Running workflows

A description of the files referenced by the sample The z/OSMF workflows, and how you run a workflow.

Workflow variable declaration files

The following files declare variables that are referenced by the sample z/OSMF workflows and associated JCL or REXX exec files:

Workflow variable declaration file name	Description
common_variables.xml	Variables common to both the queue manager (plus channel initiator) and queue workflows.
qmgr_variables.xml	Variables specific to the queue manager (plus channel initiator) workflows.
queue_variables.xml	Variables specific to the queue workflows.
tcpip_variables.xml	Variables specific to the queue manager (plus channel initiator) workflows, and used for identifying TCP/IP resources.

Note: The default visibility of variables is private. To allow variables to be queried using the z/OSMF REST API, selected variables have been marked as public. However, you can change the visibility of a given variable if required.

Running the workflows

Figure 1. 'One-click' provisioning of IBM MQ for z/OS resources

Overview diagram of the one-click provsioning of IBM MQ for z/OS resources.

Before the workflows can be run, some properties need to be set in the following file:

Workflow variable properties file name	Description
workflow_variables.properties	Initial properties for the workflow variables. Comments in the file indicate the purpose of each property. Properties within meta-brackets (< >) need to be set to user specific values. An environment property can be set to provision queue managers for development (DEV), or test (TEST), or quality assurance (QA), or production (PROD) environments. Additional property settings control the characteristics of the queue manager to be provisioned for each environment. For example you can vary the number of active logs, or the number of pagesets, for each environment type. Other properties are set to IBM® MQ default values but can be modified to meet local conventions if required.

Workflow variable properties file name

Description

workflow_variables.properties

Initial properties for the workflow variables. Comments in the file indicate the purpose of each property.

Properties within meta-brackets (< >) need to be set to user specific values.
An environment property can be set to provision queue managers for development (DEV), or test (TEST), or quality assurance (QA), or production (PROD) environments.
Additional property settings control the characteristics of the queue manager to be provisioned for each environment. For example you can vary the number of active logs, or the number of pagesets, for each environment type.
Other properties are set to IBM® MQ default values but can be modified to meet local conventions if required.

In general, once the properties have been set, the workflows can be run as is. However, if required, you can customize a workflow to modify or remove existing steps, or to add new steps.

Workflows can be run:

From the z/OSMF WUI.
From Cloud Provisioning -> Software Services in the WUI, workflows can be run in automatic or manual mode. The manual mode is useful when testing, and in both modes the progress of each step in the workflow can be monitored.

For more details, see Cloud provisioning services and Create a workflow.
Using the z/OSMF REST Workflow Services.
The REST Workflow Services can be used to run workflows through a REST API. This mode is useful for creating one-click operations from a user-written portal.

For more details, refer to Cloud provisioning REST APIs, and also see z/OSMF workflow services.
Using the sample marketplace portal provided with z/OSMF.