Automation Management Page

The Automation Management page collects and shows the set of automations Automated procedures that are executed as the result of a trigger. Automations consist of a single entry point and a sequence of connected nodes that define the processing logic. that are configured for your Riverbed IQ Ops installation, organized by trigger A set of one or more indicators that have been correlated based on certain relationships, such as time, metric type, application affected, location, or network device. category and type. For each trigger type, only one runbook can be configured as the active runbook that executes when that trigger fires. You can have many runbooks of the same type (e.g. many incident runbooks), but only one of them can be mapped and active per trigger at any time.

How automation gets turned on

Riverbed IQ Ops separates runbook definitions from the trigger mappings that cause those runbooks to execute. Two controls work together:

• Allow Automation (on the Runbooks page or when you save a runbook): Makes a runbook eligible to be mapped to a trigger. Custom runbooks are off by default. Turning Allow Automation on does not cause the runbook to run when a trigger fires. You can allow automation for many runbooks of the same type. If a runbook is already mapped to a trigger, you cannot turn Allow Automation off until you remove or change that mapping.

• Enable Automation (on this Automation Management page, for each mapping): Activates the mapped trigger and runbook pair so the runbook executes when the trigger conditions are met. If Enable Automation is off, the platform can still recognize the trigger (for example, create an incident), but the mapped runbook does not run.

To put automation into effect, allow automation on the runbook, map that runbook to a trigger (for example with the Add an Automation wizard or Configure an Automation Rule), and leave Enable Automation on for that mapping.

Navigate to the Automation Management page:

1. Click Automation in the left menu.

2. Click Automation Mapping.

The Automation Management page shows trigger categories and types as a set of cards, one card for each trigger type:

• New Incident Triggers: The set of automated triggers configured for network phenomena comprising outages, congestion, anomalies An unexpected event or measurement that does not match the expected model., etc.

• Incident Lifecycle Triggers: The set of automated triggers configured for tracking changes to the incidents themselves, comprising status The current state of an incident or runbook, indicating its progress through investigation and resolution workflows. changes, priority A classification that indicates the importance or urgency of an incident, used to prioritize investigation and remediation efforts. changes, annotations, etc.

• External Triggers: The set of automated triggers configured for external API Application Programming Interface. A set of protocols and tools that allows different applications to communicate with each other, enabling runbook execution and data retrieval from external systems. activity.

For each category, click the + to add an automated trigger for that category. This action launches the Add an Automation wizard.

Each card shows the number of automations for that trigger type. Click the card to open a list of the corresponding automations. The automations are shown in the user-defined order in which they are executed according to their conditions being matched. The list shows these fields for each automation:

• Trigger: One of the built-in triggering entities Things deployed in the customer environment that are needed to run the business, such as applications, devices, interfaces, and locations., as listed in the Runbook Editor: Application An entity type representing software applications deployed in the customer environment that are monitored for performance and anomalies. Location Performance Issue, Device An entity type representing network devices or hardware components deployed in the customer environment that are monitored for performance and anomalies. Down Issue, Interface An entity type representing network interfaces on devices that are monitored for performance metrics and anomalies. Performance Issue, Multi-Device Down Issue, or Webhook.

• Execute On Trigger: The name of the runbook An automated workflow that executes a series of steps or tasks in response to a triggered event, such as the detection of anomalous behavior generating an incident, a lifecycle event, or a manually executed runbook. that is associated with the trigger type. Click the link to open the runbook in the Runbook Editor.

• Description: An informative summary of what the associated runbook will do in response to the trigger.

• Last Updated By: The user who modified this trigger/runbook mapping most recently.

• Last Updated On: The timestamp for when this trigger/runbook mapping was modified most recently.

• Enable Automation: Execute the mapped runbook in response to the trigger. Enable Automation is on by default. Disable it only if you do not want a runbook to execute in response to the trigger.
  See the description of the Allow Automation control on the Runbooks page for details of enabling a runbook to be mappable to a trigger.

• ...: Choose from:

  • Edit: Open the Edit an Automation wizard to change the automation definition.

  • Duplicate: Copy this automation definition.

  • Delete: Remove this automation definition.

  • Change Order: Specify this automation's precedence for the trigger type.

  • Open Runbook: Open the currently mapped runbook in the Runbook Editor.