Rapid Automation

Rapid Automation (RA) refers to a generic technology in Automic Automation that offers various solutions to integrate and automate third-party applications. Rapid Automation Agents make the functions of a Rapid Automation solution accessible.

Overview

Broadcom offers several Rapid Automation solutions, including: 

• Avaloq Agent
• RA Banner Agent
• RA Business Objects Agent
• RA FTP Agent
• RA Hadoop Agent
• RA Hyperion EPMA Agent
• RA Hyperion ESSBASE Agent
• RA Hyperion FDMEE Agent
• RA Hyperion FM Agent
• RA Hyperion Planning Agent
• RA Informatica Agent
• RA JD Edwards Agent
• RA JMS Agent
• RA Oracle E-Business Suite Agent
• RA Oracle ERP Cloud Agent
• RA Oracle Retail Agent
• RA Web Service REST Agent
• RA Web Service SOAP Agent

These Rapid Automation Agents have their own release cadence.

If you are interested in using a Rapid Automation solution, please contact our Broadcom team .

Note: This integration capability, like all integrations of the Automic system, can support Service Orchestration Workflows. Such Workflows orchestrate automated processes that run across multiple platforms, domains, and applications to deliver a specific IT service. For more information, see About Service Orchestration.

RA Agents

RA Agents consist of two components:

• the RA Core Agent, which is the generic Rapid Automation Agent framework used for any RA solution

• the RA solution, which contains the business logic to integrate with third-party applications

To deploy a Rapid Automation agent solution successfully, you have to carry out the following two steps:

1. Install the RA Core agent in Automic Automation either manually or in a container. In both cases you can use the agent for an on-premises Automic Automation system or an Automic Automation Kubernetes Edition environment.

   Note: The installation process of the RA Core agent in a container is the same as any other Java agent.

   More information:

   • Installing the Agent for Rapid Automation

   • Installing Containerized Java Agents

2. Load the RA solution into the AE database using either the AE.DB Load utility or the system/ra-solutions/ endpoint of the AE REST API, see RA Solutions

The RA Core Agent can only get one RA solution from the AE database. That means that, even if you have loaded different RA solutions to the AE database, the RA Core Agent gets only one. The same applies to different versions of the same RA solution. Therefore, if you intend to use several RA solutions, keep in mind that each solution and/or each version of the same solution requires its own RA Core Agent.

Example

If you have installed only one RA Core Agent and it gets the RA REST solution from the AE database, it becomes the RA REST Agent and there is no RA Core Agent available anymore.

If you have installed two RA Core Agents and both get the RA REST solution from the AE database, they both become RA REST Agents.

If you then proceed to load the next version of the RA REST solution into the AE database, the version is overwritten. The next time the RA REST Agents start, they have the version of the updated RA REST solution.

An Agent object must be created in Client 0 before the RA Agent is put into operation. Use the supplied Agent template for this purpose. An Agent object contains the Connection objects that should be used for logging into applications, databases, and so on. Create these Connection objects by using the supplied templates.

Agent Guides

The documentation for the RA Agents is available at https://docs.automic.com/documentation.

RA Solutions

Each RA solution has its own individual function but there are some similarities in all Rapid Automation solutions. The corresponding RA Agent requires specific settings. Therefore, an RA solution includes a template for the Agent object that should be used. Connection data is specified in one or several Connection objects defined for that particular RA solution. The RA solution also includes the required object templates. The same is true for Job objects. Each RA solution includes one or several job types that can be used to call the relevant functions.

Note: The contents of Agent, Connection and Job objects depend on the particular RA solution.

RA solutions are supplied as JAR files. Again, RA solutions can be loaded to the AE database either by using the AE.DB Load utility or the system/ra-solutions/ endpoint of the AE REST API.

Using the AE.DB Load Utility

The AE.DB Load utility (see AE DB Load) reads the JAR file and creates the following objects in Client 0:

• RA Solution object in the folder RA_SOLUTIONS
• Template for the Agent object in the folder TEMPLATE
• One or several templates for Connection objects in the folder TEMPLATE
• One or several templates for Job objects in the folder TEMPLATE

Note: You must use the .jar Loader (ucybdbld.jar). Loading with the utility using the binary executables (ucybdbld.exe for Windows or ucybdbld for Unix) in batch mode is not possible.

Example

java -jar ucybdbld.jar -B -C0000 -X<path><RA_Solution>.jar

The utility AE.DB Load automatically enters the new templates into the variable UC_OBJECT_TEMPLATE, see UC_OBJECT_TEMPLATE - Object Types and Templates.

The following object types are available with the following naming structures:

• RA Solution

  The name of the RA Solution

• Agent:

  AGENT.name of the RA Solution

• Connection:

  CONN.name of the RA Solution.technical name of the connection

• Job

  JOBS.name of the RA Solution.technical name of the job type

The utility AE.DB Load can also be used to load later versions of an RA solution. The former version is automatically replaced in the AE database.

Tip: If any of the RA-specific pages is missing in the AWI after you have loaded a solution, log out and in again to get them displayed.

You can delete an RA solution from the AE system by deleting the corresponding RA solution object in Client 0 (folder: RA_SOLUTIONS). The object including its entries is not moved to the Recycle Bin but is completely removed from the AE database.

Using the AE REST API

The system/ra-solutions/ endpoint of the AE REST API provides an alternative for loading the RA solution. This endpoint allows you to do the following:

• List all RA solutions installed

• Install and/or upgrade an RA solution

• Upload an RA solution

• Get information on an RA solution

More information:

• REST API Reference

• AE REST API - General Info

RA Jobs

RA jobs include object type-specific pages.

Note: Login object are not supported for most RA jobs. Login data is stored in either the Agent or Connection object. For more information, see the Agent Guides.

Setting and Reading Job Attributes

For attributes that are also available in other Job objects (such as the archive keys or cost centers), you can set or read the same job name (see Attributes for All Job Types) via script using :PUT_ATT and GET_ATT. You can also change these attributes with the AE DB Change utility. For more information, see Keys that modify Rapid Automation attributes.

Job attributes are documented for most Agents in the Agent Guides. Additionally, you can retrieve the attribute names including their values by running the following command in the AE database (replace the JOBNAME by the job's actual object name):

select OCV_VName,ocv_value from OCV,oh where OCV_OH_Idnr=OH_Idnr and oh_name='JOBNAME'

Note: You can also use a SQLI-type VARA object to run this command.