Our pipeline starts with a ServiceNow form asking the requester what application the storage is for, whether they need block or file, and what hosts need to connect, as well as what environment and capacity are required. ServiceNow sends the applications' criticality and data classifications to the pipeline. The pipeline then configures the storage on the appropriate hardware based on the environment.

If application performance is specified, the request is assigned an appropriate service level. If performance can't be ascertained, the request is placed in our default service level. Data protection frequency and location needs are configured based on criticality and RPO and RTO requirements. All storage is encrypted based on application data classification.

Next, we add the storage into our monitoring platforms via API calls. We developed triage storage monitoring designed for storage administrators, and we designed a simple monitoring tool for application owners, which provides an overview of application health. We then add the storage to our logging platform, which logs macro information about the storage to help us plan annual purchasing and budget requirements. Pipeline outputs are added to the logging platform for audit and success rate metrics.

Finally, the pipeline performs nightly feedback to ServiceNow to tie the application to all its infrastructure resources.

As a result of our provisioning automation effort, we have achieved our objectives:

  • Provisioning requests no longer have to sit in a queue waiting for human hands to complete them.
  • Quality has improved by minimizing human error.
  • Any errors in the workflow are much easier to triage and fix permanently using our new logging capabilities.
  • Our storage engineers now have more time to spend enhancing our service, including working toward our strategic initiative: container persistent storage.

In the next part of this blog series, I'll dive into automation for deployment of new equipment, the efficiency gained, and some surprising quality benefits.

To learn more, check out this video we did at NetApp INSIGHT® 2021, "Build Storage as a Service (StaaS) with Micro-Services ".

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NetApp Inc. published this content on 17 February 2022 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 18 February 2022 10:40:03 UTC.