Methods, apparatuses, and systems relating to automation in distributed systems

1. A non-transitory tangible computer program product comprising computer readable instructions, that when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform operations comprising:

receiving a graphical user interface part of a deployment file on a first computer, the deployment file configured to cause a second computer to perform a computer-implemented job;

loading the graphical user interface part of the deployment file on the first computer; and

displaying an interactive graphical user interface on a display device in data communication with the first computer.

2. The tangible computer program product of claim 1 , the instructions further comprising:

receiving a job-configuration parameter from the interactive graphical user interface; and

storing the job-configuration parameter in a database configured to be accessible by the first computer and the second computer.

3. The tangible computer program product of claim 2 , wherein the database is accessible by the first computer and the second computer through data communications with a server coupled to the database.

4. The tangible computer program product of claim 1 , the instructions further comprising:

obtaining a result of the computer-implemented job from the second computer; and

displaying results of the computer-implemented job in the interactive graphical user interface.

5. The tangible computer program product of claim 4 , the instructions further comprising synchronously obtaining the result of the computer-implemented job from the second computer.

6. The tangible computer program product of claim 4 , the instructions further comprising asynchronously obtaining the result of the computer-implemented job from a database.

7. A non-transitory tangible computer program product comprising computer readable instructions, that when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform operations comprising:

receiving an agent part of a deployment file on a second computer, the deployment file configured to cause the second computer to perform a computer-implemented job;

loading the agent part of the deployment file on the second computer; and

performing the computer-implemented job on the second computer according to a job-configuration parameter provided by a first computer configured to run a graphical user interface part of the deployment file.

8. The tangible computer program product of claim 7 , the instructions further comprising accessing a database managed by a server.

9. The tangible computer program product of claim 8 , the instructions further comprising obtaining the agent part of the deployment file from the database.

10. The tangible computer program product of claim 8 , the instructions further comprising obtaining the job-configuration parameter from the database.

11. The tangible computer program product of claim 10 , the agent part configured to obtain the job-configuration parameter asynchronously from the database.

12. The tangible computer program product of claim 8 , the instructions further comprising storing a result of the computer-implemented job in the database.

13. The tangible computer program product of claim 8 , the instructions further comprising synchronously communicating the result of the computer-implemented job to the first computer.

14. A non-transitory tangible computer program product comprising computer readable instructions, that when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform operations comprising:

receiving a request from a first computer for a graphical user interface part of a deployment file, the deployment file configured to cause a second computer to perform a computer-implemented job;

obtaining the graphical user interface part of the deployment file from a database configured to be accessible by the first computer and the second computer; and

communicating the graphical user interface part of the deployment file to the first computer.

15. The tangible computer program product of claim 14 , the instructions further comprising:

receiving a job-configuration parameter from the first computer; and

storing the job-configuration parameter in the database.

16. The tangible computer program product of claim 14 , the instructions further comprising communicating a result of the computer-implemented job to the first computer for display with the graphical user interface part of the deployment file.

17. A non-transitory tangible computer program product comprising computer readable instructions, that when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform operations comprising:

sending an agent part of a deployment file to a second computer, the deployment file configured to cause the second computer to perform a computer-implemented job; and

sending a job-configuration parameter to the second computer, the job-configuration parameter provided by a first computer configured to run a graphical user interface part of the deployment file.

18. The tangible computer program product of claim 17 , wherein the agent part of the deployment file and the job-configuration parameter are stored in a database.

19. The tangible computer program product of claim 17 , the instructions further comprising:

receiving a result of the computer-implemented job from the second computer; and

storing the result of the computer-implemented job in the database configured to be accessible by the first computer and the second computer.

20. A non-transitory tangible computer program product comprising:

a database configured to manage at least one deployment file comprising modules, the modules grouped in a GUI part and an agent part;

a GUI client configured to load the GUI part of the deployment file;

a framework configured to load the agent part of the deployment file;

the agent part being platform independent and being startable and loadable by the framework;

the GUI part comprising a GUI description of the agent part;

the agent part comprising jobs, the jobs being startable from the GUI part;

the GUI part being configured to query information from the agent part; and

where both the framework and the GUI client can be run on different machines.