HCL Workload Automation on Now Readme File

Date: March 4, 2022

Product: HCL Workload Automation
General Description: HCL Workload Automation on Now

This readme file provides important information about HCL Now, HCL's Cloud-Native-as-a-Service that allows the freedom to deploy anywhere, power to innovate, and flexibility to scale on a dedicated environment.

To try out the HCL Workload Automation solution, you can request access to HCL SoFy, HCL's Solution Factory where you can get started deploying HCL Workload Automation in Kubernetes through cloud-centric technologies and practices. HCL Workload Automation on Now is available on the same HCL SoFy portal. For more information about HCL SoFy see HCL SoFy.

This readme file is the most current information for HCL Workload Automation on Now and takes precedence over all other documentation for this offering.

It is divided into the following sections:

About HCL Workload Automation on Now
Known limitations and workarounds
Installing the agent
Reference

For the most up-to-date information about supported operating systems for the dynamic agent, see the Supported Software document available at Product Requirements.

About HCL Workload Automation on Now

HCL Workload Automation on Now offers a fully managed cloud experience. Outsource the administration and management of the server to HCL Software so you can concentrate on automating and enhancing your business processes.

HCL Now managed services take care of security and compliance and ongoing maintenance and upgrades to the latest releases of HCL Workload Automation.

HCL Workload Automation on Now uses the latest agent technology (dynamic agents) so that you have access to all of the job types available. The dynamic agent also complies with the latest security guidelines and requirements. Install dynamic agents where you want to define, run, and monitor your workloads, on cloud or on-premises.

After installing your agents, you model, submit, and monitor your workload using the Dynamic Workload Console. For more information about these operations, see the links in the section Reference.

Known limitations and workarounds

The following are software limitations that affect HCL Workload Automation on Now.

Security: Access control lists are used to assign security roles to users or groups on a specific folder. Security domains are not supported.
Command-line interface: The composer and conman command-line interfaces are not supported.
AI Data Advisor (AIDA): AIDA is a new component of HWA V10.1. It is not supported on HCL Now.
FINAL job stream: The FINAL job stream is managed exclusively by HCL Software. The FINAL job stream runs the sequence of script files described in JnextPlan to generate the new production plan.

The following is a workaround you can apply when working with HCL Workload Automation on Now:

If you need to retrieve the password and have access to the sofy-console, you can browse to the following section: Solution Content -> HCL Workload Automation -> General Information -> API Links.

Installing the agent

Install agents where you want to define, run, and monitor your workloads.

Ensure that the user credentials used to install the agent have full control or, at a minimum, display privileges on the file AGENT_CERTIFICATE. For more information about how to create a user, see Downloading certificates or JWT using a different user.

To install the agent, follow these high-level steps:

On Windows™ operating systems:

Download the agent software image from the HCL License Portal page to your local workstation. Ensure you have enough temporary space.
Log in as administrator on the workstation where you want to install the agent.
From the image_directory\TWS\operating_system directory, run twsinst by using the following syntax. Only the minimum set of parameters necessary to install the dynamic agent are specified.
```
cscript twsinst.vbs -new 
   -uname user_name
   -password user_password
   -acceptlicense yes
   -agent dynamic
   -displayname display_name
   -inst_dir installation_directory
   -jmport 31114
   -tdwbport 31116
   -tdwbhostname your_hwa_instancename.hxwa.now.hclsoftware.cloud
   -wauser wauser
   -wapassword wa_password 
   -gateway local
   -gwid gateway_id    
```
For a description of the syntax parameters and a complete list of them, see Agent installation parameters - twsinst script.
Note: twsinst for Windows™ is a Visual Basic Script (VBS) that you can run in CScript and WScript mode.
The HCL Workload Automation user is automatically created. The software is installed by default in the HCL Workload Automation installation directory. The default value is %ProgramFiles%\HCL\TWA.
If you enabled the Security Warning, a dialog box is displayed during the installation. In this case, answer Run to continue.

On UNIX™ and Linux™ operating systems:

Download the agent software image from the HCL License Portal page to your local workstation. Ensure you have enough temporary space.
If you plan to log in as root on the workstation where you will install the agent, create the HCL Workload Automation user. The software is installed by default in the user's home directory, referred to as /installation_dir/TWS.

User:

TWS_user

Home:

/installation_dir/TWS (for example: /home/user1/TWS where user1 is the name of HCL Workload Automation user). Ensure this directory has 755 permission.

If you plan to log in as a non-root user (available only for dynamic agents), your login will become by default the only possible user of the agent. You do not need to create another HCL Workload Automation user, but make sure that you have a home directory (where the agent will be installed), and that it has 755 permission.
Important: If you use the -su non-root username command in the shell where you are about to run twsinst, make sure that $HOME is set on your home directory as a non-root user (use echo $HOME to verify that the value returned corresponds to your home directory).
Log in on the workstation where you want to install the agent.
From the image_directory/TWS/operating_system directory, run twsinst by using the following syntax. Only the minimum set of parameters necessary to install the dynamic agent are specified.
```
./twsinst -new
   -uname user_name
   -acceptlicense yes
   -agent dynamic
   -displayname display_name
   -inst_dir installation_directory
   -reset_perm
   -skipcheckprereq
   -tdwbport 31116
   -tdwbhostname your_hwa_instancename.hxwa.now.hclsoftware.cloud
   -wauser wauser
   -wapassword wa_password 
   -gateway local
   -gwid gateway_id  
```
For a description of the syntax parameters, see Agent installation parameters - twsinst script

If the installation fails, to understand the cause of the error see Analyzing return codes for agent installation, upgrade, restore, and uninstallation.

Reference

Refer to the following links for information about frequent tasks you perform using HCL Workload Automation on Now:

Configuring the dynamic agent: Configuring a dynamic agent
Navigating the Dynamic Workload Console: Navigating the Dynamic Workload Console
HCL Workload Automation concepts: HCL Workload Automation Concepts
Designing your scheduling environment: Designing your scheduling environment
Modeling your workload:: Designing your Workload
Managing workload security: Managing Workload Security
Submitting the workload to run: Submitting Workload on Request in Production
Monitoring your workload: Monitoring your environment
Simulating changes to analyze the impact with the What-if analysis Gantt chart: Analyzing the impact of changes on your environment