TECHNICAL WHITE PAPER

BMC BladeLogic Application

Release Automation
Table of Contents

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

WHY IS THIS CHALLENGING FOR ORGANIZATIONS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Web Application Server Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Deployment Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
»» Deployment Architecture Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Why Organizations Use BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation . . . . . . . . 2
»» What BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver Does . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . 4
Executive Summary
Web application server technology has revolutionized the way millions of people do their jobs every day. The
challenge for organizations to leverage this technology is that it requires a lengthy set of discrete steps that
must be executed flawlessly to customize the configuration and successfully deploy applications. Because the
Web application server infrastructure does not have a robust and consistent set of tools to simplify or automate
these tasks, most organizations struggle with meeting deadlines, effectively managing project budgets,
ensuring application availability/system uptime requirements, and dealing with compliance/government
mandates. BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation is designed to overcome these challenges and
realize the following benefits:

»» Lowers the total cost of ownership of your Web application servers

»» Speeds the time-to-market for new applications and updates that add value to the business
»» Improves application uptime and reduces the time needed to troubleshoot issues
»» Provides reporting to document application/configuration information and simplifies the separation of duties

Unlike many other solutions encountered in the market, the installation and training period is typically less than
two weeks, which enables organizations to get a quick win and realize a rapid payback.

Why Is this Challenging for Organizations?

Web application servers have hundreds of configuration settings available to the user. Each of these settings
must be consistently managed between development, test, and production for an organization to effectively
develop and deploy applications.

Web Application Server Environment

Applications are deployed requiring many components, such as:

»» Database connections - JDBC

»» Message Queues - JMS
»» Authorization Services - JAAS
»» The actual application - EAR or WAR
»» Shared files and libraries
»» Certificates
»» Static HTML files that are placed on the Web server
»» Property files
»» Configuration files

The Deployment Process

Deployment Architecture Process
The following steps must be executed every time either an update to an application is made or changes are
promoted to a new environment:

1. Configure the Web application container

–– Developer provides detailed information about required application server settings
–– Web application server is configured to said requirements using admin console, editing XML configuration
files, editing scripts, or a combination of all
–– Verify all tasks successfully executed and all the values successfully updated

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2. Upload application to target server
–– Developer checks the code to version control system
–– Developer checks in application property file(s)
–– Compile the code into a war J2EE file
–– Copy the application to server primary node
–– Edit property file(s) for specific environment
–– Copy application property file(s) to all nodes
–– Use syncNode to propagate the application into the remaining cluster nodes
–– Verify all tasks successfully executed and all the values successfully updated
3. Verify deployment
–– Test application functionality - as much as possible
4. Fix issues
–– Missing or forgotten configuration settings
–– Missing or forgotten property files
–– Miss-typed configuration settings
–– Manually compare a working server to the non-working
–– Verify all tasks successfully executed and all the values successfully updated
–– Repeat 3 and 4 until happy
5. Repeat above steps for each server

Why Organizations Use BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation

Historically, organizations used a combination of the admin console and command line instructions to manage
these environments. As the technology evolved, some customers have attempted to build a complex library of
scripts to begin automating some of the tasks. Whether managing environments through the admin console
or through scripts, it is difficult and time consuming to manage these environments and very hard to quickly
troubleshoot and restore environments.

A deployment process must be able to:

»» Baseline a “known good” configuration environment

»» Understand what changes will be made if that configuration were to be applied to another environment
»» Apply only those changes that are required and provide a point of control for “optional” configuration changes
»» Provide robust error management including rollbacks, uninstalls, logging (for debugging), and troubleshooting
»» Be able to drop seamlessly into an existing application lifecycle process
»» Provide extension points for other configuration parameters and be flexible enough to deploy to the needed
environments without undue reliance on infrastructure
»» Provide an audit trail for changes and monitor the application to verify that it continues to be configured in the
way that the business requires.

BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation automates the long list of discrete tasks needed to deploy
Web applications and dramatically simplifies the process, making it easier and less expensive for organizations
to leverage Web application server technology. BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation interrogates
the server and creates an abstraction of all of the unique settings in a data model. The abstraction is used to
create a package of objects that can then be moved throughout your environment. BMC BladeLogic Application
Release Automation compares the objects in the package to the objects that exist on the target server, and
makes the changes necessary to configure and deploy those objects correctly. In essence, BMC BladeLogic
Application Release Automation provides fully automated, contextual configurations and deployments with the
intelligence to include any dependencies in the package. You no longer have to manually hunt for dependencies
and discover them for yourself. In addition, that initial abstraction can be systematically compared between
servers to quickly identify differences or issues that are impacting performance. This makes BMC BladeLogic
Application Release Automation Deliver a must-have diagnostic tool for any system administrator responsible
for Web applications servers.

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What BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver Does
BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver introduces an innovative and powerful capability
to manage Web application server configurations, deploy applications, and troubleshoot Web application
servers quickly, efficiently, and safely. BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver can be a
vital tool for admins to quickly diagnose and isolate problems across their Web application servers. BMC
BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver also creates a repeatable deployment and configuration
process that can virtually eliminate the errors that are the result of the current manual or script solution. BMC
BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver provides critical capabilities for your deployment and
troubleshooting tasks:

Snapshot: It automatically obtains configuration information from a known good instance. This allows you to
see exactly how your server is configured at a glance.

Compare: It can compare snapshots from different servers and provide an “apples to apples” inventory of
what is different across environments. This can save hours of troubleshooting when time is critical.

Preview: It can execute a faux configuration and deployment of the app server providing a detailed report and
analysis of the potential impact of the deployment.

Install: It can configure the app server and deploy the application in an intelligent and automated manner. No
more scripts or manual steps.

Update: It will only make the changes to the app server that it needs to in order to fully configure the server.
No more incremental scripts or “hot fixes” – BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver can
catch up from any beginning point to where that server needs to be.

Rollback: It automatically rolls back to the last known good state if all or part of an installation fails. BMC
BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver will never leave the app server in a non-functioning state.

The BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation solution completely automates and significantly
improves managing and deploying applications to Web application servers, without scripting. The figure
below depicts a much-simplified, consistent, and reliable automated the deployment and release process.

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BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver Capabilities
BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver automates the manual configuration management and
deployment tasks by providing these critical capabilities for your deployment needs:

Configuration Management and Deployment:

Provides an easy to use UI to interact with the Web application servers. A single solution for configuration
management and application deployment for WebSphere, WebLogic, and JBoss.

Snapshot:
BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver automatically obtains configuration information from a
known good instance. This allows you to see exactly how your server is configured at a glance.

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Compare:
BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver can compare snapshots from different servers
and provide an “apples to apples” inventory of what is different across environments. This can save hours of
troubleshooting when time is critical.

Configuration Packager:
Allows you to create a pared down configuration containing only the artifacts you want to install on another
server. For example, if you want to copy just the templates and a Web application from one server to another,
you can create a configuration containing just those items.

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Preview:
BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver can “preview” an install, providing you with a detailed
report on what items will be added, deleted, or changed when an install takes place.

Install:
BMC BladeLogic Application Release Automation Deliver will only make the changes to the server that are
necessary, to fully configure the server. No more incremental scripts or “hot fixes” – BMC BladeLogic Application
Release Automation Deliver can catch up from any beginning point to where that server needs to be.

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Migration enables you to move configuration data from a WebSphere application server to a newer
WebSphere application server release. A migration is a special case of installing a configuration. Deliver
translates the configuration to the newer release.

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