Automic Workload Automation

We are considering moving away from using the transport case mechanism, and switching to the UC4 XML export/import mechanism. Until now, we have relied on the UC4 DB change program ucybchng to make changes to objects when we move them from one staging environment to another. If we switch from transport case to XML, we will need to find another way of changing environment-specific values in the XML files.

Because there is no Automic-provided utility for modifying UC4 export XML files, I presume that we will have to design our own rule syntax specific to the UC4 export XML schema. The rules will likely consist of similar elements to existing ucybchng rules:

• Type of rule (replace all or replace part)
• Object type
• Object name
• Attribute name
• Old value/new value
  

There are many tools out there for manipulating XML files, so that part should be relatively straightforward.

Has anyone tackled this problem before? Did you come up with your own change rule syntax?

The new, Automic consulting team driven, Transport Management Solution includes a Container - and  XML based Transport. As they show last week,  an XML Changer should be available near time covering the same Attributes than the 'normal' Change utility. Maybe it's worth to contact Dierk Senholdt of Automic ...

In XML files, I normally do a 'find and replace' to alter the exports.
Exports are great, expect for the size limitation due to the consumption of resources when importing via the UI or a script. Both ways are done using the AE resources.
The Transport is a direct import into the DB without consuming the AE resources.

Find-and-replace is okay for a small batch if you're doing it by hand. However, it's not very useful for a programmatic approach. It’s too risk-prone.

You raise a good point that the import/export mechanism places a load on the AE. However, considering the other drawbacks of the transport case mechanism, and the fact that Automic is also moving toward more solutions based around the XML file format, we have decided to also move in this direction.

As mentioned, the Transport Management Solution also provides an algorithm to change XML-structures equal to ucybchng utility.

Christian_Werseck_95: Is the XML change component available separately?

For anyone stumbling across this old thread, I should point you to another thread where I have begun to assemble a list of Xpath strings useful for identifying objects and object references.