Creating dynamic environments from cloud systems

To request a dynamic environment from a cloud system, you import information about resources on a cloud system. Then, you create an application blueprint that maps components to those resources.

Before you begin

  1. Import a resource template from the cloud. This resource template is a local representation of the available resources on the cloud system. See Importing resource templates from clouds.
  2. Create an application blueprint to map the components to the resources on the cloud. See Creating application blueprints.

Procedure

  1. Open the Create New Environment window by clicking Applications > [select application] > Environments > Add New Environment.
  2. In the Blueprint list, select your blueprint.
  3. Specify the rest of the fields in the Create New Environment dialog and then click Save. For more information on these fields, see Creating environments. Because you used a blueprint, the Environment Blueprint Properties window opens. From this window, you can customize the properties for each virtual node in the cloud resource request, such as the starting user names and passwords.
  4. In the Environment Blueprint Properties window, specify the following information:
    • In the Cloud Connection field, make sure that the connection to your cloud system is listed. This list shows connections that you have access to, based on the security settings for those connections.
    • In the Choose Location field, specify where to store the virtual nodes and how to allocate IP addresses to those nodes. Select Cloud Group to store the virtual nodes on one of the hypervisors in a cloud group. Select Environment Profile to provision the virtual nodes according to an environment profile. For more information on cloud groups and environment profiles, see the documentation for your cloud system.
      Note: If you need to specify both the environment profile and the IP group, first specify the environment profile on this page. Then, on the properties page for each node, specify the IP group for each node.
      Note: For IBM® PureApplication® System, you must use an environment profile; cloud groups are not supported.
    • If you selected Cloud Group, select a cloud group in the Cloud Group field.
    • If you selected Environment Profile, select an environment profile in the Environment Profile field.
    • Under Set property values for nodes to be created for this environment, you can customize the properties for the request. To customize these properties, click the node. A window opens that shows the properties for the node, including virtual image properties such as memory, number of CPUs, and starting passwords. The window also shows the properties for each script package on the node.
      Note: In some cases, you must specify certain properties before you can submit the request. In this case, when you click Save, a popup window lists the required properties that are not specified.

Results

When you request an environment that is based on a blueprint, the IBM UrbanCode Deploy server runs these tasks:
  1. The server requests the resources from the cloud system
  2. The cloud system runs script packages on the cloud resources, including installing an agent on each node
  3. The server creates an environment that is based on the blueprint
  4. The server connects the agents to that environment
The server does not run any processes on the environment automatically. You can run processes as usual after the environment is ready.
Note: If you create an environment from a blueprint and then change the component mappings in the blueprint, the environment changes to match the blueprint.

When you are ready to remove the environment and the virtual resources, select the environment and then click More > Delete, as shown in the following figure.

Deleting the environment
Then, you can specify whether to delete the virtual resources or to leave them in the cloud. Select or clear the Delete Cloud Instances check box, as shown in the following figure:
Specifying whether to delete the cloud resources


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