Provisioning Applications

Provisioning applications in AppLogic involves the following steps:

• making a copy of a reference application
• configuring the new copy, and
• starting it.

The operation can be performed in two ways:

• visually, through the web interface
• command line, through the shell interface (scripted or manual)

Prerequisites

1. Choose a running AppLogic grid on which you want to provision the application
2. Choose a reference application that you want to provision
3. Choose a name for the new application (simple name, case-sensitive, alphanumeric, starting with a letter: e.g., sugar_customer43).
4. Decide how much resources you want to assign to the application
5. Decide what values for the configuration parameters you want to have (especially, externally visible IP addresses).

Ensure that the reference application is not running, so that it can be copied.

Provisioning using the Web interface

This is the easiest method for provisioning a new application. It goes through the following steps:

1. Log in on the web interface
2. Make a new copy of the application
   • Select the Applications tab
   • Choose the application you want to provision (check the checkbox)
   • Press the Copy button and enter the name for the new application
3. Configure the new application
   • Select the newly created application (click on its name)
   • When the editor opens, right click on the canvas and choose Application Configuration
     • on the General tab, update the application description
     • on the Resources tab, set the desired resources (setting Min. equal to Max. fixes the exact resource amountss). See the right side of the tab for the range of allowed values.
     • on the Properties tab, set the desired property values (especially the external IP addresses the application uses)
   • Save the application and close the editor
4. Start the new application
   • Log in the command line shell (over ssh)
   • At the AppLogic prompt, type app start appname, where appname is the name of the newly created application
   • Wait until the application starts (all appliances start successfully and the shell returns to the prompt).

Provisioning using the shell interface

The application can be provisioned through the shell interface manually (using the AppLogic shell console) or scripted.

For manual operation, login to the AppLogic shell on the controller using ssh. For scripted operation, set up your workstation with the necessary ssh credentials to access the controller.

If the application is a template (i.e., the template attribute is set), the application may be provisioned and started using a single command. Supported in AppLogic 1.2

1. Provision and start an application
   • Execute app provision refapp appname parameters..., where refapp is the name of the reference copy of the application you want to provision, appname is the name of the new application you want to provision, and parameters... are the resources and properties you want to use.

If the application is not a template application, the application may be provisioned as follows:

1. Make a new copy of the application
   • Execute app copy refapp appname, where refapp is the name of the reference copy of the application you want to provision and appname is the name of the new application you want to provision.
2. Configure the new application
   • Execute app config appname parameters..., where appname is the name of the newly created application and parameters... are the resources and properties you want to use
3. Start the new application
   • Execute app start appname, where appname is the name of the newly created application.

Verifying new application's operation

1. Point a web browser to the external IP address configured for the new application
2. Verify that the application can be accessed and operates properly