Deployment methods
IBM® Cloud Pak System provides several deployment methods.
- IBM Cloud Pak System accelerators
- Virtual application pattern (includes the database pattern)
- Virtual system pattern
- Virtual appliance
IBM Cloud Pak System accelerators
IBM Cloud Pak System can help accelerate your implementation of on-premises containerized platforms. It comes with IBM Cloud Pak System accelerators that supports automated deployment and management of IBM Cloud Paks (containerized offerings) and Red Hat® OpenShift clusters. For more information about IBM Cloud Pak System accelerators, see https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSMGNT/welcome.html.
Virtual application pattern
A virtual application pattern is an application-centric model of a virtual application. You create the virtual application from the required components, define dependencies between them, and apply policies that are used to automatically manage behavior of the application when it is deployed.
- IBM Cloud Pak System encapsulates the installation, configuration, and integration of all components. Minimal knowledge of the underlying middleware infrastructure is required.
- Predefined patterns are provided with optimized configurations for the solutions they support, and the implementation is based on industry-recommended practices.
- The virtual infrastructure can automatically adjust to manage workloads based on your defined policies, so that less manual administration is required.
- You can create and use templates to simplify and standardize creation of virtual applications with a common configuration.
- Patterns can be used to deploy multiple instances of the same application.
Because IBM Cloud Pak System automatically handles installation and most of the configuration of the virtual application, fewer configuration options are available to application builders and deployers. If more control over the configuration is required, you can use one of the other deployment methods.
In some organizations, the deployment and lifecycle management of databases is handled by a separate team. IBM Cloud Pak System allows you to manage database patterns independently. These database patterns can still be integrated into a virtual application pattern, but if you delete the virtual application pattern or a virtual application instance that uses a database instance, the database pattern and database instance are not affected.
Virtual system pattern
You can manage virtual system patterns in the Virtual system pattern and Pattern Builder pages in the console. Virtual system patterns implement deployment topologies that are created using one or more virtual images and applications in the system catalog.
Choosing the type of pattern to use
When you want to build and deploy containerized applications, select IBM Cloud Pak System accelerators.
When you want to build middleware oriented ready to deploy applications, select virtual application patterns. With virtual application patterns, you fundamentally change everything about those environments. You work with a highly optimized and automated solution with built-in features. Using these features, you can manage high availability and react dynamically to the changing conditions based on your business level specific requirements.
When you want to deploy core infrastructure as service, select Virtual system pattern. It enables efficient and repeatable deployments of systems that include one or more virtual machine instances, and the applications that run on them.