Options
- IBM Workload Deployer – hardware appliance. Formerly cloudburst appliance. It’s a bring your own infrastructure
- IBM SmartCloud Application Services. It’s a Managed PaaS
- Pure Systems
Workload Deployer
It consists of hardware, workload deployer function, IBM middleware images and patterns. It can connect to VMWare. It essentially controls all you virtual systems. Makes it easy to bring new images online based on a set of patterns you defined. Your bring your hardware for virtualization
Patterns
- Virtual System
- abstraction of installation and configuration
- high level customization still possible after deployment
- Virtual application
- autonmoic
- abstractions of entire deployment
Pure Systems
This includes workload Deployer in the hardware but makes use of patterns to cut the deployment time.
Includes:
- IWD
- Networking
- Storage
- Hypervisors
- Systems monitoring and management
- Everything needed to deploy. Cuts down on errors in deployment since it’s an easy pattern.
Options for Portal and Connections
- Portal 7.0.2
- Porta. 8.0
- Connections 4.0
- All Red Hat Linux
Where is the value?
It cuts down initial deployment time and then cuts down the management and addition of new nodes. A new node could take just a couple hours. The workload deployer manages a set of images. it’s the top level construct that contains vmware disks and metadata around it. The metadata contains all the extra information you need to deploy Portal or Connections correctly. That includes things like parts (http servers, db’s.
The parts help construct patterns. The pattern helps define the remote db pattern, a deployment manager, additional nodes. Adding a node to a cluster in the pattern is easy and takes into account things like the http server in front of it.
Deployment is as easy as clicking a button to schedule the deployment or deploy immediately. It also includes control for number of CPU’s.
Note: LDAP is not included as part of the image provided. There is more customization after deployment for this.
What can I see once deployed:
- memory
- cpu utilization
- configuration information
- SSH public key
- script packages
- network interface settings
- Can access the vnc or WebSphere console
The default installation includes a base social pattern for Connections Files and Profiles. That would be installed in the same Node but a separate JVM as portal. If you want to do a full Connections deployment you wouldn’t put them in the same node.
For Connections, it does include TDI installation.
Web Application Integrator injects portal navigation into Connections. The Pure Systems deployment does that automatically so SSO is automatic and the files and profiles full UI has that navigation injected.
More info on default installation
- SSO between Files/Profiles and Portal
- By default the integration and portlets work
- WAI works to inject portal navigation
- Includes a number of OOB portlets and pages like Unified Tasks
- Includes integration of business cards
What this install does is everything in a 167 page whitepaper the presenter published last year.
What about all my portal customizations?
What we’ve seen to date is all about a topology . But you may have an external ldap, themes, and other configurations. The install of the extra node doesn’t automatically connect everything and push it. There’s more work involved via customization of the patterns and customization of scripts you would run after deployment
- Take the image and put it in extended capture mode. Make your virtual image changes and then capture it. You end up with a new usable and clusterable image. (as long as you started with the base IBM image)
- Presenter likes this option the least because it add to the proliferation of virtual images
- Make changes within the pattern. You can add a clustered install within Dev for example
- With Script packages and parameters
- Drag the script packages into the pattern
- For example, default install in PureSystems enables ScoialIntegration with Files/Profiles. IBM provides a script package to disable this.
- The script package is a command line execution of a set of commands with parameters.
- Another script package might be configuration to ldap, deploy PAA file, etc.
