Duration 2 days – 14 hrs
Overview
This instructor-led course provides participants with the practical knowledge and skills required to operate and manage Hitachi Ops Center Automator. It covers the solution’s architecture, interface, user roles, service templates, service creation, task execution, connection settings, monitoring, and basic troubleshooting.
Participants will learn how to automate common storage and data-center operations, including storage provisioning, by creating and managing automation services and executing predefined workflows. Hands-on exercises reinforce the administrative and operational concepts presented during the course.
The outline is suitable as a standard general course and may be customized according to the client’s installed Hitachi Ops Center Automator version, storage environment, integrations, and operational procedures.
Objectives
- Explain the purpose, architecture, and key capabilities of Hitachi Ops Center Automator.
- Describe the roles and responsibilities of service administrators and service users.
- Navigate the Ops Center Automator interface and dashboard.
- Review service, task, and operational information.
- Configure users, groups, roles, and access permissions.
- Configure connections to supported Hitachi and third-party systems.
- Import, review, and manage service templates.
- Create and configure automation services.
- Submit and execute services using appropriate input parameters.
- Monitor scheduled and running tasks.
- Respond to tasks that require user action.
- Review task histories, execution results, and logs.
- Manage recurring schedules and service execution.
- Identify and resolve common service and task execution issues.
- Apply basic operational and governance practices for storage automation.
Target Audience
- Hitachi storage administrators
- Storage infrastructure engineers
- Data-center administrators
- Systems administrators
- Infrastructure automation engineers
- Cloud and platform operations personnel
- Technical support engineers
- IT operations professionals
- Hitachi Vantara customers and partners responsible for automating storage operations
Prerequisites
- Basic knowledge of enterprise storage concepts.
- Familiarity with Hitachi storage systems or equivalent block-storage technologies.
- Basic understanding of storage provisioning, hosts, volumes, pools, and logical devices.
- General knowledge of data-center infrastructure and system administration.
- Familiarity with Hitachi Ops Center components is helpful but not mandatory.
- Basic knowledge of REST APIs, command-line tools, VMware, or ServiceNow is helpful for integration-related topics but not required.
For hands-on exercises, participants should have access to:
- A configured Hitachi Ops Center Automator environment
- Appropriate user credentials and permissions
- Connected or simulated Hitachi storage resources
- A supported web browser
- Relevant service templates and lab resources
Course Outline
Day 1: Hitachi Ops Center Automator Fundamentals and Administration
Module 1: Introduction to Storage Automation
- Challenges in traditional storage administration
- Benefits of infrastructure and storage automation
- Common automation use cases
- End-to-end storage provisioning
- Standardization and operational consistency
- Reducing manual effort and human error
- Position of Automator within the Hitachi Ops Center Suite
Module 2: Hitachi Ops Center Automator Overview
- Purpose and capabilities of Ops Center Automator
- Product architecture and major components
- Automation services, service templates, tasks, and workflows
- Service administrator and service user responsibilities
- Integration with other Hitachi Ops Center products
- High-level automation lifecycle
- Supported automation scenarios
Module 3: Navigating the User Interface
- Logging in to Ops Center Automator
- Understanding the main navigation areas
- Dashboard components and reports
- Viewing services and task summaries
- Reviewing frequently used and frequently failed services
- Tasks waiting for action
- My Tasks and My Favorite Services
- Accessing user profile settings
Hands-on exercise:
- Log in and explore the Ops Center Automator interface.
- Review dashboard reports, services, tasks, and user settings.
Module 4: User, Group, and Access Management
- Authentication options and user management concepts
- Built-in and registered user accounts
- User groups and service groups
- Roles, privileges, and permissions
- Assigning users to groups
- Controlling access to automation services
- Local authentication and Common Services authentication
- Basic access-control best practices
Hands-on exercise:
- Review or create user and service groups.
- Assign permissions and validate service access.
Module 5: Configuring System Connections
- Understanding connection requirements
- Web service connections
- Ops Center API Configuration Manager connections
- Registering storage systems
- Ops Center Administrator connections
- Ops Center Analyzer connections
- VMware vCenter connections
- ServiceNow connections
- Agentless remote connections
- Testing and maintaining connection settings
- Credential and connection-security considerations
Hands-on exercise:
- Review or configure a supported system connection.
- Validate connectivity and registered resources.
Module 6: Introduction to Service Templates
- Purpose and structure of service templates
- Built-in and custom service templates
- Template packages and versions
- Importing service templates
- Viewing template details
- Understanding input and output properties
- Reviewing prerequisites and resource requirements
- Managing template availability
Hands-on exercise:
- Import or review a service template.
- Examine its workflow, properties, and prerequisites.
Day 2: Service Management, Task Execution and Troubleshooting
Module 7: Creating and Managing Automation Services
- Relationship between templates and services
- Workflow for creating an automation service
- Selecting an appropriate service template
- Configuring service names and descriptions
- Defining input parameters
- Configuring resource and connection information
- Assigning services to service groups
- Testing and releasing a service
- Editing, copying, disabling, and deleting services
- Managing service versions
Hands-on exercise:
- Create an automation service from a template.
- Configure its properties, access, and execution settings.
Module 8: Submitting and Executing Services
- Service execution workflow
- Selecting and submitting a service
- Entering service input parameters
- Immediate and scheduled execution
- Configuring recurring schedules
- Reviewing execution details before submission
- Understanding task states and progress
- Handling tasks waiting for user action
- Stopping, suspending, resuming, and retrying tasks
Hands-on exercise:
- Submit an automation service.
- Monitor its execution and respond to required actions.
Module 9: Managing Tasks and Execution Results
- Task management interface
- Viewing active and completed tasks
- Reviewing task details
- Understanding task status and completion codes
- Viewing execution results and output properties
- Task history and audit information
- Archiving and removing task records
- Managing failed or interrupted tasks
- Operational reporting and tracking
Hands-on exercise:
- Monitor a task and evaluate its execution results.
- Review task history and output information.
Module 10: Service Builder Fundamentals
- Introduction to Service Builder
- When to customize or create a service template
- Understanding flows, steps, and plug-ins
- Input and output properties
- Mapping properties between steps
- Adding processing and command steps
- Testing and debugging a workflow
- Releasing a service template
- Template version-control considerations
Hands-on exercise:
- Review or modify a simple automation workflow.
- Map service properties and test the workflow.
Module 11: Integration and Automation Interfaces
- Overview of the Ops Center Automator REST API
- Common API automation use cases
- Authentication and API requests
- Service submission through the API
- Checking task status programmatically
- Overview of command-line interface capabilities
- Integration with IT service-management platforms
- Automation through ServiceNow
- Security considerations for external integrations
Module 12: Monitoring and Troubleshooting
- Common service and task execution problems
- Identifying configuration and connection failures
- Reviewing error messages and execution details
- Working with task and system logs
- Diagnosing authentication and permission issues
- Resolving invalid input and resource problems
- Verifying registered storage-system information
- Service-template compatibility considerations
- Escalation and support-information requirements
Hands-on exercise:
- Diagnose a simulated automation failure.
- Identify the probable cause and recommended corrective action.
Module 13: Operational Best Practices
- Establishing automation naming standards
- Role-based access and separation of duties
- Testing services before production release
- Managing credentials securely
- Service-template lifecycle management
- Change control and documentation
- Task monitoring and operational reporting
- Backup and recovery considerations
- Periodic review of users, groups, and permissions
- Maintaining an automation service catalog
Module 14: Capstone Exercise and Course Review
- Select an appropriate automation template.
- Configure and publish an automation service.
- Assign access to the service.
- Submit the service with the required parameters.
- Monitor task execution.
- Review results and troubleshoot encountered issues.
- Course review and knowledge assessment.
Suggested Practical Exercises
- Navigating the Automator dashboard
- Managing users and service groups
- Reviewing system connection settings
- Importing a service-template package
- Creating a service from a predefined template
- Scheduling and executing a service
- Monitoring and responding to tasks
- Reviewing task results and logs
- Customizing a basic workflow through Service Builder
- Troubleshooting a failed automation task
Reference note: This general outline reflects the major management areas documented in the current Hitachi Ops Center Automator User Guide, including services, tasks, users and groups, connection settings, service templates, and administration.
