Automation, APIs, and Workflow Integration
Domain 8 - Automation, APIs, and Workflow Integration
This domain tests how you drive the CommCell without the console: command line operations, the REST API, workflow activities and event-driven automation.
Core rules
- The command line interface uses qcommands. qlogin establishes a session and stores credentials, qlist reads configuration and job state, and qoperation execute performs changes using an XML payload that describes the operation and its parameters.
- The REST API exposes the same operations over HTTPS, with token-based authentication obtained from a login endpoint; the token is then sent as a header on subsequent calls. Endpoint names and payload shapes vary by version, so always confirm against the target CommCell's API documentation.
- Workflows are defined as sequences of activities executed by the workflow engine on the CommServe. They can be triggered on a schedule, on a CommCell event such as job completion or failure, or manually, and they can call scripts or REST endpoints.
- Alerts can run commands or scripts as their action, which is the lightweight way to react to a failed job without building a workflow.
- Automation should authenticate with a dedicated service account holding a narrowly scoped role, and should log its actions so the audit trail remains meaningful.
- Output formats matter: qlist and REST responses are parsed by scripts, so pin the fields you consume and handle version differences explicitly.
Worked example
After any failed backup, the team wants a ticket opened with the job ID and client name. Create an alert on job failure whose action runs a script, and pass the job and client identifiers as tokens into the script arguments. The script calls the ticketing API. Test by forcing a failure on a lab client, confirm the tokens resolve to real values, and check the alert history. For multi-step logic, such as retrying the job once before escalating, use a workflow with a job-completion trigger instead of stacking alert actions.
Traps that cost marks
- Building qoperation calls without the XML payload, or with a payload for a different CommCell version.
- Reusing a personal administrator account for automation instead of a scoped service account.
- Assuming REST endpoints are identical across releases.
- Relying on alert scripts for multi-step orchestration that belongs in a workflow.