Blog Post Stonebranch Online 2021: Week 4 Highlights
Discover UAC integrations and new features in the fourth week of Stonebranch Online 2021, and see what’s coming up in the event’s fifth and final week.
Week four of Stonebranch Online 2021 is all about doing more with your Stonebranch Universal Automation Center (UAC). First, learn how to connect UAC with any application, platform, or system in your hybrid IT environments. Then, see what’s new in UAC version 7.1.
Connecting UAC with any Hybrid IT Application, Platform, or System
Peter Baljet, CTO for Stonebranch, introduced the Universal Integration Platform (UIP) and discussed how Stonebranch helps you keep up with the rapidly evolving list of platforms and services used in today’s hybrid IT environments (on-prem, cloud, or container).
In addition to traditional workload automation, Stonebranch is building out best-practice workflows and tasks specifically designed to accelerate cloud automation, DevOps orchestration, data pipeline orchestration, and hybrid file transfers.
Our session moderator, then shared an integration success story on behalf of Blue Cross® and Blue Shield® of Minnesota (BCBS-MN). With nearly 70% of operations in the cloud, BCBS-MN needed a workload automation platform that could support all aspects of their business, whether running on Linux, Windows, or AWS. They replaced their mainframe-only CA-7 scheduler with the Stonebranch UAC and put some pre-built integrations to work, including a ServiceNow integration for automatic ticket creation, assignment, and routing. In its first two years, the ServiceNow integration proved to be a key efficiency driver for BCBS-MN, offering time and cost savings with absolutely zero outages or downtime.
After a quick overview of the new Integration Hub, Karthik Mohan, Solution Engineer for Stonebranch, gave a live demonstration of just how easy it is to download automations from the Integration Hub, then import and configure them in the UAC. Using the VMware: vSphere Integration as an example, Karthik launched a workflow to provision a virtual machine (VM), including a step to request approval for the provisioning via a Microsoft Teams: Send and Receive Notifications integration. Karthik also demonstrated how to create an integration using new self-service development tools that’ll be available in November. These new tools enable developers to create workflows-as-code directly from an integrated development environment (IDE). Yes, it’s as cool as it sounds!
What’s New in UAC Version 7.1
Colin Cocksedge, Director of Product Management at Stonebranch, offered an overview of the key updates in UAC version 7.1, which was released in early October 2021. He shared many new features, including:
- UIP updates and developer tools
- Sysplex support
- Security updates
- Platform and architecture updates
- Automation and orchestration enhancements
- User experience updates
We put a lot of new features and enhancements in the latest UAC release — one session isn’t enough to cover them all. If you’d like to learn more about the 7.1 updates and enhancements, check out the full release notes or contact us.
What’s Next
Watch all the Stonebranch Online 2021 sessions on-demand — visit the event overview page to learn more.
Start Your Automation Initiative Now
Schedule a Live Demo with a Stonebranch Solution Expert
