Overview of Operations REST Server

The Operations REST Server component of IBM Z® System Automation provides an application programming interface (API) and allows the programmatic exploitation of resources that are automated by System Automation. Developers of other programs or products that allow to exploit REST interfaces can use this component to add System Automation operations as part of their workflow.

The Operations API provided by the Operations REST Server is an additional operations interface. It will not change the configuration or definitions in the automation policy.

In the current 4.3 release of Z System Automation, the Operations API V1.1 is being shipped. In the previous 4.2 release, the API V1.0 was shipped in the APAR OA59461 in September 2020, and then upgraded to V1.1 in the APAR OA61704 in October 2021. Compared to the older V1.0, V1.1 allows all new features like handling of requests and automation policies. 

Using the latest Operations API V1.1, you can integrate the following operation tasks into other products or programs:

Work with resources
  • List automated resources and get details.
  • Find resources with special filters.
  • Request to start, stop, suspend, or resume any resource.
  • Create dynamic resources from templates.
  • Delete dynamic resource instances.
Work with templates
  • List defined templates in different versions.
  • Find a template by its name.
  • Use templates to create dynamic resource instances.
Work with requests
  • List all managed requests and get details.
  • Find or delete requests with special filters.
  • Find all requests for a specific resource.
Work with SAplex configurable members
  • List all registered automation agents and managers.
  • Refresh the policy.
  • Change configuration like recording and takeover file.

To learn more about Operations REST Server, you can also refer to this training course in unit 1 that introduces the capabilities, configuration and usage scenarios of this component.

Detailed documentation of the Operations API is provided by a built-in Swagger UI in the following URL. You can try out each individual endpoint directly on the Swagger UI, calling the live system that is configured behind the Operations REST Server.
http(s)://<ing.service.hostname>:<ing.service.port>/ibm/sa/swagger-ui.html
Note: You can access the Swagger UI and execute requests only after you have configured and started the Operations REST Server component (see Planning and Installation). However, if you want to preview it before installing Operations REST Server, you can refer to Documentation of Operations REST API.