What's new in WebSphere Automation

Version 1.10.0

Version 1.9.0

Version 1.8.2

Version 1.8.1

Version 1.8.0

Version 1.7.5

Version 1.7.4

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds support for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.16 .
  • Updates the IBM Cloud Pak foundational services to version 4.8.
  • Adds several documentation updates.

Version 1.7.3

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds the ability to filter UI table results by operating system in several parts of the UI.
  • Adds the ability to install a fix for a vulnerability on multiple servers simultaneously.
  • Adds the ability to define a user ID for use in all manual and automatic health investigations. This definition can be overridden on a case-by-case basis.
  • Adds support for sudo for health investigations.
  • Adds IBM Storage Fusion software as a supported storage solution for on-premises installations.
  • Adds three new audit reports. All major UI pages now have the ability to generate audit reports (with the exception of configuration pages).
    • CVEs for a server
    • Fix management records for a server
    • Health investigations for a server
  • Adds several documentation updates, including a new glossary.

Version 1.7.2

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds WebSphere Automation to the list of bundled products in IBM Cloud Pak for Applications Advanced.
  • Adds several documentation updates, including new disaster recovery instructions and clarifications to the updating procedures.

Version 1.7.1

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds the ability to install a fix for a particular CVE to multiple servers simultaneously. For more information, see Viewing information about a CVE or Installing a fix.
  • Adds the following new audit report:
    • Health investigations report for all registered servers
  • Adds support for Installing on a single node OpenShift (SNO) cluster.
  • Adds support for managing a WebSphere-based server estate on the z/OS operating system. For limitations, see Managed server requirements.
  • Moves WebSphere Automation REST API from technology preview to fully supported.
  • Automatically escalate user privileges by using sudo during health monitoring when a privilege mismatch is found.
  • Adds miscellaneous documentation updates.

Version 1.7.0

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds the ability to choose to install any of the available fixes that remediate a particular vulnerability.
  • Updates the IBM Cloud Pak foundational services to version 4.4. Unlike previous versions, this version of IBM Cloud Pak foundational services cannot be installed into its own namespace to support multiple IBM Cloud Paks or IBM products. For more information, see the following pages:
    • Updating WebSphere Automation
    • Installing WebSphere Automation
  • Adds miscellaneous documentation updates.
• Deprecations and removals
  • Removes support for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.11. (February 2024).

Version 1.6.4

• Features and enhancements
  • Enables the ability for audit reports of fix management records to display information for servers that are no longer registered with WebSphere Automation.
  • Adds to the user interface the ability to specify the system user with Installation Manager privileges during fix installation.
  • Adds support for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 .
  • Adds miscellaneous documentation updates.

Version 1.6.3

• Features and enhancements
  • Enables compliance with Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS).
  • Adds the ability to generate an audit report from the Server management UI page.
  • Adds four new properties to the Installation resource of the REST API:
    • downloadDirectory: the directory that the fix is downloaded to on the target server.
    • backupDirectory: the directory that the backup archive file is written to.
    • cleanupLocalFixFiles: indicator of whether fix files are deleted after installation is complete.
    • imBecomeUser: the user that is used when invoking Installation Manager commands on the target server.

    See the REST API documentation for further descriptions of these properties.

  • Adds miscellaneous documentation updates.

Version 1.6.2

• Features and enhancements
  • Extends the existing action framework to enable webhook notifications for events within WebSphere Automation. Documentation updates include:
    • a tutorial for setting up a ServiceNow webhook notification,
    • a tutorial for setting up a Slack notification, and
    • examples of JSON code for events in the WebSphere Automation platform, which can be used to customize notifications.
  • Improves the documentation for accessing and installing entitlements and preparing to install WebSphere Automation.
  • Adds a detailed Installation and supported products at a glance.
  • Adds Last contact entry to the server information page, showing the date and time (according to WebSphere Automation) of the last communication with the registered asset.
• Deprecations and removals
  • Removes support for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.10. (September 2023)

Version 1.6.1

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds new audit reports for the CVEs and Fix management sections of the Security page in the WebSphere Automation UI.
  • Adds instructions for registering WebSphere Application Server Liberty servers that are running in containers.
  • Improves installation documentation.
  • Removes known limitation about memory leak incompatibility with certain versions of Instana.
• Deprecations and removals
  • Removes support for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.9.

Version 1.6.0

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds instructions for removing the IBM Automation foundation before you upgrade from WebSphere Automation 1.5.3 to 1.6.0. The IBM Automation foundation is now part of the IBM® Cloud Pak foundational services.
    • Update to WebSphere Automation 1.6.0 from WebSphere Automation 1.5.3. If your WebSphere Automation installation is not version 1.5.3, update it to version 1.5.3 before you update it to version 1.6.0.
    • Before you update WebSphere Automation 1.5.3 to WebSphere Automation 1.6.0, you must first remove IBM Automation foundation.
    References to IBM Automation foundation are removed from the documentation. If you are using an earlier version of WebSphere Automation, you can download an archived PDF file of the WebSphere Automation 1.5.2 product documentation.
  • Adds a new audit report (previously referred to as exported CSV files) and improved audit report formatting. Added a new section to the documentation on generating audit reports.
  • Improves the Register server wizard to make instructions clearer and decisions easier.
  • Changes the credential requirements for the SMTP server configuration to make username and password optional instead of required.
• Deprecations and removals
  • Removes support for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.8.

Version 1.5.3

• Adds spec.scaleToZero parameter to the WebSphereAutomation custom resource to make it easier to scale pods during backup and restore procedures.

Version 1.5.2

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds the ability to install and uninstall fixes that apply to the IBM Java runtime that a WebSphere Application Server server or a WebSphere Application Server Liberty server uses.
  • Adds the ability to manually run a memory analysis for a monitored server.
  • Updates the default value for fixRefreshMonitorSchedule in the WebSphereSecure custom resource.
  • Updates network requirements and added other miscellaneous documentation changes.

Version 1.5.1

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds support for uninstalling fixes by using the WebSphere Automation UI.
  • Adds support for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.12
  • Adds several security fixes.
  • Adds several documentation updates.

Version 1.5

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds support for installing WebSphere Automation on supported versions of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform on Linux on IBM Z.
  • Adds support for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.11 .
  • The API key used to authenticate the WebSphere Application Server servers and WebSphere Application Server Liberty servers during the registration process is different than in previous versions. The new API key can be obtained using the procedure documented in Setting up Instana to send alerts to WebSphere Automation.

Version 1.4.5

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds several security fixes.
  • Adds several documentation updates.

Version 1.4.4

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds several security fixes.
  • Backing up and restoring data now includes custom resources.
  • Adds instructions for rotating API keys for the usage metering feature.

Version 1.4.3

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds several security fixes.
  • Adds several miscellaneous UI changes to improve usability.
  • Documented support for embedded versions of WebSphere Application Server in the following products:
    • HCL Portal
    • IBM Filenet
    • IBM Maximo

Version 1.4.2

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds several security fixes.
  • Fixes several programming bugs.

Version 1.4.1

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds several security fixes.
  • Fixes several programming bugs.

Version 1.4

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds capability to install security fixes to registered servers by using the WebSphere Automation UI. If you are upgrading to WebSphere Automation 1.4 from a previous version, you must restart any servers that are registered with WebSphere Automation to use this feature. Instructions for uninstalling fixes and restoring a backup of the server environment are provided.
    Important: WebSphere Automation cannot install or uninstall fixes on WebSphere Application Server or WebSphere Application Server Liberty that are installed on z/OS or iSeries platforms.
  • Updates the UI to provide helpful code snippets during the server registration process.

Version 1.3.1

• Features and enhancements
  • Adds several security fixes.

Version 1.3

• Features and enhancements
  • Added several enhancements to the UI:
    • A new CVE information page that displays details about the CVE, an external link to the pertinent ibm.com security bulletin, and a list of registered servers that are affected by it. Clicking a CVE ID in the UI opens the page. For more information, see Viewing information about a CVE.
    • A new server information page with general information about the server and a list of fixes that were installed (or uninstalled) on the server. Clicking a server name in the Server management section of the UI opens the page. For more information, see Viewing server information.
    • A new server vulnerabilities page that displays a list of all of the CVEs that affect a particular server. Clicking a server name in the Security section of the UI opens the page. For more information, see Viewing server vulnerabilities.
    • A new health investigations page that displays a list of all of the memory leak investigations that were initiated on the server. Clicking a server name in the Health section of the UI opens the page. For more information, see Viewing server health investigations.
    • Miscellaneous UI improvements.
  • Adds support for using a proxy server. For more information, see Configuring to use a proxy server.

Version 1.2

• Software support
  • Adds support for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.9.
• Features and enhancements
  • Adds new section to the user interface for investigating server health issues.
  • Introduces a new ability to investigate memory leak issues in managed servers.
  • Adds miscellaneous updates to the user interface.
  • Adds new roles and changed existing roles, affecting permissions that are needed to perform actions within WebSphere Automation.
• Deprecations and removals
  • Removes the View WebSphere inventory role. To view the inventory, you must have the View Security or the View Health Investigations role.

Version 1.1.1

• Software support
  • Adds support for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.8.
• Features and enhancements
  • Adds miscellaneous bug fixes and UI improvements (no functional changes).
• Documentation
  • Adds instructions for Updating WebSphere Automation.
  • Adds miscellaneous updates and improvements.

Version 1.1.0

• Initial release of WebSphere Automation.
• Enables the tracking of common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) within a managed server inventory.