Deploying virtual system patterns

After you create a virtual system pattern, you can provision and deploy it to the cloud. You can deploy a virtual system pattern multiple times and each deployment is a running virtual system instance on the cloud infrastructure.

Before you begin

Configure the virtual system pattern, and ensure that it is ready to be deployed. For more information about modifying virtual system patterns, see the related links.

Script packages that are included in your virtual system pattern can contain license agreements that you must accept before you can deploy the pattern. For more information about accepting license agreements, see Related reference.

The following deployment scenarios are not supported for multi-cloud environment profiles or cloud groups:

Any pattern that contains an AIX image that does not support multi-cloud environment profiles or cloud groups.
Any pattern that contains a Hypervisor Edition virtual image.

To deploy patterns to a multi-cloud environment profile, all of the components in your pattern must use IBM® Foundation Pattern version 2.1.0.0 or later and must not contain a Hypervisor Edition virtual image.

Important: The domain name that is used for the deployment must be registered in DNS or the deployment will fail.

About this task

You can deploy either draft or committed virtual system patterns for testing or production. The time that it takes to deploy a virtual system depends on several factors, such as the size of the virtual system pattern parts and the interdependencies of parts in the pattern definition, network usage, storage usage, and the provisioning speed of the virtual machine on the cloud infrastructure.

If you have an email address configured in the system settings, an email is sent to the specified email address when a virtual system pattern is successfully deployed. For more information about configuring email delivery, see the Related Tasks.

Note: Connectivity issues with the DNS server can cause increased deployment times or failed deployments. The network administrator for the target network must check the routing tables of the DNS server to ensure that it can resolve the network address of the system.

Procedure

Click Patterns > Virtual System Patterns.
Click Deploy the pattern into the cloud in the Actions column for the pattern that you want to deploy, or select the pattern that you want to deploy and click Deploy in the toolbar.

On the Configure pane:

Edit the name for the deployment, if needed. This name displays on the Instances page after the pattern deploys.
Note: Deployment name cannot begin with special characters, such as plus (‘+’), hyphen (’-‘), at symbol (’@’), or equal (’=’). If you enter any of these characters in the beginning of the deployment name, then the following error message is displayed:
```
CMPRE0007E: The input JSON is not valid as it is prone to formula injection attacks.
```
Select the environment profile that you want to use for the deployment.
- If the Deployment type for the selected environment profile is set to Single cloud:
  - Select a Cloud Group and an IP Group.
    Note: You can also set the IP group for each virtual machine on the Distribute pane. You cannot change the Cloud Group for the deployment after you configure it on this pane.
  - The deployment is limited to a single cloud group.
- If the Deployment type for the selected environment profile is set to Multi cloud, you select the cloud group and IP group for the deployment later, on the Distribute pane.
- Select a Cloud Group and an IP Group.
  Note: You can also set the IP group for each virtual machine on the Distribute pane. You cannot change the Cloud Group for the deployment after you configure it on this pane.
- The deployment is limited to a single cloud group.
Set the priority for the deployment.
Note: For more information about deployment priorities, see Related tasks.
Optional: To set up SSH access, use one of the following options in the SSH Key section to set the public key:
- To generate a key pair automatically, click Generate. The public key is displayed in the SSH Key field and links to download the generated private key. Copy and save the generated public key from the SSH Key field if you want to use the same key pair for other deployments.
  Click Download or Download (PKCS1 format) to save the private key file to a secure location. The default name for the file that is downloaded by using the Download link is id_rsa. On Windows, this file might be saved as id_rsa.txt. The default name for the file that is downloaded by using the Download (PKCS1 format) link is id_rsa_pkcs1. On Windows, this file might be saved as id_rsa_pkcs1.txt.
  Important: SSH keys are generated and used in pairs. Only this private key provides SSH key log in to virtual machines deployed with this public key. The system does not keep a copy of the private key. If you do not download the private key, you cannot log in to the virtual machine with SSH key authentication. Save your public key and id_rsa private key file in a secure location. When you have the private key, make sure that it has the correct permissions (chmod 0400 id_rsa.txt). By default, the SSH client does not use a private key file that provides open permission for all users.
- To use an existing SSH public key, open the public key file in a text editor and copy and paste it into the SSH Key field.
  Important: Do not use cat, less, or more to copy and paste from a command shell. The copy and paste operation adds spaces to the key that prevent you from accessing the virtual machine.
The SSH key provides access to the virtual machines in the cloud group for troubleshooting and maintenance purposes. For information about configuring SSH key-based access to virtual machines, see Related tasks.
Modify the deployment schedule as needed:
- Choose Start now, or choose Start later and select a date and time for the deployment to start.
- Choose Run indefinitely, or choose Run until and select a date and time for the deployment to end.
In the Chargeback section, select an organization from the ones that are defined for deployment of this virtual pattern.
Modify the pattern and component attributes as needed.
The attributes that display in the pattern configuration column are attributes from the pattern and components in the pattern that are not locked from editing. You can modify existing values or set values that were not specified during pattern creation. Be sure that all required fields have values. Components that have a blue dot next to the name contain required attributes that must be set before the pattern is deployed.
When you are finished configuring all of the fields on the Configure tab,
- if you chose an environment profile that does not have the IP addresses provided by field set to Pattern Deployer and you do not want to modify the placement, click Quick Deploy. If you choose this option, the deployment process starts. You do not need to complete any of the subsequent steps.
- if you chose an environment profile that has the IP addresses provided by field set to Pattern Deployer, or you want to modify the placement, click Prepare to Deploy.

On the Distribute pane:

To edit the network or volume settings for a virtual machine, move the mouse pointer over the virtual machine icon and click the pencil icon.
1. On the IP Groups tab, you can modify IP group for each of the NICs in the virtual machine. The IP groups that are listed are associated with the environment profile that you chose for the deployment. If the IP address provided by field in the environment profile that you chose for the deployment is set to Pattern Deployer, you must set the IP address for each NIC in the deployment.
2. If there is a Default attach block disk add-on in the pattern, you can modify the volumes for the virtual machine on the Storage Volume tab. You can use an existing volume or create one to attach to the component during deployment.
  Configure these settings:
  Mount Point
  Specify the mount point.
  CAUTION:
  Although the user interface does not place restrictions on the mount points that can be used, the following mount points will cause the deployment of the default IBM OS images to fail: /var, /opt, /opt/AE, /opt/python-2.6.4, /opt/ibm, /opt/ibm/ae, /opt/ibm/fixnetwork, /opt/ibm/scp, /opt/IBM/AE, opt/IBM/maestro, usr/local. If you choose to use these mount points, be aware of the following caveats:
  
  If you are using the default IBM OS images, your deployment will fail if these mount points are used.
  
  Whether these mount points work with a custom OS image depends on whether the path is an existing mount point in the image, as opposed to just a directory. If the path is an existing mount point, the add-on causes the volume to be expanded and does not impact the deployment's success or failure. If it is not, the deployment fails just like it would if you were using the default IBM OS image.
  Filesystem type
  
  Select the file system type: ext3, ext4, xfs, jfs2, or none.
  If you choose to create a new volume, configure these settings:
  
  Name
  
  Set the name for the volume.
  
  Description
  
  Optional. Set a description for the volume.
  
  Size (GB)
  
  Set the size for the volume, in GB.
  
  Volume Groups
  
  Select a volume group for the volume. A volume group is a logical grouping of volumes that can span workloads and cloud groups.
3. Click OK when you are finished updating the settings.
When you are finished modifying the settings, click Deploy.
When the virtual system is deployed, the virtual system instance is listed under the Instances section of the IBM Cloud Pak System Software for x86. To view the virtual system instance, click Instances > Virtual Systems.

The virtual memory and virtual processor settings that are configured for the virtual images in the virtual system pattern must be met by the requirements for the software components in the pattern. If these requirements are not met, the deployment fails and an error message that lists the memory and processor requirements is displayed. If this error occurs, modify the processor and memory settings in the pattern so that the requirements are met, and deploy the pattern again.

Results

The placement is validated again to ensure that the resources and artifacts that were used for validation during the initial placement are still available. If there is a problem with the placement, an error message is displayed, and a red circle is displayed on the circle that contains errors. Hover over the cell that contains errors, and then hover over the yellow triangle in the resulting window to view more details about the errors. Resolve the issue with the placement, such as moving the virtual machine to a different system with sufficient resources so that the deployment can continue.

After placement validation is successful, the virtual system instance is deployed and started. To stop the virtual system instance, select the virtual system instance from the list, and click Stop. To start the virtual system instance again, select the virtual system instance, and click Start.

To remove a stopped topology, select it from the Virtual System Patterns page, and click Delete.

What to do next

After you deploy the virtual system instance, you can use the IP address of the virtual machines to access the application artifacts. For example, you can manually enter the URL in your browser.

http://IP_address:9080/tradelite/

IP_address is the IP address of the deployed WebSphere® Application Server virtual machine.

If you uploaded an SSH public key during the deployment, you can also connect directly to a virtual machine without a password if you have the private key.

You can also view and monitor statistics for your deployed virtual machines and download and view the log files. For more information, see Related tasks.