How to use the topology blueprints included with Quick Deployer

Quick Deployer ships with a set of sample blueprints which are pre-set templates that distribute the components and application tags across the available nodes based on the Recommended ALM topologies. This page describes a method for using Quick Deployer to install CE/CLM environments using these blueprints.

Standard Topology Blueprints installed by Quick Deployer

Once Quick Deployer is installed, the user can select the Resources tab and explore the available Resource Templates.

Select one of the templates and drill down to explore in more detail. For example, the Departmental Continuous Engineering template:-

You can select Expand all to see more detail.

As you can see, the applications are distributed over 5 nodes or VMs; a database node, an ihs or reverse proxy node and three Application Server nodes denoted as os-1, -2 and -3.

How to leverage the Resource Templates

The resource templates can be leveraged by defining UCD agent prototypes so when a blueprint is derived from the template and a UCD application environment uses that blueprint the naming convention set up in the Agent prototype causes the agents installed on the target VMs to be connected to the environment.

Taking a slice from the example above:-

If you edit the agent prototype for each node it will show the naming convention to be used for the target VM names. For instance,

Here the agent name for the DB server must include the environment name and end in '-db'. So if we decide the environment is going to be called win16qd21, the DB server name should be win16qd21-db

Similarly, the agent prototypes for the IHS and other nodes:-

Again if we use win16qd21 as our environment name, this nets out to agent names as follows:-

• db : win16qd21-db
• ihs : win16qd21-ihs
• node 1: win16qd21-os-1
• node 2: win16qd21-os-2
• node 3: win16qd21-os-3

The agents are installed on target VMs using the client from the appropriate UCD server. They will automatically come online if configured to do so.

Note that you can change the naming convention in your agent prototypes if you want and name your environment and agents accordingly.

Creating the environment using the blueprint

When you create the environment, you use the environment name already selected, the blueprint you want to use and the default resource group.

By using the naming convention and the blueprint, the environment and the agents are automatically connected and everything mapped automatically for deployment.

You can then run the applications processes to install your CE/CLM applications and the applications will be laid down on the nodes according to the topology defined in the blueprint.

Miscellaneous

Notes:

• Throughout the IBM Quick Deployer wiki the screen captures are for reference only.
  In some cases if the functionality they display has not changed in the latest release they will be from a previous release

Related topics:

• Quick Deployer
• Quick Deployer setup and run

External links:

• Collaborative Lifecycle Management
• Continuous Engineering
• UrbanCode Deploy

Additional contributors: MichelleCrane, NathanBak, ChristianLopez