Automation app: Overview
The Automation app in Aspera on Cloud lets you create automated workflows that initiate file transfers, make calls to an API, and send notifications to users. This article describes the app, its components, key concepts for automated workflows and jobs, and provides an example use case.
Automation is available to users with a Standard Plus or Premium edition of Aspera on Cloud.
Highlights
- Automate your file transfer workflows with event-based triggers cued to IBM Aspera on Cloud endpoints.
- Seamlessly integrate with external web services via API calls.
- Communicate workflow status with event-driven email notifications.
- Easily build, execute, and manage workflows with an intuitive interface.
Automation monitors your file storage system for event triggers; for example, a specific date and time can initiate a transfer, and a file upload to a shared folder can trigger an email notification.
You can transfer files and folders to an Aspera on Cloud (AoC) workspace, an on-premises node, or a node in the cloud. The IBM Aspera FASP protocol embedded in AoC allows you to transfer files of any size, securely and reliably, at unrivaled speed.
The Job Queue page in the Automation app allows you to easily monitor all running and completed workflow jobs.
Key concepts
To build an automated workflow in the Automation app, create the new workflow, then add steps: first, a workflow trigger, then a number of various actions. When your workflow is complete, activate it to generate jobs (a job is a running instance of a workflow). For a sample build, see Tutorial: Create a simple workflow that transfers a package.
Key concepts: Workflows
The elements below are available on the Workflows page. You interact with them when you build a new workflow or edit an existing workflow.
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
| workflow | A workflow is the container for a trigger and for all the tasks you need to accomplish. A workflow can contain any number of steps. Each workflow starts with a trigger that you configure to run the workflow. |
| step | The first step in the workflow always contains the trigger that runs the workflow. All subsequent steps contain one or more actions, which perform the actual "work" in the workflow. The steps in a workflow organize and sequence these actions for maximum effectiveness. |
| trigger | The first step in a workflow is always a trigger step. It defines the conditions for
launching the workflow. These are the available triggers types (for details, see Workflow triggers and their attributes):
|
| action | An action step in Automation performs the tasks required in the workflow. It performs one
of the following tasks (for details, see Workflow actions and their attributes):
Note: You can have multiple parallel actions in a step. To create a parallel action,
click the plus icon below an existing action step.
|
Key concepts: Jobs
| Components | Description |
|---|---|
| job | An instance of an active workflow that is launched each time that workflow is triggered.
You can see the status of your jobs on the Job queue
page. Depending on your Aspera on Cloud subscription edition, these are the concurrent job maximums:
|
| queue | The queue contains all jobs beyond the allowed maximum number of running jobs. As each
running job completes, another job is released from the queue. Jobs move from the queue to running
in the order that they were added to the
queue. Depending on your Aspera on Cloud subscription edition, these are the queue size maximums:
|
Example use case
- AoC automatically transfers the video files in the package from shared storage to remote cloud storage.
- Three stakeholders receive email notifications that the files have successfully transferred.
- Once the transfer is successfully completed, an API triggers a step than runs a transcoder on the files.
- The project lead receives an email that contains the success or error response code from the API.