Creating a service instance

Before you begin

If you are using tags in your service, see Prerequisites for tags.

Procedure

To create a service instance, follow these steps:

1. In the navigation bar, click Library > Services. The Manage service library is displayed.

2. Search for your service by using any of the following search filters:

   • Enter your service name in Search services.
   • Click the show filter menu icon to list services based on their status.
   • You can click the column headings of Name and Created to sort the list.
   • You can also select the provider or type to list services based on your selection.
   • You can use the pagination drop-down to select the number of records you want to display in a page at a time.
   • You can select a namespace from the All namespaces drop-down list. The list of services in the page changes based on the selected namespace. You can select "All namespaces" to see all of the services for which you have access.

3. Click Deploy in the overflow menu of your service tile.

   As an alternative, you can click the service to preview its Overview and Associated instances details.

   The Associated instances page displays the details of all the instances that are associated with the service. In this tab, click the Actions overflow menu of the associated instance record to View details of that instance.

4. Go through the details of the service. You can see the following details of the service in the Overview page:

   • Chart version, published date, and type
   • Details section has a long description of the service.
   • For additional information about the service, see the Useful links section. It has Documentation and Support link.

5. Select your plan and click Next.

6. Enter the Name of the service instance.

   Notes:

   • The service instance name must begin with an alphabet and must have a combination of only these characters: [a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_-].
   • If service instance has an application activity then the service instance name should consist of lower case alphanumeric characters, '-' or '.', and must start and end with an alphanumeric character.

7. For globally accessible services, you can select a namespace from the Namespace drop-down list. For other namespaces, the option is not enabled for selection.

8. Consider the following for dynamic cloud connections in the service definition:

   • If you have defined a parameter of type connection in the service definition and linked it to the Cloud connections parameter value, then the parameter is displayed here as a drop-down list. For example, you have created "Conn" as a parameter of type connection, then "Conn" drop down list is displayed. For the complete input_parameter format for "conn" definition in the Source code tab, see Different ways of adding values for the cloud connection in Templates topic. This drop down list fetches all global cloud connections of the provider mentioned in the input_parameter. For example, if the provider is VMware vSphere, then the drop down list includes all global cloud connections of VMware vSphere provider. If you change the Namespace value, the drop-down value contains a list of global cloud connections that are tagged to the selected namespace and are associated to the provider.

9. Consider the following for dynamic shared parameters in the service definition:

   • If you have defined a parameter of type sharedparameter in the service definition and linked it to a Data Object value, then the parameter is displayed here as a drop-down list. For example, you have created "shared" as a parameter of type sharedparameter, then "shared" drop down list is displayed. For the complete input_parameter format for "shared" definition in the Source code tab, see Shared parameters in Templates topic. This drop down list fetches all globally defined Data Objects of the Data Type that is mentioned in the input_parameter. If there are more than one Data Object for the selected Data Type, then you must define a default Data Object. By default, this default value is preselected for the "shared" parameter drop down. If you change the Namespace value, the drop-down value contains a list of global Data Objects that are tagged to the selected namespace and are associated to the Data Type.

10. Enter the values for the selected plan parameters.

    Note: If a value is not available for a non mandatory service or activity parameter referenced within a plan parameter, the service instance fails with an error message. For example, you have referenced the cc parameter of an email notification activity in a plan parameter. If the value for the non-mandatory cc parameter is not available, then the service instance fails with the following error message:

    Service deploymentError: Invalid resource : ${parameters.cc} (hint: 'cc' not found)
    {"error":{"statusCode":500,"message":"Internal Server Error"}}
    

11. If you have any tags created for the service, then select your tag.

12. Click Create instance. A message confirming the successful submission of a service instance request is displayed. You can go to Deployed instances page to view the status of the current deployment or go to Library to create more instances.

Results

• If your service instance completes successfully, then the deployed instance status changes from In Progress to Active. If an activity component of a service instance fails, then the deployed service instance is marked as error.
• If you use a long running Business Process Manager template in your service that requires human intervention for claim and approval, the status of the service instance deployment changes to "Wait" state and in the activity instances, the status changes to "Waiting" state. To know the state and piid number, go to Log file tab > Activity log of the service instance. This piid is the stack id in Managed services. The Business Process Manager administrator logs in to the ProcessPortal dashboard to claim and approve the pending tasks. When the polling activity detects that the process is complete, the service instance state moves from "Wait" to "In progress" and then subsequently to the "Active" state based on the service flow. The activity instances of the service instance also move from "Waiting" to "Created" state.
• If SMTP connection is used in your service, then a primary connection for the selected namespace is retrieved first and in the absence of that connection, search is done for a globally accessible primary connection. If both primary connections do not exist, then a secondary connection is attempted in the same sequence as the primary connection. In the absence of both primary and secondary connections, an error message is added to the logs.