This is a blog from a Broadcom Knight. Broadcom Knights are an elite group of technical professionals within a wide range of partner organizations. These individuals have demonstrated technical expertise in Broadcom’s software products and are recognized as experts in their field.
Automation solutions from Broadcom enable organizations to deliver services quickly and accurately, so they can be more successful in today’s highly competitive digital business environment. Automation is part of every business continuity plan. However, there is no one-size-fits-all approach that works for every organization; large enterprises have complex IT infrastructures and unique automation needs. As a Broadcom Knight, I work exclusively with Automic Automation customers, both in German-speaking countries and beyond. Over the years, I have gained a deep understanding of customers’ real-world complexities and how Broadcom, together with my company, best-blu, can help to solve these challenges.
From a single unified platform, Automic Automation provides the centralized orchestration and automation capabilities that are needed to accelerate your digital transformation and support the growth of your company. Automic Automation is inherently object-oriented. By using action packs, developers can simply drag and drop functions from the platform’s Automic Package Manager into their workflows.
Automic Package Manager enables the smooth, reliable installation of action packs across all your environments, from development to production. These action packs are always versioned, which helps to ensure that the correct version is always installed in all environments. On the Automation Marketplace, you can find an extensive portfolio of action packs, including those created by Broadcom, partners, and the greater community. By using Automic Package Manager, your operators can follow a proven process that helps minimize mistakes, operational complexity, and risk.
As I mentioned earlier, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to automation. Larger enterprises have complex automation needs. To build on Automic Package Manager’s success and help our customers meet additional needs, we have created best4Automic Packages.
As Broadcom CEO Hock Tan said earlier this year, “The value our partners deliver goes far beyond services. Showcased on our Insights Marketplace at expert.broadcom.com, customers can find our partner-built applications that extend our product capabilities and tailor them for specific use cases—unlocking more value from our customers’ investments. In short, for every challenge, there’s a Broadcom partner ready to deliver the solution and support the specialized needs of businesses—regardless of size.”
Building on the success of Automic Package Manager, best-blu created best4Automic Packages. These packages provide modules that extend the functionality of Automic Automation. For example, the solution can enable customers to complete important tasks, such as scheduling a job to run at 10 p.m. every day. This is done by the schedule object, which can very easily be inserted into best4Automic Packages.
Access data stored in login and connection objects can’t be transported with action packs. Given this, best4Automic Packages offer the possibility to manage this information only at a central location and in an encrypted form. This increases the reliability of the deployment process, as the configuration of login and connection objects can be automated.
best4Automic Packages also support Git integration so action packs and any Automic objects can be stored and managed in a Git and GitHub repository. Recently, we have introduced Cucumber-based test automation, which is another innovative new feature. This functionality runs tests every time a best4Automic Package is installed or updated, preventing errors that could later have a negative impact on production.
These are just a few of the many ways that best4Automic Packages can help solve specific automation needs. We are constantly innovating to meet our customers’ evolving business and automation challenges.
Automic action packs, together with Automic Package Manager and best4Automic Packages, are powerful tools. With these offerings, teams can more efficiently implement automation and reduce the risk of errors. To learn more, be sure to visit the Automic Automation page and the best4Automic Packages page.