The Middleware Configuration for WebSphere® plug-in includes steps that deploy
configuration templates of IBM® WebSphere Application Server that
you generate from an existing cell.
This plug-in allows you to automate the process of deploying WebSphere configurations and
applications to different environments (for example, development,
test, and production environments. The following steps provide an
overview of the process you follow.
- Set up UrbanCode Deploy to support the process. Load plug-ins
and install an agent on the host where the WebSphere installation resides.
- Create a component using the configuration template.
- Capture topology information from an existing WebSphere installation and model it in
Resources. A resource tree represents scopes in the installation.
- Map the resources (scopes) to manage to the configuration template
component.
- Associate the component with an application.
- Associate other components needed for deployment, for example
components containing EAR or WAR files (application binaries)
- Associate the resources with an application environment.
- Generate the configuration template
- Deploy the configuration template to create new instances.
The process for using the plug-in is designed to support one
application per scope (cell, cluster, server, or node). The process
is not designed to support use cases where multiple applications are
deployed within the same cell scope or the same cluster scope.
You
can use custom properties on the component to differentiate resources
across environments. The custom properties are used to generate tokens when
you generate the templates. Tokens are used like variables to substitute
values in configuration information that varies depending on environment.
For example, you may use a different database or a different JDBC
resource in each of the deployment environments. See Using custom properties when deploying WebSphere configurations and applications
Updates for Version 5 of
the plug-in
Various defects were fixed for Version 5 of
the plug-in, which is supported in UrbanCode Deploy 6.0.1.
Updates for Version 4 of the plug-in
The
following features were added for Version 4 of the plug-in, which
is supported in UrbanCode Deploy 6.0.1.
- Support for multiple profiles on the same host. Support was added
for multiple profiles for top-level resource group properties and
multiple profiles for agent properties.
- Use of XPath to create tokens. The previous method of using name-value
pairs in a promote.properties file is still supported.
- Updated method for importing information from a configuration:
The method is called QuickCapture and is enabled
by default. It can be disabled for debugging purposes. An example
usage would be that generating the configuration template does not
work after upgrading to this version of the Middleware Configuration
for WebSphere plug-in
- Base template specification: If the SkipConfigCapture flag
is enabled when you import the a template, an existing WebSphere Application
Server configuration is used as a base template. Normally this flag
is enabled in order to tokenize an existing template.
Updates for Version 3 of the plug-in
The updates
for Version 3 were internal and required documentation changes.
Updates
for Version 2 of the plug-in
The following features were
added for Version 2 of the plug-in, which is supported in UrbanCode
Deploy 6.0.1.
- Requirements: version 2 is supported with version 6.0.1 of UrbanCode
Deploy. It is not supported in prior versions of Urbancode Deploy.
- Additional scopes: Support for the node and server scopes was
added to the existing support for cell and cluster scopes.
- Automated generation of configuration templates: The automated
process requires less connection setup and fewer steps than the previous
manual, script-based process in version 1.0.
- Compare configurations: You can now compare a component (configuration
template) to a live cell. This is useful for detecting when a live
cell's configuration "drifts," or departs from the desired configuration.
See Comparing WebSphere configurations.