Deploy a Solution to Production

Overview

Deployments to production environments differ from non-production environments in that the production cluster is separate from the non-production clusters and the Solution Designer's UI for creating the Deploy pipeline is not available because typically only the Solution Hub is installed.

To deploy a solution developed with IBM Financial Services Workbench to a production-like environment you therefore need to consider at least the following additional requirements:

This guide explains the basic workflow for this deployment and shows examples of how these requirements can be implemented. However, it does not provide a production-ready workflow, but is a useful example that you can adapt to your specific security and automation requirements.

For this explanation, the following deployment scenario is assumed:

The following steps outline the process:

• Check Prerequisites
• Copy the solution image to the production image registry
• Create the pipeline for solution deployment via REST API call
• Create the solution specific configuration for production

Check Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure that the following tasks are complete:

1. Install skopeo

   The command line tool skopeo is used to copy the solution image between different OpenShift Container platform registries. It is preferable to using Docker because it can copy an image from one registry to another without first downloading it locally and without running a daemon to work.

2. Obtain OpenShift account with sufficient permissions

   To copy the solution image to the production image registry, an account in the role of cluster administrator is required on the non-production and production cluster. Creating the pipeline for solution deployment via a REST API call requires the Project Administrator role for the project for which you are creating the pipeline.

3. Provide access to the OpenShift’s Docker Registries

   This guide assumes that you have external access to the internal OpenShift image registry of the non-production and the production cluster. You can find out the external address for each registry by viewing the route image-registry in the openshift-image-registry namespace.

   Check if these addresses are accessible from your network, for example as follows:

   $ oc login -u={Username} -p={Password} -s={Source Cluster}
   $ SRC_IMAGE_REGISTRY=$(oc get route image-registry -n openshift-image-registry --template='{{ .spec.host }}')
   $ curl -v https://$SRC_IMAGE_REGISTRY/healthz

Step 1: Copy the solution image to the production image registry

Use the copy command of the skopeo tool as shown here to copy the solution image from the non-production registry to the production registry.

oc login -u={Username} -p={Password} -s={Source Cluster}
SRC_CREDS="openshift:$(oc whoami -t)"
SRC_REGISTRY=$(oc get route image-registry -n openshift-image-registry --template='{{ .spec.host }}')
oc login -u={Username} -p={Password} -s={Destination Cluster}
DEST_CREDS="openshift:$(oc whoami -t)"
DEST_REGISTRY=$(oc get route image-registry -n openshift-image-registry --template='{{ .spec.host }}')
skopeo copy --dest-creds ${DEST_CREDS} --dest-tls-verify=false \
--src-creds ${SRC_CREDS} --src-tls-verify=false \
docker://${SRC_REGISTRY}/{Source Project}/{Solution Image}:{Source Tag}
docker://${DEST_REGISTRY}/{Destination Project}/{Solution Image}:{Source Tag} 

Step 2: Create the pipeline for solution deployment via REST API call

The solution {Solution Acronym} will be deployed by executing a Deploy pipeline on the production cluster. The Deploy pipeline configuration must once be created using the Pipeline Manager API.

You can find the URL of the Swagger UI for this API on the Solution Envoy Dashboard for your target project {Destination Project} under Infrastructure on the production cluster. If {Destination Domain} denotes the cluster domain, the URL is usually as follows: https://{Destination Project}.{Destination Domain}/swagger/-/swagger-ui.html?urls.primaryName=pipeline-manager#/pipeline-controller

The pipeline configuration is set to use the existing image {Solution Image} that was previously copied to the production registry, deploy it into the target project {Destination Project} and set the image tag{Destination Tag}. The Deploy pipeline is triggered immediately by creation, but also automatically every time the image {Solution Image} with the tag {Source Tag} has changed in the production registry.

To create the Deploy Pipeline configuration, make a POST request on the production cluster using, for example, the curl command line tool as shown in the following example:

$ TOKEN=$(oc whoami -t)
$ URL="https://{Destination Project}.{Destination Domain}/-/pipelines/v1/-/deploy"
$ curl -k \
    -X POST \
    -d @- \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
    -H 'Accept: application/json' \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     $URL <<'EOF'
{
    "pipelineName": "{Pipeline Name}",
    "application": "{Application Group}",
    "autoDeploy": true,
    "inputImageNamespace": "{Destination Project}",
    "inputImageTag": "{Source Tag}",
    "resultImageTag": "{Destination Tag}",
    "skipSolutionTest": true,
    "solutionAcronym": "{Solution Acronym}",
    "solutionType": "ddd"
}
EOF

You can also call the following API methods as needed:

Step 3: Create the solution specific configuration for production

The need to create a solution-specific configuration for a solution arises when the configuration parameters differ across stages and must be adjusted in production and this parameter configuration differs from the default solution configuration in production.

This situation is common when the solution refers to an API dependency that was not developed with the IBM Financial Services Workbench. For example, to customize this API dependency in terms of URL and authentication data, you can create an API binding that contains these parameters by creating a solution specific configuration for production.

The solution-specific configuration can be created using the Configuration Management API. You can find the host name {Config Management Host} of this Configuration Management API by viewing the {configuration_management} route in the {FSW Project} project where you have installed IBM Financial Services Workbench on the production cluster. The URL of the Swagger UI is usually as follows: https://{Config Management Host}/swagger-ui.html#/configuration-controller

To create the solution specific configuration, make a POST request on the production cluster using, for example, the curl command line tool as shown in the following example:

$ TOKEN=$(oc whoami -t)
$ URL="https://{Config Management Host}/api/cfg/v1/runtimes/{Destination Project}/solutions/{Solution Acronym}/configurations/{Solution Configuration}"
$ curl -k \
    -X POST \
    -d @- \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
    -H 'Accept: application/json' \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     $URL <<'EOF'
{
    "url": "{External API URL}",
    "user": "{API Username}",
    "password": "{API Password}"
}
EOF

You can also call the following API methods as needed: