Workflow Engine Templates for Cloud Incident Automation
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Solution Overview
Problem
In cloud landscapes, human error is a significant risk during incident handling due to the need for high-privileged access, which can lead to catastrophic errors and security breaches, especially in sensitive sectors like financial services and public health, where auditing cannot prevent abuse and deviations in procedures can occur.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a workflow engine within the cloud landscape that uses workflow templates as code, encapsulating high-privileged access and reducing the need for human operators to have direct access, with a service account granting only necessary privileges to the workflow engine, and utilizing machine-learned models for proactive issue prediction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If human operators are granted high-privileged access to perform low-level operations on cloud landscape components, then incident resolution capability is improved, but the risk of human error and catastrophic failures increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts high-privileged access rights from human operators and assigns them exclusively to automated workflow engines. This separation removes the source of human error while preserving the capability to perform critical low-level operations, thereby maintaining incident resolution effectiveness without compromising system stability.
Solution Approach 2:
The workflow engine serves as an intermediary between human operators and cloud landscape components. Operators initiate workflows through the engine, which then executes privileged operations automatically. This intermediary layer eliminates direct human access to sensitive operations, preventing catastrophic errors while enabling incident response.
2Reliability
If automated workflows are implemented to reduce human error, then system reliability is improved, but the complexity of operation management increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms operational procedures into parameterized workflow templates with defined inputs, outputs, and execution conditions. By changing the state of operations from ad-hoc manual commands to structured, parameter-driven automated workflows, the system achieves reliability without proportionally increasing complexity, as templates can be reused and managed systematically.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If direct human access to cloud landscape components is restricted, then security is improved, but the ease of operation deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The workflow engine provides self-service automation for operations that previously required direct human access. The system automatically executes predefined workflows in response to incidents, eliminating the need for operators to directly access sensitive components while maintaining operational effectiveness through automated self-resolution capabilities.
Data Source
AI summary
In an example embodiment, a workflow engine is introduced within a cloud landscape. Runbooks re then implemented as workflow templates within the workflow engine. The workflow engine allows for creation of workflows from the workflow templates as well as composing workflows from individual steps. The workflow engine provides a mechanism to describe workflow templates and workflow sets as code.