Publishing Initiatives

About Workspaces

Workspace is an interface that enables Solution Designer to interact with the DevOps engine and generates the requested cartridge. The DevOps engine has all the plug-ins required by Solution Designer to build the requested cartridge. You can then deploy the cartridge into UIM. A cartridge is a collection of PSR models which includes specifications, characteristics, design parameters, parameter mappings, design policies, and delivery policies that are defined in Solution Designer. The artifacts are compiled into a deployable JAR file.

Workspaces are created during the Solution Designer installation. You can't create, modify, or update the workspaces in Solution Designer. The following workspaces are available in Solution Designer:

Non-production or Test workspace: A workspace where initiatives are published to the test instance and the test cartridges are generated. These cartridges are deployed in the UIM run-time instances and you can do the functional testing. Based on the functional testing results, you can modify the initiative contents and then perform acceptance testing. The modified initiatives are published again to the test workspace until the initiative content is finalized and passes acceptance testing.
Production workspace: A workspace where the initiatives are published and the production cartridges are generated. After the initiative is released to the production workspace, the DevOps engine generates a production cartridge which in turn is deployed to the UIM run-time instance.

Cartridge Generation Process

You publish an initiative to a test or production workspace. The workspace interacts with UIM Participant. UIM Participant is a micro-service that participates in the workspace operation Publish. The UIM participant in turn interacts with the DevOps engine to generate the requested Design Studio workspaces and cartridges. After generating the cartridge, the DevOps engine informs the UIM participant and the UIM participant informs the workspace about the status of the request. The location of the generated cartridge artifacts and the location of the Design Studio workspace that can be imported in Design Studio are displayed in the Publishing tab of the corresponding initiative. You can download these cartridge artifacts and deploy them in UIM. See "Deploying Cartridges" in UIM Cartridge Guide for more information on deploying cartridges in UIM.

You can download the Design Studio workspace and import it into the Design Studio Eclipse environment to code the design and assign logic for advanced policies, define parameters mapping, define logic for design action mapping, define logic for delivery action mapping, and build solution cartridges for OSM and ASAP.

The generated Design Studio workspace contains a base class and an extended designer class. The base class is the Java code that the DevOps engine generated to implement the behavior of the specifications and must not be modified. The extended designer class is the Java code which lets you write your custom code for the extension points that are provided in the class. You can do the following in the extended designer class:

Coding the design and assign policies according to your business requirements using advanced policies
Debugging the existing design and assign policies for any errors including compilation errors

See "Extending Solution Designer" in Developer's Guide for more information on extended designer class.

After you complete the custom code in Design Studio, upload the information to Solution Designer manually or by running Object Store Utility. See "Working with Object Store Utility" in Developer's Guide for more information on Object Store Utility. Publish the initiative to the Test workspace and the DevOps engine builds the requested cartridge that you can deploy to a run-time environment.

You can download the cartridge workspace and import it into the Design Studio Eclipse environment to build solution cartridges for OSM and ASAP. You can do the following in Design Studio:

Modeling ASAP with the ASDLs and CSDLs generated in the cartridge for the activation system
Modeling OSM with the Action Parameter Bindings generated in the cartridge

You can build and package the cartridge in Design Studio and then deploy it to a run-time environment.

Viewing Workspaces

You must have the service catalog admin role to view the workspaces and manage the connection for the workspaces.

To view the workspace:

In the Solution Designer landing page, click the application that you want to work with.
In the Workspaces application, click the Test or Production workspace.

The workspace details page opens.
The following tabs are displayed:
- The Operations tab lists all the initiatives that are published for the selected workspace. The status of each publish operation is displayed in the Operations tab. The different statuses are:
  - COMPLETE: The publish operation to the Test workspace or Production workspace is successful and the test cartridges are generated successfully.
  - FAILED: The publish operation to the Test workspace is unsuccessful and a log is generated to show the errors that caused the failure.
  - SIMULATED_COMPLETE: In the Advanced Configuration phase of the initiative, you can publish the initiative to the Test workspace to generate Design Studio workspace. This process is called as simulated publish which allows you to download the Design Studio workspace and import it in Design Studio to code the advanced policies. The publish operation to the Test workspace is successful and the Design Studio workspace is generated successfully.
  - SIMULATED_FAILED: The simulated publish is unsuccessful and a log is generated to show the errors that caused the failure.
  - STAGED: The Publish operation to the Production workspace is in progress.
- The Participants tab lists the participants that are defined for the selected workspace. UIM Participant is the only participant listed. You can't delete the UIM Participant and you cannot define any new participants.
Click Go to Workspaces to return to the Workspaces page.

Managing Connections

You must have Service Catalog Admin user role to manage the connections. Connections specify the details of the applications to which the workspaces connect to perform an action.

You can perform the following tasks in the Connections page:

Creating New Connections

You must have the service catalog admin user role to create new connections. After you install Solution Designer, you must manually create a connection for the workspaces to publish the initiative content.

To create a new connection:

Create an initiative exclusively for creating the connections without any initiative items in it. For example, create an initiative with the name Connection. See "Creating Initiatives" for more details on how to create an initiative.
In the Workspaces application, click Manage Connections.

A Connections page opens which lists the available connections.
Click New Connection.

A New Connection page opens.

Enter the following details:

Table 9-1 New Connection details

Name	Required or optional	Description
Name	Required	Name of the connection.
Initiative	Required	Select the initiative that was created exclusively for connections. For example, Connection.
Authentication	Required	Provide authentication details to authenticate the UIM Participant. Enter the ID, Secret, and Token Endpoint URL for the UIM Participant.
Participant	Required	Add the Participant details. Select the participant ID (UIM), workspace (Test or Production), Scope (/lcm) and the end point URL for the UIM participant (http://uim-participant:8080). You must add two UIM participants one each for the Test and Production workspaces.

Click Create.

The connection is created and is listed in the Connections page.
Navigate to the Connection Initiative and transition the initiative to the Acceptance Testing phase.
Publish the initiative to the Test workspace. You must wait until the publishing status changes to Completed. See "Publishing Initiatives to Generate Design Studio Workspaces" for more information on publishing initiatives to the Test workspace.
Publish the initiative to the Production workspace. Wait until the initiative's status transitions to Released. This makes the connection available for the Publish operation of other initiatives. See "Publishing Initiatives to Generate Production Cartridges" for more information on publishing initiatives to the Production workspace.

Updating Connections

You must have Service Catalog Admin user role to update the connection details. You may want to update an existing connection to add or update the participant details or to update the authentication details.

To update a connection:

In the Solution Designer landing page, click the Workspaces application.
In the Workspaces application, click Manage Connections.

The Connections page opens.
Search and select the connection that you want to update.

The connection details page opens.
Update the name, the authentication details, and the participant details.
Click Save.

The updated connection details are saved.

Deleting Connections

You must have service catalog admin use role to delete a connection.

To delete a connection:

In the Solution Designer landing page, click the Workspaces application.
In the Workspaces application, click Manage Connections.

The Connections page opens.
Search for an existing connection and click Delete.

A confirmation dialog box appears.
Click Delete in the confirmation dialog box.

The connection is deleted.

Publishing Initiatives to Generate Design Studio Workspaces

You must have the service catalog administrator role to publish the initiatives. After you complete defining the PSR models and their contents, you transition the initiative from the Definition phase to the Advanced Configuration phase. In the advanced configuration phase, you can publish the initiative to the Test workspace to generate a Design Studio workspace. This process of publishing the initiatives in Advanced Configuration phase is called simulated publish. See "Lifecycle of Initiatives" for more details on various statuses of initiatives.

To publish an initiative to generate Design Studio workspace:

In the Solution Designer landing page, click the Initiatives application.
In the Initiatives application, search for the initiative and click to open it.

The initiative details page opens.
Ensure that the initiative is in Advanced Configuration phase. The initiative must have completed the definition phase and not be approved for testing yet.
Click Publish. You can publish the initiative to generate only Design Studio workspaces when the definition is completed and before you complete advanced configuration.
Click Publishing tab.

A new row for the publish operation is added and the Publish Status is in In Progress.
You must wait until you receive a pop-up message Publish successful to workspace Test. The status changes from In Progress to Simulated Success. If the publish operation fails, the Publish Status changes to Simulated Failed. You can republish the initiative after fixing the error messages that are listed in the log.
You can do one of the following based on the Publish Status:
- If the Publish Status is Simulated Success, click Download Design Studio Workspace link to download the workspace that you can import to Design Studio eclipse environment.
  
  To implement custom code for various extension points, you can download the Design Studio workspace which contains the Design Studio projects and import them to Design Studio Eclipse workspace. The Design Studio workspace contains base class and an extended designer class. You can code the custom implementation in the extended designer class. See "Extending Solution Designer" in Developer's Guide.
- If the Publish Status is Simulated Failed, click View Log link to view the list of errors that caused the failure. The Task Details drawer opens which lists the error code, reason and the description of the error. You can download the details as a CSV file by clicking Download as CSV.
  After you resolve the errors, you can republish the initiative until the publish operation is successful and follow the steps 1 to 7.
After the simulated publish is successful, see Publishing Initiatives to Generate Test Cartridges to generate test cartridges that can be deployed in the run-time environment.

Publishing Initiatives to Generate Test Cartridges

You must have the service catalog administrator role to publish initiatives. After you complete the implementation in the advanced configuration phase, you transition the initiative from the Advanced Configuration phase to the Functional Testing phase. After the approver approves the initiative to start functional testing, you can publish the initiative to the Test workspace to generate a test cartridge. See "Lifecycle of Initiatives" for more details on various statuses of initiatives.

To publish an initiative to the Test workspace:

In the Solution Designer landing page, click the Initiatives application.
In the Initiatives application, search for the initiative and click to open it.

The initiative details page opens.
Click Publish. You can publish the initiative to generate a UIM Cartridge which can be deployed in the UIM test environment to perform functional testing.

Note:
You will see Publish only when the initiative is approved for functional testing, in acceptance testing phase, and before the initiative is approved for rollout. See "Lifecycle of Initiatives" for more details on various phases of initiatives.
Click Publishing tab.

The Publishing details page opens. You see a row with the name Test which indicates the Test workspace with the Publish Status as In Progress.
You must wait until you receive a pop-up message Publish successful to workspace Test. The status changes from In Progress to Success. If the publish operation fails, the Publish Status changes to Failed. You can republish the initiative after fixing the error messages that is listed in the log.
You can do one of the following based on the Publish Status:
- If the Publish Status is Success, click UIM Cartridge to download the cartridge that can be deployed into the run-time environment. You can also click Download Design Studio Workspace link to download the workspace that you can import to Design Studio eclipse environment. Here you can build solution cartridges for OSM and ASAP.
- If the Publish Status is Failed, click View Log link to view the list of errors that caused the failure. The Task Details drawer opens which lists the error code, reason and the description of the error. You can download the details as a CSV file by clicking Download as CSV.
  After you resolve the errors, you can republish the initiative until the publish operation is successful and follow the steps 1 to 6.

Publishing Initiatives to Generate Production Cartridges

You must have Service Catalog Admin user role to publish initiatives to the Production workspace to generate the production cartridges.

To publish an initiative to generate production cartridges:

In the Solution Designer landing page, click the Initiatives application.
In the Initiatives application, search for the initiative and click to open it.

The initiative details page opens.
In the Lifecycle tab, click Release Initiative.

The initiative's content is automatically published to the Production workspace.
Click Publishing tab.

The Publishing details page opens. You see a row with the name Production which indicates the Production workspace with the Publish Status as In Progress.

After the requested cartridge is generated successfully in the Production workspace, the initiative's status transitions to Released.

If there is an error in the Publish operation, the initiative's status remains in Approval status. Release Initiative is enabled to republish the initiative to the Production workspace.
You must wait until you receive a pop-up message Publish successful to workspace Test. The status changes from In Progress to Success. If the publish operation fails, the Publish Status changes to Failed. You can republish the initiative after fixing the error messages that are listed in the log.
You can do one of the following based on the Publish Status:
- If the Publish Status is Success, click UIM Cartridge to download the cartridge that can be deployed in run-time production environment. You can also click Download Design Studio Workspace link to download the workspace that you can import to Design Studio eclipse environment. You can download the Design Studio workspace and import it into the Design Studio Eclipse environment to build solution cartridges for OSM and ASAP.
- If the Publish Status is Failed, click View Log link to view the list of errors that caused the failure. The Task Details drawer opens which lists the error code, reason and the description of the error. You can download the details as a CSV file by clicking Download as CSV.
  After you resolve the errors, you can republish the initiative until the publish operation is successful and follow the steps 1 to 6.

Errors and Troubleshooting Issues

This section describes the error messages you may encounter while publishing the initiative and how to troubleshoot issues.

Error Messages in Publish Operation

Error: Unable to connect to URL

Cause: Some of the required values are missing.

Action: You must manually fix all the validation errors displayed in the Solution Designer User Interface for the items associated with the published initiative. You can view the errors by clicking View Errors in PSR Models, Service Specifications, and Resource Specifications results page. You can view the errors in the Initiative Items tab in the initiative details page.

Error: Build workspace failed in Specification_DesignJ

Cause: Compilation issues in the DesignJ classes or the extended designer class.

Action: You must download the generated Design Studio Workspace and import it into Design Studio eclipse environment to fix all the compilation errors.

Error: We couldn't Publish to Workspace Test

Cause: The following can be the cause of the error:

Broken communication between services.
Out of memory.
Lack of permissions.

Action: Contact your system administrator.

Troubleshooting Issues

Configuration Issues

The publish operation of an initiative may fail if the participants are not configured properly. To verify if the connections are set up correctly, see "Creating New Connections".

The configuration issues may occur in one of the following:

Incorrect participant information for the connections in the workspace.
Incorrect UIM participant deployment configuration.

After you correct the configuration issues, the publish operation mostly succeeds.

Validation Errors

After you fix the configuration issues, the publish operation may fail due to validation errors.

When there are validation errors for the specifications or the PSR Models, error markers appear during transitioning the initiative. You can view the validation errors in the Initiatives Items tab in the initiatives editor page and in the specifications results page in the Specifications application and fix those errors. After fixing all the validation errors, republish the initiative to the test workspace.

Other Errors

After you fix all the validation errors and have a proper configuration of the UIM participant, the publish operation may fail due to downstream UIM participant issues. You can check the reason for the failure by clicking View Logs in the Publishing tab in the initiative details page. You can view the reason, fix the issue, and republish the initiative.

If the failure reason is unclear from the Workspaces application, you can contact your system administrator to view the logs for the UIM participant, headless design studio, or workspace manager for the detailed failure reason. You can fix those issues and republish the initiative.