Automating deployment tasks

This content applies to version 7.5.4 or later. You can use the deployment architecture tools to design automated deployment tasks by connecting to an automation engine and modeling tasks for that engine with topology elements.

The deployment architecture tools do not perform deployment tasks directly. Instead, you connect the deployment architecture tools to an automation engine that performs the tasks on the appropriate IT systems. You draw information from the automation definitions in that automation engine, which are scripts or other commands for the tasks. From these automation definitions, you create automation signatures, which model those tasks in the deployment architecture tools.

Then, you apply these automation signatures to topologies that represent IT systems. You can create topologies that represent your IT systems or individual deployment instances and run the automated tasks on those systems. When you apply automation signatures to topologies like this, the automation signatures use information from the topologies as parameter values. In this way, you can define one set of automation definitions and run them on different systems, each time using information from that system's topology to control the task.

The automation engine must be configured to perform the tasks that you model in the deployment architecture tools. In this version, the only automation engine that is supported is Rational® Build Forge®.

Automating deployment tasks with the deployment architecture tools is an iterative task, but it generally follows these steps:
  1. Create automation definitions in the automation engine. For Rational Build Forge, this step includes creating libraries of scripts to be run on IT systems. These scripts can include parameters, which you can fill in later with values from topologies.
  2. Create automation signatures, which are abstract representations of tasks that are modeled in topology elements. Each automation signature corresponds to an automation definition; in Rational Build Forge, each automation signature corresponds to a library in the console. The topology editor lets you import information from the automation definitions and bind parameters to values in the topology, indicating where to find the values for the parameters when the task is run.
  3. In a topology, model the IT system in its current state.
  4. In that topology, set the units' install states to model the desired state of the system. For example, if you want to install new IT components, add units representing those components and set the install state of those units to To be installed. Similarly, you can set units to To be uninstalled to indicate that those units are to be uninstalled, deleted, or otherwise removed.
  5. Create a workflow, or an ordered list of automation signatures that is bound to the topology. The workflow editor re-binds the parameters in the tasks to values in the topology.
  6. Publish the workflow to the automation engine and run the resulting automated task. For example, when you publish a workflow to Rational Build Forge, the deployment architecture tools create a corresponding project.
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