Allocation helper example in Automation Assembler

For the following simple plug-in based example in Automation Assembler, the compute and image helpers control the placement and guest OS of a virtual machine.

Note: Plug-in based design is a Beta offering that is subject to change, and currently supports only the AWS plug-in and the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) plug-in.

1. Add account and zone infrastructure

The user adds an AWS cloud account with us-east-1 and us-west-2 cloud zones. The user tags the zones region-east and region-west, respectively.

2. Add image mapping infrastructure

The user adds one ubuntu image map, which points to images with different identifiers, depending on the zone.

3. Add the project

The user creates a project. In the project, under Provisioning, the user adds the two zones.

4. Start a design

In Automation Assembler, under the Design tab, the user starts a new design from a blank canvas.

5. Add helpers to the canvas

The user drags a compute helper and image helper to the canvas.

6. Configure helpers

In the code for the helpers, the user adds the ubuntu image, and a matching constraint tag for region-west. In the classic workflow, those properties would have been added directly to the resource itself.

  Allocations_Image_1:
    type: Allocations.Image
    properties:
      image: ubuntu
  Allocations_Compute_1:
    type: Allocations.Compute
    properties:
      constraints: 
        - tag: region-west

7. Add the virtual machine resource to the canvas

The user drags an AWS EC2 resource to the canvas. Note that it isn't the (Classic) resource. The newer resources have a special prefix when seen in the code.

8. Bind the resource to the helpers

In the code for the EC2, the user adds bindings that reference the earlier infrastructure as defined by the helpers. The term selected is part of the binding because the helper is doing the selecting.

  Idem_AWS_EC2_INSTANCE_1:
    type: Idem.AWS.EC2.INSTANCE
    properties:
      name: bnixInstance
      account: ${resource.Allocations_Compute_1.selectedCloudAccount.name}
      region: ${resource.Allocations_Compute_1.selectedRegion.name}
      image_id: ${resource.Allocations_Image_1.selectedImageId}
      instance_type: t1.micro

On the design canvas, dotted lines connect the resource to its helpers after the user adds the bindings.

9. Completed template

The completed example uses the following code. Note that the user could have configured flavor mapping infrastructure and made use of a flavor helper as well, instead of directly adding instance_type: t1.micro to the EC2 resource.

formatVersion: 1
inputs: {}
resources:
  Allocations_Image_1:
    type: Allocations.Image
    properties:
      image: ubuntu
  Allocations_Compute_1:
    type: Allocations.Compute
    properties:
      constraints: 
        - tag: region-west
  Idem_AWS_EC2_INSTANCE_1:
    type: Idem.AWS.EC2.INSTANCE
    properties:
      name: bnixInstance
      account: ${resource.Allocations_Compute_1.selectedCloudAccount.name}
      region: ${resource.Allocations_Compute_1.selectedRegion.name}
      image_id: ${resource.Allocations_Image_1.selectedImageId}
      instance_type: t1.micro

The EC2 native properties from AWS may be further configured from here. Otherwise, the completed template is ready to test and deploy.