Using Logmatrix Nervecenter for Runbook Automation
Posted by Chris Schaft on Fri, May 06, 2011 @ 04:47 PM
It has been a while since I was around Nervecenter. I "knew of" the product because I used to compete against it years ago. It used to not be able to connect to databases, it held all of its states in memory (Perl hashes), and was a bit complicated to use. The real reason it suffered was "what do you use it for?"
Well, not only has Logmatrix given this product a tremendous upgrade (uses databases to hold states, exposes the true power of all Perl modules, and still is the most scalable transaction based product in the industry for my money), but I find this product to be indispensible for automating your environment.
Here are the reasons I think every company that wants to automate should consider this product:
1) Nothing compares to this product when it comes to executing multiple code steps simultaneously. Parallel operations are a must in large environments with thousands of objects that need to be "touched".
2) In automating a procedure, users often must consider the before and after states before taking a next step. Nervecenter does this better than any product out there.
3) Nervecenter can use Perl to report on the before and after of each step. It can notify anyone at anytime of the status of a step.
4) Nervecenter can "change gears" in the middle of an automation. If a process is being automated and in the middle of all of the steps it receives a trap, it can stop doing what it is doing and go do something else. I cannot think of a product that does that.
Overall, Nervecenter is pretty much the perfect engine if you are looking to automate.
