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The world and business in general have changed dramatically in the last several months. As a result, organizations have had to make significant changes to their network management processes. The lack of physical presence at the office and an increase in remote working have resulted in approval delays, disruption of service delivery, and pressure to maintain positive customer experience. Siloed task-based automation can no longer sustain post-pandemic requirements. Organizations require a complete end-to-end method-of-procedure (MOP) automation platform.
Workflow(MOP) automation was first introduced in Anuta ATOM 8.0 version. Since then, we have made continuous improvements to this feature. We aim to simplify not only the network operations but also accelerate use-case development and deployment. The workflow user interface (UI) has been enhanced to include debugging, troubleshooting, tracing, and monitoring capabilities.
Intuitive Workflow Builder
ATOM 8.0 used an external application to build workflows. Now, ATOM 8.6 has an intuitive workflow builder integrated into the UI. The workflow builder includes several out-of-box templates for various enterprise and service provider network processes. The templates consist of show commands, exec commands, approvals, integrations to ITSM, and other solutions as well as vendor-specific API calls. Administrators can deploy any of these templates directly or update them to suit their specific business case. The workflow builder also supports version control.
Pause & Resume Workflows
IT networks are dynamic. Automation workflows, once deployed, may need to be suspended, deleted, or resumed when needed. Anuta ATOM workflow builder can now pause, resume, cancel, and un-deploy workflows on-demand through the UI. The workflows also have the capability to retry upon any errors.
Easily Integrate with APIs
ATOM workflow provides API connectors to integrate with external network entities. This communication can be bidirectional and trigger APIs on external network entities as well as enable other entities to trigger APIs. Some procedures may require a trigger of certain events to continue. ATOM workflow automation can pause workflows at certain points and resume only after the network triggers the appropriate event. Many out-of-box connectors are already available for ITSM solutions, such as ServiceNow. Anuta is in the process of adding many more connectors to our already vast portfolio. However, customers can also create custom connectors easily using the workflow builder.
Tracking and Monitoring Workflows
Another improvement in Anuta ATOM 8.6 is the monitoring of workflow execution status. The ATOM workflow dashboard displays all essential information related to the number of workflows, successful and failed executions and partial and completed workflows, among many others. Workflow instance statistics also provide detailed analytics of the operational aspects of each instance. This includes values provided to user forms, user actions pending on the workflow, and errors encountered during the workflow execution. The status of each task is also refreshed as the workflow progresses through its various steps.
Massive-Scale Automation
Since the launch of the workflow feature, Anuta has made significant improvements in the performance and scalability of workflow executions. Some of these enhancements include the optimization of long and short running tasks, improved speed of deployment, activation of workflows, and introduction of load-balancing and parallel execution of workflows. The numerous improvements in the recent ATOM release has improved workflow throughput by an astounding 100%!
ATOM workflow will simplify network operational and MOP automation activities. Anuta is making continuous improvements in the usability and operability aspects of our workflow capability. The next release will contain even more UI improvements and out-of-box templates to accelerate the delivery of services.
To see a demo of a workflow, visit the following link – https://www.anutanetworks.com/downloads/demo-video-low-code-workflow-automation/
