Sun N1 Service Provisioning System 5.1 Operation and Provisioning Guide

About Component Deployment

You can deploy components using any of three methods.

The provisioning system can deploy any number of components to a valid host. The number of components that can be deployed is only limited by the file system on the host. Each file system limits the number of files that can be deployed, and by deploying too many components to a single directory, you can exceed the file systems limitations. The relationship between components and files is not necessarily an equal ratio. For example, one component might exceed file system limitations if it has 100,000 files, and 100,000 components might fall within the file system limitations if none of the components contain files.

Exceeding file system limits might not result in a direct failure when the components are deployed. However, problems might arise in the form of increasingly severe performance degradation or unpredictable failures at other times.

Limits to the number of files that a directory can support vary by file system and can be influenced by how the operating system is configured. You can avoid overloading a directory by understanding your file system's limitations and deploying components into smaller subdirectories, rather than into a single, large directory. A conservative practice to use when deploying components is to place no more than 30,000 files in a single directory.

Using Direct-Run Component Procedures

For straightforward deployments that don't involve multiple components or synchronization among hosts, you might not need a plan to deploy. Instead, you might be able to use one of the direct-run component procedures that the provisioning software automatically generates when you check in a component that you want to deploy.

ProcedureHow to Use Direct-Run Component Procedures

Most components include install, uninstall and snapshot procedures. A component might also include control procedures, which manage the installed component. For example, a control procedure might to start or stop the application.

This procedure describes how to deploy a component directly by using the browser interface. Use the following commands to perform the equivalent functionality.

For a detailed description of this command, see Chapter 9, pdb: CLI Commands for Managing Plans, in Sun N1 Service Provisioning System 5.1 Command-Line Interface Reference Manual and Chapter 10, pe: CLI Commands for Running Plans, in Sun N1 Service Provisioning System 5.1 Command-Line Interface Reference Manual.

For more information on component development, see Sun N1 Service Provisioning System 5.1 Plan and Component Developer’s Guide.


Note –

There is no need to delete the plans generated from direct-run component procedures. These plans are automatically removed from the system when the component from which they were generated is deleted. For more information, see How to Delete a Component in Sun N1 Service Provisioning System 5.1 Plan and Component Developer’s Guide.


Before You Begin

To use direct-run component procedures, you must belong to a user group that has Run Component Procedures permission on the folder that contains the component. You must also have Allow on Host Set permission for the host set on which you plan to deploy the component.

Steps
  1. From the navigation menu, choose Components.

    The Components page is displayed.

  2. In the table listing components, find the row describing the component you would like to deploy and click Details.

    The component's Details page is displayed.

  3. If necessary, change folders so that you can view the component that you plan to deploy.

    1. Click Change Folder.

    2. Specify the name of the folder that contains the component, and click Change to Selected Folder.

      The Components page now lists the components in the specified folder.

  4. In the Component Procedures table, determine the procedure that you want to run and click Run.

    The provisioning system generates a plan, which is filed in the /system/autogen folder.

    The Run page for the generated plan displays.

  5. In the Plan Parameters area, select the variable settings for the component you plan to deploy.

    • If the variable settings have been established for this component, select the appropriate settings from the menu.

    • If the settings are not available from the menu, click Select From List.

      The Select Variable Settings From List window displays.

      • If you want to use another component's variable settings, click Import Set.

        The Import Variable Settings window displays.

        1. If necessary, navigate to the Folder that contains the component with the variable settings you want to import.

        2. Select the component version.


          Note –

          Variable settings can vary between component versions.


        3. Click Import Variable Settings.

          The imported variable settings display in the table.

        4. Click Select.

      • If you want to create new variable settings, select Create Set.

        The Select Variable Settings From List window displays.

        1. In the text field at the top of the table, enter the name of the new variable settings set.

        2. Select the component variable you want to change.

          The table cell is highlighted and a text field appears.

        3. Type the new value of the component variable.

        4. After updating the variable settings values, click Save.

          The new variable settings display in the table.

        5. Click Select.

  6. Select where you plan to deploy the component.

    • To select a host, use the Target Host text field to type a host's name or click Select From List.

    • To select a target host set, use the Target Host Set menu.

  7. In the Plan Variables area, configure the variables you want to set.

    Whether there are variables to configure depends on the contents of the component procedure you select.

  8. In the Options area, select whether you want to perform a detailed preflight.

    The detailed preflight attempts to simulate every step of the plan that will run on the remote agent. The detailed preflight tests the following functions.

    • Resource installation

    • execNative calls

    • File transformations

    • File deletion, when uninstalling resources

    Running a detailed preflight increases the amount of time preflight takes.

  9. (Optional) To limit the number of hosts running at the same time, type the number of hosts in the field provided.

    When a plan is run against several hosts simultaneously, all hosts must complete a step before any host can progress to the next step. If the number of hosts is too high, the network connection can time out between steps. For example, the time between Host A finishing step 1 and being pinged for step 2 might be too long and cause the network connection to time out.

  10. (Optional) To limit overall running time of a plan or to limit the running time of native calls, type a number in the fields provided. Then select the time unit from the menu.

    By limiting the run time of a plan or native call, you prevent a nonresponsive host from tying up the progress of a plan run.

    If you set up a notification rule to alert you to plan failures, when the plan times out you will be notified that the plan was unsuccessful.

    For information on setting up notification rules, see Configuring Email Notification in Sun N1 Service Provisioning System 5.1 System Administration Guide.

  11. Select whether you want to deploy the component.

    • To run just the preflight test of the procedure, click Run Preflight Only.

    • To run the preflight test and then (assuming the preflight test finds no errors) to run the procedure itself, click Run Plan (Includes Preflight).

Using Plans

You can run two types of plans in the provisioning system.

Generated Plans

The provisioning system can automatically generate a plan consisting of multiple component procedures. You can run this plan directly or save it for use as a template for more sophisticated plans that you author in XML.

Custom Plans

You can author custom plans in XML. For information about writing custom plans, see Creating Plans in Sun N1 Service Provisioning System 5.1 Plan and Component Developer’s Guide and the Sun N1 Service Provisioning System 5.1 XML Schema Reference Guide.

ProcedureHow to Create Generated Plans

This procedure describes how to generate a plan by using the browser interface. You can also generate plans by using the following commands.

For a detailed description of these commands, see Chapter 9, pdb: CLI Commands for Managing Plans, in Sun N1 Service Provisioning System 5.1 Command-Line Interface Reference Manual.

Before You Begin

To create a generated plan, you must belong to a user group that has Create, Edit, Delete permission on the folder that contains the component for which you want to generate a plan.

Steps
  1. From the navigation menu, choose Components.

    The Components page displays.

  2. If necessary, change folders so that you can view the component that you plan to deploy.

    1. Click Change Folder.

    2. Specify the name of the folder that contains the component, and click Change to Selected Folder.

      The Components page now lists the components in the specified folder.

  3. In the table listing components, find the row describing the component you would like to deploy, and click Details.

    The component's Details page displays.

  4. In the Component Procedures table, select each procedure that you want to include in the plan.

  5. In the bottom row of the Component Procedures table, click Generate Plan With Checked Procedures.

    The generated plan's Advanced Edit displays.

  6. In the Plan text field, type the new plan's name.

  7. Click Check In.


    Note –

    You might see this message: Warning - plan names and/or paths differ. This message indicates that you specified a plan name different from the plan name specified in the XML model. The XML model is updated according to what you type into the plan name text field.


  8. Confirm the component check in.

    1. Verify that you have specified the correct plan name.

    2. If necessary, select the component's new version number.

    3. Click Continue to Check In.

    The new plan's Detail's page is displayed.