Deploying integration solutions

To develop an integration solution, you might need to create a number of resources such as message flows, subflows, message models, maps, Java™ code, and ESQL files.

You can store your development resources in applications or libraries. If some of your resources are used by multiple applications, you can store those resources in a static library or a shared library. To understand the difference between static libraries and shared libraries, see Libraries. You can then deploy the resources by deploying the applications and libraries that contain the resources.

During the development of a solution, you can deploy the development resources directly to an integration server by using options in the IBM® App Connect Enterprise Toolkit. By using this approach, you can quickly verify changes as you develop your solution; see Deploying integration solutions during development.

When you are ready to deploy your solution to a production environment, you can package the resources into a BAR file. You can add applications and libraries to the BAR file. If your solution contains message flows or other resources that are in an integration project, you can add these resources individually to the BAR file. If you use policies to override the properties that are set on the message flows and message flow nodes, you also add these policies to the BAR file.

You can also include version information in your resources so that you can match the packaged or deployed resources with the resources that you maintain in a source control system.

For more information, see Packaging integration solutions.

Before you deploy your solution to a production environment, you can customize the BAR file to configure the solution for any differences between the development environment and the production environment.

You can also choose to precompile the resources that the BAR file contains (such as XML schema, DFDL schema, and graphical data maps), so that they are ready to run when the integration server starts. This reduces the time that it takes for the deployed application to start processing messages. For more information, see the mqsibar command.

When your BAR file is configured, you can deploy it to a production environment; see Deploying integration solutions to a production environment. Your production environment could be IBM App Connect Enterprise or IBM App Connect Enterprise as a Service.

When an integration solution is no longer required, you can remove the integration solution from your environment; see Deleting deployed resources. If you want to redeploy your solution, you must first delete the existing deployed solution and then deploy again.

You can also deploy IBM App Connect Enterprise to IBM Cloud Private by using Helm Charts. For more information, see IBM App Connect in containers.