Deploying Applications in Dynamic Environments

2 minute read

This section describes dynamic environments and how to model them. Environments can be static, dynamic, or hybrid. Any dynamic environment is automatically spun up when the application is deployed. Environments can have a combination of static and cloud resources that will be provisioned and configured dynamically. Go here for more information about static environments and how to model them.

Using dynamic environments allows you to:

  • Provide ways to optimize how cloud resources are used.

  • Reuse provisioned resource pools on an on-demand basis.

  • Track how provisioned cloud resources are used.

  • Provide the status of the provisioning process.

  • Verify the credentials of cloud resources before provisioning them.

You provision cloud resources by creating a resource template and adding it to an environment template. When the application deployment that includes a dynamic environment begins, the environment is spun up at runtime with the required cloud resources, and the application is deployed there.

Resource templates allow you to

  • Define the cloud provider details to provision of machines at the appropriate time and the configuration management tools to install the appropriate middleware.

  • Configure the resources for optimal performance.

About Resources

Each resource in an environment has its own logical name to identify it from the other resources in the system. It also can be assigned to one or more resource pools or to a zone (a collection of agents). Several resources can correspond to the same physical host or agent machine. Resources can also be configured as standard or proxy. Standard resources are machines running the CloudBees CD agent on a supported agent platform while proxy resources (agents and targets) are on remote platforms or hosts that exist in your environment and requires SSH keys for authentication. The CloudBees CD agent does not need to run on the remote platform or host. See Configuring Resources for more information about to create, configure, and manage resources.

Examples

Infrastructure in CloudBees CD is modeled by configuring the cloud provider for dynamic environments. This configuration is versioned when you name and save the resource template. For an examples of an Amazon EC2 and Openstack infrastructure configuration, go to Modeling Dynamic Environments.

Middleware is modeled by configuring the configuration management tool for dynamic environments. This configuration is versioned when you name and saved the resource template. For an example of a middleware configuration, see Configuring Chef as the Configuration Management Tool .

  • Define and provision dynamic cloud resources when deploying applications.

  • Configure the middleware of dynamic cloud resources on an on-demand basis.

  • Reuse resource pools.

  • Track how provisioned cloud resources are used.

  • Provide ways to optimize how cloud resources are used.

  • Provide status of the process that provisions cloud resources.

  • Verify the credentials of cloud resources before provisioning them.