Actions and workflows

Resource and Workflows

Overview

Actions

Stopping cloud resources when they are not in use is a prudent practice that offers several benefits. First and foremost, it helps to optimize costs by preventing unnecessary expenditure on computing resources. Cloud services are typically billed on a pay-as-you-go model, so keeping instances running when they are idle contributes to higher expenses. Additionally, stopping unused resources promotes environmental sustainability by reducing overall energy consumption and the carbon footprint associated with data centers. From a security standpoint, inactive resources can be potential targets for unauthorized access or attacks, and shutting them down mitigates these risks. Moreover, resource termination enhances overall system performance by freeing up valuable computing resources for other critical tasks. In essence, the proactive management of cloud resources aligns with efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and environmental responsibility in the dynamic landscape of cloud computing.

Torque provides a built-in set of actions you can run on specific cloud resources in the environment to stop them and gain the aforementioned benefits. The built-in actions currently available out of the box by Torque are:

Virtual Machines

• Power on
• Power off
• Restart
• Connect - a special kind of action which creates an RDP or SSH connection to the VM directly from Torque, allowing environment users to access env vms directly.

Database Servers

• Stop
• Start

Kubernetes Clusters

• Pause
• Resume

Please see the below table for additional details.

Resource Type	Action Name	Cloud	Grain technology	Resource type	Description	Limitations
Virtual Machines	Power On VM	AWS	Terraform	aws_instance	Start an EC2 instance
			CloudFormation	AWS::EC2::Instance
		Azure	Terraform	azurerm_virtual_machine	Start an Azure VM
	Power Off VM	AWS	Terraform	aws_instance	Stop an EC2 instance
			CloudFormation	AWS::EC2::Instance
		Azure	CloudFormation	azurerm_virtual_machine	Stop and Deallocate an Azure VM
	Restart VM	AWS	Terraform	aws_instance	Restart an EC2 instance
			Cloudformation	AWS::EC2::Instance
		Azure	Terraform	azurerm_virtual_machine	Restart an Azure VM
	Connect to a VM	AWS	Terraform	aws_instance	a special kind of action which creates an RDP or SSH connection to the VM directly from Torque, allowing environment users to access env vms directly.
		AWS	Cloudformation	AWS::EC2::Instance
		Azure	Terraform	azurerm_virtual_machine
Databases	Stop RDS instance	AWS	Terraform	aws_db_instance	Temporarily stop an RDS instance	The RDS will be restarted after 7 days if the action will not be repeated.
			CloudFormation	Coming Soon
	Start RDS instance	AWS	Terraform	aws_db_instance	Start a stopped RDS instance
			CloudFormation	Coming Soon
	Delete RDS instance	AWS	Terraform	aws_db_instance	Delete an RDS instance
	Stop Database Server	Azure	Terraform	MySql - azurerm_mysql_server MySql Flexible - azurerm_mysql_flexible_server MariaDB - azurerm_mariadb_server Postgres flexible - azurerm_postgresql_flexible_server	Temporarily stop a DB server	The DB server will be restarted after a period of time (dependent on the engine type) if the action will not be repeated.
	Start Database Server	Azure	Terraform	MySql - azurerm_mysql_server MySql Flexible - azurerm_mysql_flexible_server MariaDB - azurerm_mariadb_server Postgres flexible - azurerm_postgresql_flexible_server	Start a stopped DB server
	Delete database	Azure	Terraform	azurerm_mysql_database azurerm_mariadb_database azurerm_postgresql_database azurerm_mssql_database azurerm_mysql_flexible_database azurerm_postgresql_flexible_server_database	Delete a database
Kubernetes Clusters	Pause	Azure (AKS)	Terraform	azurerm_kubernetes_cluster	Reduce the number of agents (VMs) in all node pools in the cluster to 1
		AWS (EKS)	Terraform	Coming Soon
	Resume	Azure (AKS)	Terraform	azurerm_kubernetes_cluster	Increase the number of agents (VMs) in all node pools in the cluster to the original number
		AWS (EKS)	Terraform	Coming Soon

Debugging Actions

If you need verbose output from the actions in order to debug them, you can add a parameter like so: SYSTEM_ACTIONS_VERBOSE_MODE=true (or false) in the account level.

Workflows

Workflows take actions another step forward. They are scheduled automations that run on all resources from the same type in the environment. Examples of workflows include:

• Power-off all VMs in the environment every day at 6PM
• Pause (scale to minimum) the dev K8s cluster every weekend

To learn how to create workflows in your Torque account, click here.

Invoke actions and workflows in the environment

1. Switch to Resources view.

   

2. Click a resource tile.

   The resource's actions as well as attributes and tags are displayed in the left pane.

3. Hover over the relevant action and click Run.

   

4. Click the action's name to see its progress.

5. Click Workflows to see which workflows apply to your environment. Note that you can also manually run the workflows ahead of their scheduled run time.