Operations

Operations applications provide capabilities to create, operate, and delete service instances that are managed by the orchestration component. Operations capabilities can be accessed through two different pages, which depend on the preferred method to find and view existing service instances. Creation of a new service instance can be performed equally through both pages.

Accessing the network automation UI

To access and work with operations applications, inducing assembly instances, log in to the IBM Cloud Pak® console. For more information about how to log in, see Logging in to the IBM Cloud Pak console.

Click the navigation menu and click a menu item under Design, Define, or Run to display operations.

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 that are instantiated as part of the service.

The view is made up of the following:

Header bar – This provides basic information about the topology being viewed and an indicator as to whether any new intents have been executed.
Properties and relationships panel – This has individual sections that can be expanded/collapsed and a button that allows a new intent to be executed.
Tab bar down the screen – This allows the user to easily switch between the Topology view and the Process Execution view.

The higher-level service is indicated as Box symbol on a dark background on 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. Finally, a cluster is shown as a stacked hexagon, and an external reference with a hexagon with dotted outline.

Details of a selected element can be made visible in the 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 tab bar down the screen.

Execution

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

You can see the key details of the last intent in the header bar. Use the New Intent menu to start a new intent on the assembly instance. Click Execution History to view the history of the intents executed on the assembly instance.

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

The appearance of progress bars in the dynamic Gantt view also indicates the different types of activities that are being displayed:

Rectangular bars - Lifecycle Transition
Bars with semi-circular ends - Operations
Diamond-ended bars - Relationships

The dependency lines drawn between the various progress bars are also color-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 (that is, what event was triggered by the relationship) is shown by a solid orange circle at the end of the line.

Markers on the timeline identify the times at which the following events occur:

An intent process changes to a Failed or Cancelled status.
An intent process restarts as a result of a Retry or Roll back request.
An intent process changes to a Completed status.

Click on a marker to see details of the event.

Toggling between Topology and Execution views can be done by clicking the tab bar down the screen.

The history of intents executed on the service instance is available by clicking the Execution History button on the header bar of the Execution view.

Execution history

Click Execution History to view the history of the intents executed on the assembly instance. Click Review intent to see a snapshot of the state of the intent at the point in time when you chose to review it from the execution history.

Task messages

For the resource-level intent lifecycle tasks that are shown in the Execution page, you can view the messages that are exchanged between resource drivers and the underlying systems that complete these tasks. To view these messages, click a resource task, then click View driver messages in the Task details dialog. The messages are shown in the Task messages page. For more information, see Viewing driver messages for intent tasks.