This book is an introduction and how-to guide to working with the CloudForms/ManageIQ Automation Engine.
The book is a work-in progress, however please feel free to peruse the developing pages, and suggest changes or additional topics (to pemcg at bit63 dot com).
The book is slightly easier to read when Read Online rather than downloaded.
The Automation functionality of CloudForms/ManageIQ seems to be one of the challenging aspects of the product to master. It is (mostly) documented in the official manuals, but wading through these documents can be challenging in itself.
This book is an attempt to document my learning experiences with CloudForms Automation, and hopefully ease the process for others to master this incredibly powerful aspect of the product.
I've tried to structure the book around the periodic revelations that I've had while learning CloudForms Automation, the if only I'd known that weeks ago moments. In places this includes some deep code examination and theory, but hopefully this will help the understanding process (it did for me). I also try to illustrate the theory with coding examples. The screenshots are taken from Red Hat CloudForms Management Engine 5.4 and 5.5, but most of the content also applies to the ManageIQ Botvinnik & Capablanca releases.
This book does not seek to teach Ruby, I am assuming a reasonable level of competence with the language. There are many on-line Ruby tutorials available, including Codecademy's Learn to program in Ruby which looks quite good (disclaimer: I haven't personally worked through this tutorial, but have seen it recommended).
The book also assumes a comfortable level of working experience with the WebUI features of CloudForms, particularly Insight, Control, and Provisioning VMs via the Lifecycle -> Provision VMs entry point.