Business flows model business processes in cenTaur. Business flows can be event-triggered or executed when a user performs a defined action. cenTaur is delivered with standard business flows. Additionally, you can build custom business flows and deploy them to your production system.
From automatic server actions to business flows
The cenTaur platform introduces a new and more flexible way of automatic and event-driven asset processing. The cenTaur Business flows replace the censhare Automatic server actions and Hotfolder actions. Business flows represent business processes that are executed on your assets within the cenTaur platform. Business flows can also connect the cenTaur platform to other tools and devices in your software ecosystem. For example, import assets from other platforms, export or publish files to other platforms, send messages to social media and message services.
Business flows can be triggered by events (for example hotfolder event for uploaded files), or by user actions (for example: click the Go Live button to publish an article to an Online channel).
Business flows with Node-RED
Business flows are built with Node-RED and deployed into a dedicated microservice to the cenTaur cluster. In a cenTaur cluster, the Node-RED microservice executes and monitors all active business flows. The Node-RED microservice is a standard microservice of the cenTaur platform and is deployed automatically.
Custom business flows
To develop your own business flows, the Node-RED manager is required. The Node-RED manager provides tools to created custom business flows end-to-end:
- Multiple independent user instances
- Staging instance
- Merge request and merge history tool
Custom business flows use the standard nodes and business logic functions. These are available in the Node-RED editor. The node properties define the behavior of the node in the context of the given business flow. All Node-RED business flows are stored in a separate Node-RED repository. To make your custom business flows available in your cenTaur cluster, you must restart the Node-RED flows pod.
Function nodes invoke a business logic function. Business logic functions are serverless functions that can be invoked in any Function node with the parameters and variables from the business flow context. Business logic functions are stored in the Business logic functions repository and deployed to Knative inside your cluster. Knative adds components for deploying, running, and managing serverless, cloud-native applications to Kubernetes. Business logic functions are executed in the dedicated Business logic Business logic microservice. The Business logic microservice is a standard microservice of the cenTaur platform and deployed automatically.
In your custom business flows, you can use the standard business logic functions or create your own. Custom business logic functions must be deployed to the business logic microservice.