We are pleased to announce the latest release of the Automate family of products - Version 8.0. This upgrade includes Automate Professional, Automate Premium, Automate BPA Server Standard and Automate BPA Server Enterprise. Automate version 8.0 adds powerful new features to extend automation into cloud and virtual environments, powerful new FTP and HTTP capabilities, AS2 support, SharePoint connectivity, support for Exchange 2010, support for Unicode character sets and more.
In the coming days we will begin a series of blog posts that drills down into each individual feature. Until then, listed below is a high-level overview of the powerful new functionality in Version 8.0.
Automate BPA Server 8/Automate 8 - Shared Platform New Features:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) actions Extend your automation into the cloud. Automate EC2 instance management, database, and file transfers on the leading cloud service.
- VMware actions Lights out provisioning, monitoring and management of VMWare virtual machines.
- SharePoint action Automate creation and management of sites, files, lists and users on SharePoint.
- Web Browser action Native automation and control of popular web browsers to automate and/or test the vast array of web-based applications.
- AS2 action Native support for the popular AS2 data-interchange format.
- FTP Synchronize activity, server-to-server FEX activity, improved FTP engine Extending the already powerful FTP capability, several highly requested new features have been added.
- Support for creation of “task functions” Greater code reusability, smaller faster tasks.
- Modernized and improved Task Builder interface with many useful new features such as “regions” and “favorites”. Featuring the MS Office style “ribbon” makes building tasks more accessible and efficient.
- Multi-activity action framework and interface Organizes actions into easy to locate blocks of functionality, with many new usability enhancements such as the ability to resize and action.
- Consolidated and enhanced actions: FTP, HTTP, Dialog, Run Fully supported HTTP protocol allows automation of any HTTP based system or service.
- Improved compression engine Supports files over 2GB and newer operating systems with UAC enabled.
- Exchange 2010 Support Send email and manage contacts and calendar on the latest version of Exchange.
- SNMP v3 support Supports the latest version of SNMP
- Unicode support Supports the use of Kanji characters in files, queries, object names enabling use of the software anywhere in the world.
Automate BPA Server 8 - Exclusive New Features:
- Customizable dashboards Real-time operator monitoring of critical automation resources
- Web-based SMC (optional) Install free administration (IIS with ASP.NET required)
- Graphical calendar Displays past and estimated future executions
- Extended workflow error-handling capabilities Allows more robust error handling in automated processes.
- Microsoft SQL Express included and used as default database Fast relational database now replaces XML as the default data storage for faster out-of-box zero configuration performance.
- Split-service architecture Increased speed and intra-process isolation
The complete Automate 8 family of products will be made available to existing maintenance customers starting December 1st 2010. The official release date for new customers is December 8th 2010, at which time new customers may download a trial edition of version 8. Existing customers can ensure they receive Automate 8 by renewing their maintenance. Automate 8 products run side-by-side with prior versions of the software and do not interfere with existing installations, allowing users to test first and migrate at their leisure using an easy to use import/export engine.