Workbench

Workbench provides three core functions for enterprise automation solutions:

1. A CMDB for managing details about application infrastructure, hosts, configuration settings, release artifacts, and service topology
2. A graphical development environment to design and develop automation modules
3. A repository (with repository management services) for release artifacts and automation modules

Workbench provides an integrated graphical interface for managing those three core functions. Inside Workbench, you can define metadata types, automation commands and workflows, edit the CMDB and automation data model, inspect the release artifacts in the repository, and generate reports.

Workbench: Type view	Workbench: Dependency view
Package view

Workbench's repository houses release artifacts (e.g. packages from a build process) as well as the module code and data that drives your automation. Workbench provides a graphical interface to browsing the content of the repository. The repository is based on a standard web technology, called WebDAV, and can be made accessible to other tools via HTTP and WebDAV clients.

The diagram below describes the three kinds of repository content:

An essential facility in the ControlTier platform is a central repository wherein all the packaged build artifacts produced by the build process are registered and maintained. During the deployment phase of the process, application components with package dependencies retrieve their required artifacts from the repository.

A registry of application configuration, package dependencies, host deployment, and key configuration settings is shared by the same type/object model defined by the automation modules. This data model is used to drive the commands and workflows at runtime.

ControlTier provides an assortment of pre-built automation modules that establish an end-to-end build and deployment process. Using Workbench and ProjectBuilder, users can develop their own modules by subtyping existing ones. All the modules are versioned, packaged and stored in the repository.

ProjectBuilder is a handy complement to Workbench that provides a command-line and text file development environment for doing many of the modeling tasks you would do through the Workbench web GUI. With ProjectBuilder XML specifications are used to define the automation modules and data model and these specifications are fed through a series of command utilities to build, package and deploy them. With ProjectBuilder, development is done in a traditional developer's edit, build, run cycle from source files. The artifacts of the ProjectBuilder are loaded into the Workbench repository via it's repository services. ProjectBuilder is useful when one needs to really scale up their use of CTL and or prefer a command-line/source-file approach to maintaining automation module code and data.

Workbench (along with CTL, JobCenter, and ReportCenter) is installed by the ControlTier installer.

Go here for instructions on how to use the ControlTier installer

For more information on Workbench, please start with the Workbench User Guide.

You can also learn about the type model described in the reference section. Each type represents a design pattern to managing an aspect of an automated application lifecycle. Users define their own patterns of automation by combining these base types.