This blog post is a continuation of the previous blog post by Chandresh Patel. I will demonstrate the deployment capabilities for the FlexDeploy DevOps solution by deploying the Work Better application that was built in the previous post. As your build is progressing, you can click on Execution Id to view the details of the request. The Execution Steps tab provides a graphical representation of the steps that are either in progress or completed. The artifacts tab is of particular interest here. Clicking on the tab, you can view the artifacts that were produced by the build. These artifacts can be viewed on the build execution or any subsequent deployment execution. You can view the artifacts and download them as a ZIP file.
Glossary
- Instance is logical entity defined in FlexDeploy that in combination with Environment indicates target for Build or Deployment. For example, Instance can be considered as WebLogic domain, which is installed in various environments. So at deployment request time, user can pick Instance (specific domain) and Environment.
- Window is cron based time frame for defining when Deployment can execute. This can be configured by Environment and can be overridden in hierarchy of Folders and Applications within FlexDeploy.
- Approval is definition of groups that must approve Deployment before it can execute. This can be configured by Environment and can be overridden in hierarchy of Folders and Applications within FlexDeploy.
Once there is a successful build, you can request a deployment using the Request Deployment button. On the Deployment Request Form, you can select the Project Version you want to deploy, the target environment, and the Deploy instance(s). A Deploy Instance is the instance that you can execute the deployment on. The list of instances which appear in this list are what has been configured for this project.
The other options that are available during deployment are Force Deploy and Exception to Window.
- “Force Deploy” is when you need deployment to occur even if the project version is already deployed in this environment.
- “Exception to Window” indicates if deployment is being requested to execute outside of configured Window. If “Exception to Window” is selected, submitted deployment will require approval of configured Approvers to execute outside of configured Window. If “Exception to Window” is not selected, then submitted deployment will automatically execute on start of the next available window.
Once you have filled in the information, then you can click “Submit Request”. At this point, you can click the refresh button on top to check the status. You can also click on the execution id to view the logs and additional details about the execution.
The project workflow execution page shows the Execution Steps, Artifacts that are deployed, Change Log and the properties. The execution steps tab shows a graphical representation of the steps. which are in progress or completed. It also shows start time, duration and status for each step.
Each workflow invoke plugin step has a link providing access to the logs. The logs provide valuable information to indicate progress, as well as data to help identify the cause of any errors. The Log Data tab lists the detailed logs as reported by the associated plugin. Click the refresh button to refresh the logs.
Once the deployment is complete, the “Current State of Project Deployments” section in the Project page shows which environment contain which version of the project. If the project is not deployed to an environment it will not appear in the list. This provides a summary of this project’s current deployment state across all Environment and Instances.
