| The Solution Enabler is a framework for creating and deploying solutions locally or to remote machines with different operating systems. The framework helps to simplify the creation and deployment of software solutions by capturing detailed knowledge of a solution package deployed through a common installer. A prime objective of the Solution Enabler is to effectively encode information about configuration and customization into a solution package, thus minimizing the need for detailed knowledge of the solution components during deployment. Now more than ever, the Solution Enabler's Eclipse-based plug-in, the Solution Developer, facilitates the encoding of this information. In addition, non-Eclipse command line utilities are included. Once packaged into a specific solution, the Solution Enabler, can be deployed by using the common installer interface provided. The Solution Enabler 2.2 deployment environment employs a push model deployment approach. The Deployer interface is invoked using a central administration station called a staging server to initiate installation to target machines. Each target machine must have the IBM Installation Agent (IIA) installed (except in the case of local deployment). A security key is used to authenticate connections from the staging server to the target machines. The IIA listens for communication from an authenticated staging server and executes the staging server installation request. Thus, deployments are pushed from one central server to one or many target machines, providing a consistent installation interface across operating systems for disjointed software products. How Does It Work? The programmer defines the components, integration steps, topology, and tasks necessary for a solution. All this information may then be encoded in the Solution Enabler's XML wrappers using its Solution Developer tools or build-time environment. The Solution Developer provides the option of creating a solution project, which creates the necessary structure. For each component in the solution, the programmer will develop an application wrapper and one solution wrapper to outline all components in the solution, as well as any desired default configuration or deployment tasks. These wrappers provide input to the application and solution factory builders, which validate the wrappers against each applicable schema to generate a specific solution. The Solution Enabler file is opened in the deployment interface, which presents a flowchart of tasks associated with deploying the solution. These tasks may be deployable tasks (that is, Install DB2, Deploy WebService on WAS, etc.) or manual tasks indicating that the user needs to perform some operation. A deployment wizard steps the user through the necessary panels in order to collect information specific to each task in the solution deployment. This information includes the host names for the machines the user wants to target for the task, application configuration information (destination path, user ID, etc.), and the media installation image for the application. Once all the necessary information is collected, the deployment wizard will present the option of deploying the solution. The information collected on the staging server is transmitted to the target machine and used in the native installation program of the solution component. The installation image of the solution components is compressed into a JAR file. During deployment, these files are used to execute the installation of the solution component. If deployment is to a remote target machine, the necessary files are sent to the target machine, and installation of the component is executed. Upon completion of deployment, the target machine's agent returns a message to the deployment server reporting the installation results. |
