HCL Workload Automation is Cloud Native: Q&A with Chief Software Architect

In this blog, we are going to take you through a quick Fireside chat with HCL Workload Automation's Chief Software Architect, Franco Mossotto talking more about HCL Workload Automation and HCL software's cloud native approach​

What is HCL Software Cloud Native Strategy?
HCL Software strategy is to support our customers in the transition to cloud and simplify this process. 
We want to allow our customers to easily deploy our products on the cloud platform of their choice, and avoid to be locked to a single cloud vendor. For this reason, in addition to the classical on-premises installation, most of our products are now available in containers for deployment on any Kubernetes environment, in the customer’s data center or in their public cloud account. 

For the same reason we are basing our integrations on open standards, preferring technologies identified by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, e.g. OpenMetrics for observability, expose REST APIs documented with OpenAPI, authentication based on OpenID Connect / JWT tokens. 

How does HCL Workload Automation fits in this HCL Software Cloud Native Strategy? 
HCL Workload Automation has dramatically increased its cloud support in the last years and is continuously expanding in that space. We know that cloud transition is ongoing in most companies, but it’s not happening in a day, so our goal is to allow our customers to deploy our product on any cloud infrastructure or on-premise, according to their strategy and their speed, and assist them in this transition enabling them to automate hybrid workflows that spans from on-premise to cloud.  
For us, Cloud means two separate aspects that can live alone or coexist: HCL Workload Automation for Cloud and HCL Workload Automation on Cloud. 

With HCL Workload Automation for Cloud we mean our ability to orchestrate workload running on cloud. HCL Workload Automation agents can be easily deployed on virtual machines on any cloud provider or can be deployed using containers on any Kubernetes environment. Our agents can be configured to use unidirectional connections from the agent to HCL Workload Automation server, simplifying firewall configurations and easily tolerating any change of hostnames or IP address of the agent. Automating workload on Cloud is easy using the dedicated job types for RESTful APIs, Kubernetes jobs, specific job types for major cloud provider services that are available on the Automation Hub (www.yourautomationhub.io) 

Talking about HCL Workload Automation on Cloud, in addition to traditional on-premise installation or using VMs on cloud providers, we provide container images and Helm charts to support the deployment of HCL Workload Automation infrastructure on any Kubernetes environment. 

To simplify integration of HCL Workload Automation on customer processes, all our functionalities are exposed via REST APIs, compliant with OpenAPI v3 and complete with documentation on an embedded swagger UI. 
And this is just the beginning, we are continuously improving our cloud support, improving and simplifying our deployment on Kubernetes, and adding every quarter new job types for new services on cloud platforms. 

How can you deploy HCL Workload Automation in minutes on the cloud of your choice? 
Deployment of HCL Workload Automation on Kubernetes with Helm is very easy, you just need to define few simple prerequisites, customize few information in the values.yaml and run the Helm install. You don’t need to download any software; container images are automatically retrieved from HCL docker registry, Helm charts are open source and available on GitHub to allow additional personalization.  

Also, upgrades are dramatically simplified, with Kubernetes automatically orchestrating a rolling upgrade that updates the environment with no or minimal impacts. 

The deployment on Kubernetes also simplifies the configuration of custom certificates using cert-manager, including certificate rotation, and automatically integrates with Prometheus/Grafana for observability 

Another option to deploy HCL Workload Automation on Kubenetes is to use HCL SoFy, this provides several benefits, including the possibility to combine multiple HCL Software product in a single solution, the possibility to run a trial on HCL provided environment, and then download the solution Helm chart for deployment on the cloud of your choice. 

HCL SoFy further simplify the deployment including common prerequisite inside the solution. Prometheus, Grafana, Ambassador, KeyCloack are included, configured and integrated with the products for a quicker deployment and to hide any difference between cloud providers. 

How can HCL Software Customer benefit from HCL Workload Automation on HCL SoFy?
Customers can just go to hclsofy.com and request access. There is no additional cost to use SoFy. We even provide a free Kubernetes sandbox where they can try out all our software products running in Kubernetes. Once they’re ready to get serious, they can download the Helm installation package and run the software on their own Kubernetes environment using their existing software licenses – no additional license is required for SoFy common services! 
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How can you unlock the full potential of HCL Workload Automation in cloud? 
We are working on an additional option, called HCL Now, that will be announced soon for customers that are looking for a fully managed cloud experience. 
With HCL Workload Automation on Now, HCL Software will be responsible for deployment and operations of the server components, customer will be responsible for to install the agents on the environments on cloud or on-premises where they want to run their workload, and to define and monitor their workload. 
The deployment will be based on HCL Sofy and will run on Kubernetes, initially on GCP and then extended to other cloud providers, providing to customer full visibility and control of dedicated environments. 

How does HCL Software help its customers/clients to migrate to HCL Sofy, is there a cost involved? 
Customers already running HCL Workload Automation can just export/import their current workload definitions, they can even reuse their agents and the existing licenses. 
For customers coming from the competition, HCL Workload Automation offers a free of charge migration assessment, and thanks to the paid services offered by HCL EasyMove migration center of excellence can ensure customers a smooth data migration. 

Request Access to HCL SoFy  

Schedule Demo on HCL SoFy 

To Know more about HCL Workload Automation visit us at https://www.hcltechsw.com/workload-automation  

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Authors Bio

Franco Mossotto - Sr. Software Architect - Workload Automation, HCL Software

Franco Mossotto is the HCL Workload Automation lead architect. With 18+ years experience in development and support of automation and provisioning products, he joined HCL Technologies in 2016 as part of one of the first teams that founded HCL Software, a division of HCL Technologies. In HCL he guided the transition to cloud of the HCL Workload Automation products, with the adoption of Kubernetes and containers, extending the integration with cloud platforms, adopting Cloud Native Computing Foundation technologies, and embracing HCL Software cloud initiatives and platforms like HCL SoFy.