Understanding Blueprints for Deploying Applications
Intended for use with Cassatt Active Response V5.0.
Cassatt Active Response blueprints contain instructions for creating and capturing business applications and then deploying them in your Cassatt Active Response environment. Using a blueprint reduces your time and effort to get an application running. The details for each blueprint differ, but the high-level steps are the same.
This article describes how to use blueprints during your Cassatt Active Response implementation.
FAQ
| Question... |
Answer |
What blueprints are available? |
Go to the blueprint library on Info Central to see a list of current blueprints. The blueprints library is continually updated so check often for additions. |
How do I use blueprints? |
You'll want to review blueprints for each application you intend to run under Cassatt Active Response management. After Cassatt Active Response is installed on control nodes, your network is configured, and application nodes are cabled, discovered, and inventoried, you'll follow instructions in the blueprint. |
What if there isn't a blueprint that matches what I'm doing? |
Select a blueprint that most closely matches your implementation and understand the general steps. If none of the blueprints are close, follow the guidelines in: Understanding Image Creation and Capture and Understanding Tier Configuration and Personalization. |
What operating systems can I use with application blueprints? |
Cassatt qualifies operating systems for use with each application. For some applications, we've qualified only one OS and for others we've qualified a couple. Check your application blueprint for specifics. |
How does my hardware affect my blueprint choices? |
Most blueprints work with any application node hardware, but a few of the blueprint applications require something specific—like dual NICs for Oracle 10g RAC. A small set of blueprint applications require additional hardware components. Check the hardware requirements in the prerequisites section of each blueprint (if any) to make sure your setup is sufficient. For recommendations on hardware, see Understanding Hardware: What Works Best with Cassatt Active Response. |
| What if I want to run the same business application software for more than one purpose? For example, suppose I have two web sites that both use the Apache web server, but one relies on a database and one doesn't? |
Whenever you want to run the same software in ways that have different requirements (for things like hardware, service level agreements, storage, dependencies on other software, or priorities for node harvesting), you can either:
- Step through the blueprint once for each purpose, selecting different values each time during image capture and tier creation.
OR
- Duplicate the image for each purpose, using a new name and new values, and create a tier to run each new image—again, selecting applicable values for each tier. For information about image duplication, see Tier and Image Management.
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Blueprint tasks
For each blueprint contains the following high-level tasks.
Step |
On the... |
You will... |
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1 |
Cassatt Active Response Controller...
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Log into the Controller and reserve an application node from the free pool to use as an image host.
Sidebar: Image host requirements |
2 |
Image host...
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Install and configure the operating system. |
3 |
Image host...
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Install and configure the business applications.
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4 |
Active control node...
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Create a base image by running the cccapture interactive script, which puts the base image in the image matrix.
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5 |
Controller...
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Define one or more tiers to run the image, and configure SLAs and policies.
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6 |
Application nodes...
| Personalize the image instances on nodes in the tier (if required by the application).
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7 |
Controller...
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Allocate the nodes to each tier and watch as Cassatt Active Response automatically provisions hardware and software—just as you configured it. Activate the tiers.
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