You can use the Get Compare Result step in the WebSphere Application Server – Configure plug-in to automate comparisons with live WebSphere instances. Use this step after a WebSphere Configuration Compare step to generate comparison data in JSON format. After the compare step runs, the comparison data is available to subsequent process steps. For example, you can add a step that sends an email to the relevant staff to warn them that a change was found.

Output properties

• areDifferencesFound
  A Boolean value where true means that changes were found in the comparison JSON information and false means that no changes were found between the configurations.
• compareProcessRequestLink
  A hyperlink reference to the application process request that ran the step. Use this link to view more detailed information.

Procedure

1. Create a component process where the WebSphere Get Compare Result Step runs after the WebSphere Configuration Compare step. To learn more about the WebSphere Configuration Compare step, see the plug-in documentation. The following screen capture shows an example process:
   
2. After you attach the Get Compare Result step to a compare step, run an application process that calls the component process. Go to Applications, select your application, and then deploy and run the full comparison application process, which in turn runs the updated component process from within Cell Config.
3. After the application process request is complete, you can view the results. Go to the application process request that ran. (If you navigated away from the process while it was running, you can return to it by clicking the History tab on the application environment page.) Drill down to the Get Compare Result step, and then click Input/Output Properties on the right (the white notebook paper icon). For more information on the function of the output properties, see Output properties.
   
   
   The step uses two input properties: appProcessRequestId and compProcessRequestId. These properties are used to retrieve information from the previous step. These properties are set automatically and typically you do not work with them directly.

What to do next

From here, you can attach other process steps to the Get Compare Result step. For example, you can attach a process step that sends an email alert if the Boolean areDifferencesFound property from the compare step is true or false.