Automate Deployment With IBM UrbanCode
IBM provides a tool called IBM UrbanCode deploy for automating application deployments through different environments (Dev,Test,Production,etc). This software enables your team to deploy as often as needed—on demand or on a schedule, and with self-service. UrbanCode Deploy can help your team to accelerate their time to market, drive down costs and reduce risk.
IBM urbancode can deploy application which are often needed for identifying problems in the release cycle and provide predictability late in the release cycle.
In this blog we will deploy a sample web application with IBM urbancode Deploy. For deploying any application, we need to create Components, create an application that contains the components and deploy the components to an environment. We will define automate process that will define how to deploy each component. To deploy applications with IBM Urban code we need to configure agents in the target system. The server uses the agents to deploy the application components on target system.
Important Terms in Urban Code Deploy
Components: Components are the files or artifacts that are deployed as part of any application. For e.g. database files, image files etc.
Component Process: The component process is a set of instructions which will run on the configured components. For e.g. deploy, install, update, uninstall etc. on components.
Applications: Applications comprise of set of components.
Environment: Environment is a system on which the application components are deployed.
Application Process: Application process is the collection of Component process.
Configure Components:
- Copy the artifacts for the application to the IBM urbancode Deploy agent computer.
- Login to the IBM urban code server and click on Create Components. In the below screenshot you can see multiple components are created.
- Each component contains a set of artifacts.
- While configuring the components , you need to provide the path for the artifacts.
Configure Component Process:
- Once components are created, we will create component process. Component process contains a set of instructions for the components. In the below screenshot, we had create a component process for JPetStoreApp named as Deploy application component.
- Once process is created, you can design the flow for the process. In the below screenshot, we had create a steps for the process Deploy application component. You can drag and drop the items from the step palette. This process will be invoked once the applications are deployed in the Environment.
Configure Applications:
Note: Before Configuring the applications and Environment, you need to install agent in the target system.
- We will create an application which will be comprised of all the components .In the below screenshot we had created JPetStore Application.
- Once application is created then we need to add the components associated with the application. In the below screenshot we added the three components created earlier for application JPetStore Application.
Configure Environment:
- While creating an environment we need to associate an agent to it and specify which components are deployed to agent resources. In the below screenshot we had deployed the three components associated with application JPetStore.
- Once environment is created we can set the properties for the environments. These properties will be the values for the configurational parameters.
Configure Application Process:
- Once applications are created and the components are added to the application then we need to design application process. Application process ties together the component process.
- Once the Application process is created we need to define the steps for the application process. In the below screenshot we had defined the steps for deploying of the components associated with the application.
Deploy the Application components:
Once the configurations are completed, then we need to deploy the components. We need to click on the Request Process to deploy the application.
