hexagon-symbol. A cluster is shown as a stacked hexagon, and finally an external reference with a hexagon with dotted outline.

Details of a selected element can be made visible in the right-hand properties and relationships panel by clicking the symbol of the element.

A new lifecycle intent (Make Inactive, Upgrade or Uninstall) can be triggered by clicking the “Change Intent” button.

Toggling between the “Topology” and “Execution” pages can be done by clicking the tabs on the bottom of the page.

Execution

The Execution page (also known as the Process Execution View) shows the details of the last intent executed on the selected service instance. On the left side of the execution page the service topology is shown as a hierarchical list of assemblies and resources.

The main application view shows a Gantt chart of individual steps executed within the intent and their dependencies. The status of each step is indicated with colour codes (Green: successfully completed, Red: failed, Blue: currently executed, pale Blue: planned/waiting and Grey: Cancelled).

The progress bars within the dynamic Gantt view also use different shapes to indicate the different types of activities being displayed:
  • Square ended/rectangle shaped bars - Lifecyle Transition
  • Round ended/lozenge shaped bars - Operations
  • Pointed ended/Diamond shaped bars - Relationships
The dependency lines drawn between the various progress bars are also colour coded:
  • Black solid lines – execution dependency. The “destination” of the dependency (i.e. what event was triggered) is shown by a solid black circle at the end of the line.
  • Orange dashed lines – relationship dependency. The “destination” of the dependency (i.e. what event was triggered by the relationship) is shown by a solid orange circle at the end of the line.

The Top bar shows the key details of the last intent and provides options to trigger a new intent on the service instance by clicking the “Change Intent” button or view the intent history by clicking the “Execution History” button.

Toggling between “Topology” and “Execution” views can be done by clicking the tabs on the bottom of the view.

The history of intents executed on the service instance is available by clicking the “Execution History” button on the top bar of the “Execution” view

Execution history

The Intent history can be opened in a dialog box by clicking the “Execution History” button on the top bar of the Execution page. In the dialog box a list of executed intents is shown in chronological order with the oldest intent at the top of the list. By clicking the “Inspect” button next to an intent opens the “Execution” view to view details of the selected execution.

Assembly instance search

Functionally the Assembly Instance Search view is the same as the Recent Assembly Instances view (see Recent Assembly Instances).

The difference is that this view is only populated once an Assembly Search term has been added into the search bar and the <Enter> key pressed. When first displayed there are no entries in the matching Assemblies list.

To search for an Assembly simply enter its name (or partial name) into the search bar and press the <Enter> key. Only searching by Assembly name is currently supported.

Currently it is not possible to change the order of the displayed results. They are shown in ascending alphabetical order of matching Assembly name.