Cortex IT Process Automation (ITPA)

Transcription

1 Cortex IT Process Automation (ITPA) The Next Generation of IT Modern enterprise IT is experiencing a fundamental shift in the velocity of IT that requires an equal fundamental shift in operations and tooling. Operating dynamic, high volume, services against a high-velocity 24x7 demand, IT needs to dynamically provision, instantly respond, proactively remediate, and adapt internal and external services with greater volume, velocity, and variety than a human operators can achieve. Intelligent Automation and Orchestration Cortex provides an automation infrastructure that is able to implement all levels of automation in real-time from simple configuration task automation in tactical deployments, through IT Process automation, to end-to-end business service orchestration. Cortex encapsulates existing investments in best of breed task and process automation tooling, augmenting these technologies seamlessly into the Cortex Intelligent Automation Platform. Through successful deployment, Cortex drives progressive adoption and expansion to establish a unified automation and orchestration infrastructure in a centralised or distributed hub and spoke topology. Cortex orchestrates people, process and technology reliably across governance domains, security firewalls, and internal and external service providers. Collapsing The Complexity of Automation Industrial automation researchers have for many years developed the concepts to support reliable full cycle automation. Avoiding the fragmentation that forces engineers into rigid systems by removing risk, ensuring reliability, and managing failure as an exception not an outcome. Many of these concepts have been partially adopted by information technology, however this has resulted in a complex landscape of fragmented tools and communication standards resulting in excessive costs, consulting and unnecessarily long projects. Cortex collapses this fragmentation back into a single unified automation platform, eliminating the need for complex standards and integration. Providing the full cycle of process definition, process execution, event and systems monitoring, event and process management, continuous improvement and governance in a single platform. Cortex eliminates the need for multiple tools, communication standards, and technologies. Most importantly, Cortex eliminates the complexity that prevents rapid deployment, and the systems rigidity that undermines agility to align with business change and support continuous improvement. Cortex enables organisations to initiate an automation culture and adaptively establish intelligent automation infrastructures. Enterprise IT can now cost effectively meet the accelerating velocity, volume and variety of demand from business to pro-actively operate a 24 x7, on-demand service. Cortex merges Event and Incident Management, System and Application Monitoring, Intelligent Decision Automation and Process Automation in a scalable real-time enterprise infrastructure to automate and orchestrate seamless event driven, interactive, hybrid and black box processes. Cortex Enables Lean IT

2 Cortex Concepts Providing a comprehensive platform enabling end-to-end process automation, Cortex operates a model which is closely aligned with the proven practices in industrial automation where the concepts of sensory monitoring, device control, knowledge management, process and enterprise automation all reside in a single hierarchy. There are three components to the core Cortex server: Device and Event Management Automation and Process Orchestration Situationally aware Decision Automation Rapid High Quality Deployment Cortex provides a unique real-time visual composition environment that supports both formalised development procedures and agile rapid prototyping. The acceleration in capturing requirements and deploying processes and has been shown to reduce the prototype timescales by a factor of 5 6 times. Continuous Improvement Cortex models are production ready Flow configurations; Flows, processes, and sub-processes in Cortex are rapidly migrated between development and production. These Flows operate at a granular scale which mitigates the risk of obsolescence, and ensures subject matter experts drive improvements directly into Cortex at the velocity of business operations. No coders, no long project cycles, no mis-alignment between operations and the business. Unlike traditional rigid IT automation, Cortex will remain current and agile; supporting technology innovation and the changing demands of your business. Subject Matter Experts Cortex abstracts the complexities of interfaces, device management, and data management from the visual composition environment allowing subject matter experts to create and manage the processes directly. Flows are composed directly into the visual composition environment. These Flows form a hierarchy of processes, sub-processes, interfaces and tasks which may be individually updated. The most mission critical environments are able to manage processes, technical or systems changes directly in production with zero code errors. The device, application and communication interfaces are abstracted to a lower level and are managed independently of the Flows. Scalable Cortex scales from a single server to a high performance, high availability global infrastructure, through a centralised, or distributed hub and spoke architecture. The Cortex engines operate in real-time enabling Flows to be adjusted, or modified to prevent, catch and remediate failures as they happen. Governance and Compliance The process hierarchy permits segregation of duties for process owners. It promotes re-use and a single Flow for any process, or sub-process. Automations are repeatable and managed by the subject authority; promoting strong governance and continuous policy compliance. Unlike traditional code or script based systems, Cortex enables subject matter experts to modify sub components without affecting the core processes or external orchestrations; assuring rapid alignment with operational change, and mitigating operational risk, on a global scale. Case Study - Vodafone 50 million+ events per month (peaking at 4 million per day). Remediates over 98.3% of situations. Solution: 6 Cortex servers in a high availability cluster. Cortex automates tasks, decision and processes of approximately analysts and technicians. Cortex Interface Framework

3 Cortex Interface Framework Cortex supports extensive interfacing to devices, systems and applications through a flexible interface framework. This interface framework de-couples the interfaces and abstracts all protocol & technology aspects of inter-system communication behind parameterised visual function blocks. Individual interface services operate in a ring-fenced environment and communicate with the Cortex Server across a single configurable port allowing services to be remotely or locally located to easily span secure boundaries. Interfaces are broadly categorised into three different types: Generic Interfaces These open standards interfaces enable Cortex to interface with almost any standards-based 3rd party system or device, including, Oracle, SQL Server, ODBC & OLEDB databases, HTTP SOAP/REST, SFTP/FTP(s), Telnet/SSH, LDAP, CORBA, SNMP, SYSLOG, TCP Sockets, etc. These interfaces enable communication to 100,000 s of devices and systems. Dedicated Interfaces These are pre-built communication interfaces for dedicated 3rd party systems and devices. Each communication interface uses the dedicated 3rd party libraries to facilitate system interaction, and include graphical blocks for each method exposed in the 3rd party API allowing seamless interaction from within the Cortex automation flows. Custom Interfaces Adding custom interfaces to legacy or in-house developed systems is simple with the Cortex interface SDK. All that is required is for the customer to create a mapping between the 3rd party data types and the Cortex data types in the SDK. Cortex will import the mapping, automatically creating the graphical function blocks, abstracting the technology away from the Flow developer, and allowing endless extension of the system. Cortex API Cortex exposes an HTTP REST API allowing external systems to execute Flows in Cortex. Reporter A comprehensive reporting engine allows the ad-hoc generation or scheduled distribution of core and customer-specific reports. Example Generic Interfaces Databases (Oracle, SQL Server, ODBC, OLEDB) HTTP SOAP HTTP REST Telnet/SSH FTP(s) and SFTP CORBA TCP Sockets SNMP SYSLOG Example Dedicated Interfaces Active Directory BT Diamond IPAM Cisco ACS Cisco LMS Cisco UCM HP SM 7 & 9 HP ucmdb HP OO HP NNMi HP NA Remedy ServiceNow Verint Voice Recording VideoIQ User Experience Cortex Studio A visually rich UI that allows process owners to compose processes and embed intelligence in an environment that will be familiar to any process modeller. Cortex studio extends many of the process modelling concepts to allow intelligence and support the unique Cortex exception handling. The environment is able to run in simulated or real-time modes testing end-to-end business and technical Flows. Studio is a client application which is installed for users that need to participate in the construction and testing of workflows. Studio communicates with the Cortex Server on a single configurable TCP port. LivePortal Service Catalogue This is a web-based catalogue that allows users (internal business or support users and external customers) to view published detail of all service requests/processes automated in Cortex. From this catalogue users can initiate and potentially interact with specific workflows. The catalogue is access controlled, and users will only see and be able to start service requests or processes they have been given access to.

4 User Experience LivePortal User Interaction Processes dynamically construct web pages in the LivePortal allowing users to monitor and/or interact with workflows. LivePortal pages are constructed on the fly from WYSIWYG configurations with zero coding in the Cortex Server. This provides exceptional agility as pages can be rapidly adapted to match changing business needs. Management Dashboards Powerful dashboards provide dynamic reports on all aspects of Cortex performance, including volumes and types of executions, success metrics, and all interfacing to external systems. The dashboards also provide insight into performance metrics of monitored devices and systems, and the all-important value and time saved in automated processes. These role based dashboards are ideal to help functional managers identify and quantify areas for driving continuous improvement. These dashboards and associated operational intelligence data cubes are available directly to, or for export to, external business analytics and business intelligence systems. Administration UIs Cortex provides a comprehensive and powerful set of interfaces to allow a Systems Administrator efficient monitoring and administration of the Cortex platform. These include: System Message Centre Security and User Management Service Monitoring & Control Performance Management API and Interface Management Extensive Auditing and Logging Production Operating Modes Each Cortex domain may host many different automation Flows, of which each individual Flow can run in any of the operational modes: Black Box Cortex Flows are initiated through one of the following non-interactive methods: External call to the Cortex API Cortex process call Scheduled, or dependent event External event, incident, or state Monitored state or situation Flows require no human involvement. Cortex management dashboards track progress and completion. External systems, such as Service Desk applications, may monitor the status through Cortex synchronisation. Alternatively, s, SMS and the LivePortal may be used to update user communities.

5 Production Operating Modes Interactive An internal or external user triggers Cortex Flows from the Cortex LivePortal Service Catalogue. Once initiated the user is presented with the LivePortal user interaction where the Flow state and progress is displayed. Where necessary the Flow can dynamically request additional user data, await a user decision, or authorisation, based on information displayed. The Flow is able to monitor the user interaction and skip non-mandatory requests, or escalate, on a time-out. Hybrid Interactive Flows are initiated by any supported mechanism and would typically not interact with users. However, scenarios arise where the actions or processes cannot continue without escalation to a user. Some examples: User data entry required data missing in business or technical system External interaction required confirmation of order to external party Authorisation required High risk, or high impact activities The Flow dynamically generates the applicable LivePortal forms, notifies the relevant user(s)(via , SMS, service desk, etc), awaits the user response then proceeds. Navigation to the LivePortal user interaction form is most often achieved via a hyperlink in the user notification, or the user browsing accessible flow executions in the LivePortal user interface, service desk, or other external system. Development and Testing Cortex can be run in two different modes: Simulated Interaction In this mode a Flow executes normally, however all 3rd party system or device interaction is simulated. No attempt at external communication is made, and a configurable response that matches the target system is returned automatically. This mode is particularly useful to remove dependencies on 3rd parties during the early stages of an automation initiative. Full Interaction This mode is the standard mode of execution where external interaction blocks will perform full interaction with actual 3rd party systems or devices. Architecture Cortex delivers the next generation of automation through a powerful platform with a simple topology where individual servers can act independently as a unified domain. Intelligent event management, decision automation and process automation engines interoperate in real-time, at scale. These engines network creating a distributed infrastructure, or collaborate to increase capacity. Cortex emulates human reasoning and action to drive business and IT processes intelligently recognising triggers from smart event monitoring, performance issues, business systems, trouble tickets, service requests, or systems status. Technical Specifications Operating System Minimum required OS: Windows Server 2003 Standard.Net 4.0 Recommended OS: Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard.Net 4.0 Cortex Databases Minimum: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition Recommended: Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition SAAS Model Cortex is available as a SAAS model

6 Architecture Cortex Server The Cortex Server is the core component of the solution and enables: Receipt, parsing, correlating, processing and responding to events Receipt, processing & threshold checking of performance data Composition, testing and execution of automation flows and business rules Cortex is built on a robust, real-time visual expert engine honed by over 2 decades in mission-critical industrial control & automation. The single integrated environment removes the need to have separate event and automation, or separate composition, testing & execution engines with the incumbent fragmentation and confusion created by existing toolsets. Cortex Studio Server Cortex Studio is the term for a non-production Cortex used for automation development and testing. Since Cortex is a single composition, testing and execution environment there is no difference between a Studio and a production instance other than the environment it is installed in and its designated use. This ensures operational agility, flexibility and 100% compatibility which are difficult to achieve with other architectures. Remote Interface Server Interface services typically reside the same machines as the Cortex server. In some circumstances it is necessary to enable device and system interaction in remote networks without the need for a full Cortex Server. The Remote Interface Server provides this extension to the Cortex Interface Framework and allows interfacing to a remote device, network, or system and maintain a single securable connection. Innovise ESM Innovise ESM works with IT organisations to improve their ability to innovate and respond to the changing needs of the business. Whether the challenge is reducing costs, corporate governance, taking on new services or consolidating infrastructures, Innovise ESM provides the impartial advice, expert skills and the service management technology to enable IT organisations to manage continuous change. Innovise ESM offerings include: ITIL Service Management Consulting Enterprise IT Management Solutions Network Management Solutions Process Orchestration Training Solutions Technical Support Services Innovise IES Innovise Intelligent Enterprise Software (IES), an Innovise PLC company, produces Cortex the leading Intelligent Automation software, built on over two decades of experience in realtime industrial automation. Cortex enables enterprise IT, for the first time, to comprehensively respond to increasing volume, variety and velocity of business demands whilst controlling cost, improving service and accelerating response to demand, by delivering fully autonomous IT services. Innovise Slough Keypoint High Street Slough Berkshire SL1 1DY Innovise Midlands 2nd Floor, Capstan House The Waterfront Brierley Hill West Midlands DY5 1XL T +44 (0) W E [email protected] Copyright Innovise 2013