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Sun Java Enterprise System 5 Technical Overview

Deployment

In the deployment phases of the life cycle, you translate a deployment scenario into a deployment design that you then implement, test, and roll out in a production environment.

The deployment process generally encompasses software components in all tiers and all infrastructure service levels required to support a software solution. In general, you must deploy both custom-developed application components (J2EE components, web services, or other servers) and the Java ES components needed to support the solution.

Deployment tasks are grouped into two phases, as shown in Figure 4–1:

Deployment Design

In the deployment design phase, you create a high-level deployment architecture followed by low-level implementation specifications.

Deployment Architecture

A deployment architecture is created by mapping the logical building blocks of an application (the logical architecture) to a physical computing environment in a way that meets the quality of service requirements specified in the deployment scenario. The deployment scenario is translated into a deployment architecture, as shown in the following figure.

Figure 4–3 Translating a Deployment Scenario into a Deployment Architecture

Diagram showing how a deployment scenario translates into a deployment architecture.

One aspect of this architectural design is sizing the physical environment (determining the number of computers and estimating their processor power and RAM requirements) to meet performance, availability, security, and other quality of service requirements. Once the sizing is complete, you map Java ES components and application components to the various computers in the physical environment. The resulting deployment architecture must take into account the capabilities of different computers, characteristics of system infrastructure services, and restrictions on the total cost of ownership or total cost of availability.

The larger the number of Java ES components in the deployment scenario and the more demanding your quality of service requirements, the more demanding your design is on high-power computers and high network bandwidth. Where hardware is limited or prohibitively expensive, you might need to assess trade-offs between fixed costs (hardware) and variable costs (human resource requirements) or between different quality of service requirements, or you might have to increase the sophistication of your design.

The design of a deployment architecture often evolves in an iterative fashion. Reference deployment architectures serve as a starting point Java ES deployment design.

A reference architecture is based on a specific deployment scenario: a logical architecture with specific quality of service requirements. In the reference architecture, a software solution is deployed across a specific physical environment in a way that meets specified quality of service requirements. Performance testing at specified loads is based on the same set of use cases from which the deployment scenario was developed. Reference architecture documentation is available to Java ES customers under non-disclosure.

Based on a reference deployment architecture or a combination of reference architectures, you can design a first approximation of a deployment architecture that meets your own deployment scenario requirements. You can adjust the reference architectures or use them as reference points, taking into account the difference between your own deployment scenario and those upon which the reference architectures are based. In this way, you can assess the impact of your own sizing, performance, security, availability, capacity, and serviceability needs.

Implementation Specifications

Implementation specifications provide details needed to implement a deployment architecture. The specifications generally include the following information:

Implementation Plans

Implementation plans describe how you plan to perform the various tasks in the deployment implementation phase. The plans generally cover the following tasks:

Deployment Implementation

Implementation of a deployment design consists of the tasks listed in the previous section and shown in Figure 4–1. The ordering of these tasks is not rigid because the deployment process is iterative in nature. The following subsections discuss each of the major deployment implementation tasks in the order in which they are typically performed.

Hardware Setup

The implementation specification includes all details of your physical environment: the computers, network design, network hardware (including cabling, switches, routers, and load balancers), storage devices, and so forth. All of this hardware needs to be set up as the platform that supports your Java ES solution.

Software Installation, Upgrade, and Migration

The deployment architecture, along with additional details provided in implementation specifications, tells you which application components and which Java ES components are to reside on each computer in your physical environment. You use the Java ES integrated installer to install the appropriate Java ES components on each computer in your deployment architecture (see The Java ES Integrated Installer).

Your installation plan describes the sequence and scope of installer sessions. The approach you take to performing installation, however, might depend on whether you are performing a new installation of Java ES, whether you are upgrading previously installed Java ES components, or whether you are replacing third-party components with Java ES. The last two of these Java ES adoption scenarios often require you to migrate data or application code to achieve compatibility.

System Configuration and Customization

You must complete a number of system configuration tasks for the various system components to work together as an integrated system. First among these tasks is the initial configuration needed for each individual system component to start. Secondly, each Java ES component must be configured to communicate with those components with which it interacts.

High availability must also be configured, depending on your availability solution for each component. Users must be provisioned so they can access various services, and authentication and authorization policies and controls must be set up (see Integrated Identity and Security Services).

In most cases configuration tasks include some degree of customization of Java ES components to achieve the exact feature set you require. For example, you typically customize Portal Server to provide portal channels, Access Manager to perform authorization tasks, and so forth.

Development and Integration

The logical architecture specified in the deployment scenario generally determines the scope of custom development work needed to implement a solution.

For some deployments, development might be quite extensive, requiring you to develop new business and presentation services from the beginning using J2EE components that run in an Application Server or Web Server environment. In such cases, you create a prototype of your solution and perform proof-of-concept testing before embarking on a full development effort.

For solutions that require extensive development, Sun JavaTM Studio software provides tools for programming distributed components or business services. Sun Java Studio developer tools simplify the programming and testing of applications supported by the Java ES infrastructure.

In some situations, Java ES components might be integrated with legacy applications or third-party services. These integrations might involve existing directories or data services in the data tier or existing components in the business services tier. Integrating Java ES components with these systems might require migrating data or application code.

The J2EE platform provides a connector framework that enables you to plug existing applications into the Application Server environment by developing J2EE resource adapters, and Message Queue provides a robust asynchronous messaging capability for integrating diverse applications.

Testing of Prototypes and Pilots

Depending on the amount of customization or development work required, at some point you must verify your deployment architecture: you must test the solution against the use cases to verify that you can meet quality of service requirements.

If you have relatively few custom-developed services (a mostly out-of-the-box deployment), your solution might simply require customization of Java ES components and a pilot test of the system.

However, if you have developed significant new application logic and created custom services, this testing might be more extensive, involving prototype testing, integration testing, and so forth.

If this testing reveals shortcomings in your deployment architecture, you modify the architecture and test again. This iterative process should eventually result in a deployment architecture and implementation that is ready for deployment in a production environment.

Production Rollout

Production rollout involves building out your deployment implementation in a production environment. This phase involves installing, configuring, and starting distributed applications and infrastructure services in a production environment, provisioning production system end users, setting up single sign-on and access policies, and so forth. You typically start with a limited deployment and move to organization-wide implementation. In this process, you perform trial runs in which you apply increasing loads to confirm that quality of service requirements are being met.