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Challenges

Deploying applications in production environments is a challenge. The SOA application developers build new projects, or new versions of existing projects, and throw them “over the wall” to the operations team. Administrators have to deploy multiple application files to multiple targets, in a fixed time window. This process is repeated when moving from test to stage to production. This consumes time and requires expertise on these applications. Controlling the WebLogic projects centrally is the first challenge, where administrators have to track the project versions to comply with change and release management guidelines. Next the deployment itself is a challenge, considering the administrator needs to deploy the projects with specific customizations and honor the scheduled maintenance window. All in all, the administrator has too many manual tasks to deal with, given the constraints of the operational environment.

Solution

With Grid Control, administrators can deploy multiple OSB projects to a domain deployment procedure framework. A five-step interview process lets the user pick the source projects, pick the target OSB server and domain, set the credentials, specify configurations and the customization file, and schedule a future deployment using the job system.

• Store OSB deployment artifacts in an enterprise Software Library
• Export OSB deployment artifacts from a live OSB server
• Track maturity of OSB deployment artifacts and usage
• Deploy OSB projects from test to stage to production
• Deploy in a future maintenance window

Step-by-step exercise

This set of step-by-step exercises will walkthrough managing the deployment of OSB projects.

Viewing the Software Library

The first step is to view the operational store or the Software Library in Grid Control. This is the starting point for administrators to look at the inventory, add items, or change existing items.

1. From the Grid Control home page, click on the Deployments tab.
2. Click the Provisioning sub-tab.

   The Software Library contains several objects such as operating system images, Oracle homes for database and application server, and deployment artifacts for BPEL, OSB, and so on. The Library is used to track the maturity of these components as they are used on various monitored targets.
3. Expand Components to reveal the component types.

   

   (Move the mouse over the image to enlarge.)

Uploading projects to the Software Library

In this particular scenario, the administrator has been handed a copy of the OSB project, and needs to deploy it. Before deployment, the administrator needs to upload the projects to the Grid Control Software Library for tracking, operational version control, and to enable deployment:

1. Upload OSB Projects to Software Library
2. Select the radio button for Oracle Components.
3. Click on the Create Component button.

   

4. Enter the following values in the Describe step, as shown in the next screenshot:
   • Select Type as Generic Component.
   • Name as OSB projects.
   • Leave the other fields blank.
   • Click on Next

     

5. In the Customize step, leave the defaults and click on Next.
6. In the Upload File step:
   • Select Upload from Agent Machine.
   • Click on the Select Target button.
   • Select the Host Name as gcsoa.us.oracle.com.
   • Click on the Select File button.
   • Select the location of the sbconfig.jar from a pre-existing project from an OSB server, which was zipped up and stored on the local machine; for instance: /u01/homes/osb_wls/projects/sbconfig.jar.

     Note that you can directly export projects from a live OSB server during the deployment process. This will be the most common usage of the deployment procedure. Here, for this workshop though, the export jar has already been created in advance. This export jar contains several projects extracted from another OSB server.

   • Click on Next.
7. On the Set Directives step, click on Next.
8. On the Review step, note the details, and click on Finish.
9. Note the confirmation message, and the new OSB Project generic component that has been added.

   

10. Activate the OSB projects for use:
    • Select the radio button for OSB Projects.
    • Click on Activate, as shown in the following screenshot: