Is there any Activiti-REST automation tool available?

[tbarreno]

Hello all,

I am working in a prove-of-concept with Activiti REST and I need some automation tools for calling the REST services from scripting (BAR deployment, user management, etc.) . I have seen that the 5.10 version included just three ANT tasks but they don't use the REST API.

So, is there any REST tools for Activiti?

Just in case there aren't any, I will build an ANT library and a Maven plugin to meet my needs (expose most of the REST API for scripting). If anyone thinks that it could be useful, I would contribute to the project with it.

Best wishes.

[jbarrez]

What do you mean with automation tools? Tools you could use in bash scripting? What use cases do you want to cover?

Activiti 5.12 was the last version that had ant task (eg for deployment), but they have been removed since then.

[tbarreno]

Hello Joram, thanks for your reply.

By automation tools I mean any technical operation over the service or infrastructure: installation & update, DB creation (& update), BAR deployment/undeployment, user/group management and instance start/force-stop.

I am building a continuous application delivery framework backed by a process engine (Activiti); for example, the build processes will call a "Maven service" for project building, the deployment processes will call some "ANT/scripting services" for artifact deployment, and so on. This framework could also launch operations: start/stops, installations, etc.

I think that it's desirable that the whole framework could be built, tested and deployed by itself, and that's why I will need some automation tools for Activiti REST. I have also seen that the REST services will be revised for 5.13, but the RoadMap doesn't get into details. Doy you know if there is more info available?

Thank you again.

Best wishes

[jbarrez]

The roadmap for the rest api is actually pretty easy: get as close to the functionality of the Java API as possible.

We don't have any automation tool however. I don't know if Ant is the best solution for this … probably there are better devops tools out there (Chef/Puppet/… dunno, not my area of expertise). But I do see the value, yes.

[tbarreno]

Ok.

ANT tasks are just a solution. For example, IBM WebSphere products (including the Process Server) come with an ANT library for scripting, so I think it's not a bad approach (well, the 'jython' library is most widely used).

The point is that having a Java REST Client library, it's very easy to wrap it with some ANT tasks or a Maven plugin, and expose a WebService that executes ANT scripts o Maven plugins (goals) it's also feasible.

In this way, we could build a deployment or installation script that will be called by the process. Chef & Puppet can also call scripting, it's another way: at the end, the process engine will govern all scripting services (including Cheff & Puppet) since it also contains change management, business rules for decision, security constrains, etc.

I hope to show the POC in few weeks.

Thanks again,
Best wishes.

[jbarrez]

Ok, sounds interesting. Keep us posted with your work!