Continuous Delivery with IBM Bluemix DevOps Services

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation (rel. 7.1 – hereafter referred to as MFPF), is now available on Bluemix. The main components of the platform – the server and the analytics can be run as containers on the IBM Bluemix Container Service. This blog discusses a step-by-step approach for building and deploying the server and analytics containers using the IBM Bluemix DevOps Services.

The steps involved are as follows:

• Creating a project from IBM Bluemix DevOps Services to manage, build, share and organize the MFPF container code. More info here Note: In this blog, we store our code in a Git repository hosted by IBM Bluemix. A similar approach can be followed for other repository types.
• Customizing / configuring the MFPF container
• Creating a new deployment pipeline
• Deploying the container

Before you begin

• Sign up for a Bluemix account
• Download the IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation Evaluation on Containers v7.1 zip to your machine
• Install git to configure, change, sync and test locally

The MobileFirst Platform Foundation Server Container

This section discusses the steps involved in organizing, building, deploying and managing a MobileFirst Platform Foundation Server container.

Note: The MobileFirst Platform Foundation Server Container uses a Cloudant database. Hence, a Cloudant account is required. Alternatively, you could also use the Cloudant service on Bluemix

Unpack the IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation Containers Archive

• Unpack the IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation Containers zip file that is downloaded above into a directory of your choice. Hereafter, we refer to this directory with name: {ibm-mfpf-containers-7.1.0.0-eval}

Creating a DevOps Services project

• Login to IBM DevOps Services at https://hub.jazz.net/
• Select Create Project, and specify the project name as mfpf-server
• Select Create a new repository, and select the option Create a Git repo on Bluemix
• Check the Private Project and leave all the remaining options unchecked
• Select Create

Set up local repository

To configure or add projects to the MFPF container, you need to check out the git repository created above. More info here

• Determine which directory to store your local repo in. If necessary, you can create a directory. Change (or) move to the directory
• Clone the git repository you just created using:

git clone --no-checkout GIT_URL

The GIT_URL will be of the form: https://hub.jazz.net/git//mfpf-server. The git repository will be cloned into a sub directory with name mfpf-server (hereafter, referred to as local repository)

Creating, configuring and updating / syncing the project

• Copy the following folders from the folder {ibm-mfpf-containers-7.1.0.0-eval} to the local repository

  • dependencies
  • licenses
  • mfpf-libs

• Copy all the content within the following folder to the local repository

  • mfpf-server

• Optionally, you can remove the following from the local repository.

  • mfpf-libs\apache-ant-1.9.4
  • mfpf-libs\db2jcc4.jar
  • mfpf-libs\httpclient.jar
  • mfpf-libs\httpcore.jar
  • mfpf-libs\json4j.jar
  • mfpf-libs\mfpf-analytics.tgz
  • mfpf-libs\mfpf-container-deployer.jar
  • mfpf-libs\worklight-ant-deployer.jar
  • scripts

• Copy your MobileFirst projects (WAR files) under the usr/projects directory of your local repository

Configuring the MobileFirst Server Databases

• Configuring the MobileFirst Administration Database

Create a file named wladmin.xml with the following content (Fill the values with valid Cloudant database details) in the usr/config directory of your local repository

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<server description="new server">
<jndiEntry jndiName="${env.MFPF_ADMIN_ROOT}/mfp.db.cloudant.username" value=""/>
<jndiEntry jndiName="${env.MFPF_ADMIN_ROOT}/mfp.db.cloudant.password" value=""/>
<jndiEntry jndiName="${env.MFPF_ADMIN_ROOT}/mfp.db.cloudant.url" value=""/>
</server>

Configuring the MobileFirst Runtime Databases
For each of the runtimes (WARs) added, create an XML file with the name, {runtime name}.xml with the following content (Fill the values with valid Cloudant database details) in the usr/config directory of your local repository.

Note: Update the *{runtime name}** in the xml content with the name of the project.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<server description="new server">
<jndiEntry jndiName="{runtime name}/mfp.db.cloudant.username" value=""/>
<jndiEntry jndiName="{runtime name}/mfp.db.cloudant.password" value=""/>
<jndiEntry jndiName="{runtime name}/mfp.db.cloudant.url" value=""/>
<application id="{runtime name}" location="{runtime name}.war" name="{runtime name}" type="war">
<classloader delegation="parentLast">
<privateLibrary id="worklightlib_{runtime name}">
<fileset dir="${shared.resource.dir}/lib" includes="worklight-jee-library.jar"/>
<fileset dir="${wlp.install.dir}/lib" includes="com.ibm.ws.crypto.passwordutil*.jar"/>
</privateLibrary>
</classloader>
</application>
</server>

Customize the server container.
Refer here. Note that if you want to configure analytics instance to this server, the analytics server has to be configured here. Refer to the The MobileFirst Platform Foundation Analytics Container section on how to create & deploy an analytics container.

• Update the remote DevOps Service project with the local repository using the following commands from within the local repository directory

• git add *
• git commit –m "Initial check-in"
• git push origin master

Creating a deployment pipeline

The pipeline automates the continuous deployment of MobileFirst Platform Foundation Server container. Follow the steps below to create the deployment pipeline.

• Go to IBM Bluemix DevOps Services
• Under Your Projects click the project that you created above: mfpf-server
• Click BUILD & DEPLOY

• Create a Build Stage

• Click on ADD STAGE
• Specify a name for the stage. For example, Build

• In the INPUT tab, leave all the fields set to default values. This will also ensure that the stage is run automatically whenever a change is pushed to the project

• Click on JOBS
• Click on ADD JOB and choose Build as the job type

• Set the following values to the respective fields:

• Builder Type – IBM Container Service
• Provide the Target, Organization and Space of your Bluemix account to which the container has to be deployed
• Provide the name of the image
• Click on SAVE

Create a Deploy / Run stage

• Click on ADD STAGE
• Specify a name for the stage. For example, Deploy
• In the INPUT tab, leave all the fields set to default values. This will also ensure that the stage is run automatically whenever a change is pushed to the project
• Click on JOBS
• Click on ADD JOB and choose Deploy as the job type

• Set the following values to the respective fields:

• Deployer Type – IBM Containers on Bluemix
• Provide the Target, Organization and Space of your Bluemix account to which the container has to be deployed
• Choose the deployment strategy (‘red_black’ if you want to re-route the IP address or route to the new container on successful deployment. ‘clean’ if you want to remove the older container before deploying the new container)
• Provide the name of the container
• Provide the port numbers:
  • Provide 9080,9443 in the PORT field if you are deploying a stand alone container
  • Provide 9080 in the PORT field if you are deploying a scalable container group
• Optional deploy arguments:
  • Mandatory for scalable container groups: Add the entry –env MFPF_CLUSTER_MODE=Farm in the Optional deploy arguments field
• Deployer script
  • If you want the container to be run as a stand alone container, there are no changes required to the script
  • If you want the container to be run as a scalable group, comment out the line ‘/bin/bash deployscripts/deploycontainer.sh’ and uncomment the line ‘/bin/bash deployscripts/deploygroup.sh’
• Set the environment properties by clicking on the ENVIRONMENT PROPERTIES (when no such properties are set, the default values for the properties are considered)
• Refer within the comments section within the Deployer script for the properties applicable for stand alone container / scalable container group
• Click on SAVE

Deployment

Once the pipeline is created as above, the deployment is automatic when ever a change is pushed to the remote project from the local repository (or) the Build stage can be run manually by clicking on the Run button on the Build stage.

The MobileFirst Platform Foundation Analytics Container

The instructions to build and run analytics container are same as discussed above for the Server container above. Note that adding the WARs / database configurations are not needed for analytics container. Additionally, choose the right values in all the steps. For example, name for the analytics project (For example, mfpf-analytics) etc.