An AppDynamics workflow is a set of commonly executed actions organized together into a repeatable, automated flow. Workflows can be run manually, on a repeating schedule, or as the action taken by a policy that has been triggered by a performance event, like a health rule violation.   For more information about health rules, policy, and actions see Health Rules, Policies and Actions.

Workflows

AppDynamics workflows are divided into steps, based on five basic step-types, which indicate generally the type of action each is designed to accomplish:

• Create new Machines and and configure Them
  As the name implies, this step-type is used to launch new instances in the cloud, and to complete any necessary configuration tasks on them once they are started.
• Terminate Machines
  This step-type is used to terminate cloud instances and to complete any related tasks.
• Configure existing Machines
  This step-type is used to complete any necessary tasks on cloud-based machines that are already deployed.
• Configure a specific Machine
  This step-type is used to complete any necessary tasks on any running machines instrumented with the Machine Agent, cloud-based or not.
• Manual
  This step-type pauses workflow execution until required manual steps are taken.

Workflows are executed by the Machine Agent, which must be available on every target machine.

Task Templates

The basic work of the launch and terminate step-types is taken care of by the step-type itself, but all other workflow work is defined and executed using tasks. Tasks are sequential units of code execution, with defined inputs and outputs.  AppDynamics provides templates for common tasks, such as running Ant on a supplied build file or creating a specified schema in a MySQL database.  You use these templates to create your own tasks, with the inputs and outputs you need.

In addition, there are task templates that are used to launch shell or batch scripts.

You can also create custom task templates.

Workflow Creation Prerequisites

To prepare for creating workflows, you need to do the following:

1. If you have not already done so, Install the Standalone Machine Agent for every machine on which you wish to run workflows.
If you are using .NET, you must also install the Standalone Machine Agent, as the embedded .NET machine agent does not support workflow automation. See Install Standalone Machine Agent in .NET environment.

2. If you want to use any shell/batch scripts in your workflows, create them. 

3. If you want to use workflows to interact with the cloud, register your cloud provider and the images on that cloud provider that you are going to use to create your machines and make sure you have the appropriate AppDynamics cloud connector available to use.  See Cloud Computing Workflows.

4. Check the Task Library and make sure you have task templates appropriate to your needs.

Learn More

• Create a Workflow and Workflow Steps
• Cloud Computing Workflows
• Policies