Solved: Re: alternative for WFA?

hias_122 · ‎2023-03-14

Hi guys,
we are planning to replace our WFA enviroment. Due to several Tasks we had also got from our IT-Security Department regarding MFA and other Security features we are looking for another solution for automation.
Do you have any references, what is the best solution on the market? And what are you using?
BR hias

Ontapforrum · ‎2023-03-14

It's a great question. I have personally seen WFA application at 2 places where I worked, it was initially setup by Professional Services but seldom used in production/test environment. It was eventually abandoned due to very low usage of it. I am sure it is a great tool but end of the day, the question is - How often do you really use this tool to automate. I am sure every environment is different, in a very large scale environment/ deployments, it may be a great usage. I don't know really. I hope others will share their views as well.

As an alternate solutions, I can think of Ansible/Python/PowerShell etc, I am sure lot of it can be customized depending upon your scripting skills.

Reading this page:
https://netapp.io/2018/07/11/switching-to-ansible-from-wfa/

"While WFA has its advantages, such as strong user control, automatic resource selection, and a deep pool of available workflows, it also has disadvantages. With WFA, customization doesn't exist out of the box and often requires professional services work to match your environment. Additionally, connecting the provisioned storage to the host which needs to consume it using WFA is very difficult."

Ansible, on the other hand, is easy to customize for your environment right away, and it allows you to combine more than just NetApp resources in a single playbook. Perhaps, you can do more research and find what best for your company/team.

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Ontapforrum · ‎2023-03-14

It's a great question. I have personally seen WFA application at 2 places where I worked, it was initially setup by Professional Services but seldom used in production/test environment. It was eventually abandoned due to very low usage of it. I am sure it is a great tool but end of the day, the question is - How often do you really use this tool to automate. I am sure every environment is different, in a very large scale environment/ deployments, it may be a great usage. I don't know really. I hope others will share their views as well.

As an alternate solutions, I can think of Ansible/Python/PowerShell etc, I am sure lot of it can be customized depending upon your scripting skills.

Reading this page:
https://netapp.io/2018/07/11/switching-to-ansible-from-wfa/

"While WFA has its advantages, such as strong user control, automatic resource selection, and a deep pool of available workflows, it also has disadvantages. With WFA, customization doesn't exist out of the box and often requires professional services work to match your environment. Additionally, connecting the provisioned storage to the host which needs to consume it using WFA is very difficult."

Ansible, on the other hand, is easy to customize for your environment right away, and it allows you to combine more than just NetApp resources in a single playbook. Perhaps, you can do more research and find what best for your company/team.

hias_122 · ‎2023-03-15

Thanks for the hint - i was doing some research before, but i did not really found the right question or words on which i should google. So i tried here, maybe someone has already switched over to an alternative. But - i am really grateful for you tips 🙂

paul_stejskal · ‎2023-03-14

A lot of customers also are switching to REST APIs as well. It's a little harder to get going but once you do you can write your own automation.

heightsnj · ‎2023-03-14

When you say using REST API, you didn't mean just to use it alone, right? REST API cannot give you programing functions, you will also have to use a programing language like Python, PowerShell, etc to work with REST API.

Just to make sure my understanding is correct.

paul_stejskal · ‎2023-03-14

Correct as it uses queries.

hias_122 · ‎2023-03-15

I see - so i guess most (or maybe all) solutions are not that user-friendly as WFA was on creating new workflows. I mean, things like drag and drop and a clear view on the steps a workflow has