Using WFA to Automate Database Workflows

[rickymartin]

Has anyone done work in using WFA  to automate database workflows like the ones seen in the NVA for Oracle ? I'm curious to see if this is something WFA  is well suited to, or if upper level automation tools like System Center that I've seen used for SQL Server are really required.

[pwl]

i haven't inspected the NVA, but Oracle DB provisioning is one of the standard WFA examples: lots of volumes, mount points, etc set up.

Any more sophisticated stuff inside Oracle (or other DB) would require the right calls to be made: but since the back-end of WFA is perl or powershell, anything is possible.

If it were me, I'd have the DB automation operations handled in the context of the database (using its own tools), and then make the necessary calls from WFA (or higher order enterprise orchestrator)

so: yes, you could probably use WFA (since you can do perl or posh) but it's probably "cleaner" to use the higher-level tools

[goodrum]

I would like to add a few more things to Peter's response.  I have been working on full automation for Oracle Testing and Development environments.  Storage is storage in most cases so building the storage for Oracle environments is completely possible.  Now, if you are talking about building all of the table_spaces for a SID using WFA, then that is not 'currently' available within the certified commands.  Peter is absolutely correct in that we do have the ability to make remote calls to the host via SSH or API.  I have been working through a model that performs a clone of a VMware template, clones the NAS volumes from a backup of the production system, and presents the storage to the new VM.  The big difference is that I wrote custom commands to connect to the virtual machine to mount the storage, setup the oracle listener, and restore the Oracle SID.  These are built using Powershell and Invoke-NaSSH to connect to the Oracle Linux host.

I did this for a customer based on their lack of orchestration tools (in their case, we actually created a custom web portal for them).  As Peter pointed out, there are other orchestration tools (like your point about System Center for the MsSQL environments) and those would likely be a better choice.

For what it is worth, I plan to load a new Pirate Pack soon (next few weeks).  This pack with be the Pirate Pack for Oracle and it will contain the workflows for Testing and Development (Physical and Virtual)