On 05.10.2010, at 19:47, Mark J. Reed wrote:
> We're looking at a similar issue, and so far we've found a couple
> other options, each of which has its own scaling issues, but might be
> appropriate in some cases.
>
> 1. Have the recipe check the code out and do a build.
>
> This is more heavyweight than it needs to be, obviously, and
> introduces build-time dependencies into the runtime deployment, but
> it's viable if the app and/or the deployment is small enough. It has
> the advantage of keeping the support infrastructure simple.
>
> But as long as your build server is able to talk to Chef to update the
> WAR's new location/name, why not just do this instead:
>
> 2. Upload the WAR itself as a cookbook file.
>
> This has the advantage that you don't introduce a new network access
> dependency between your target nodes and your artifact repository (or
> source code repository for option 1); if they can talk to the Chef
> server, they can get the files.
>
>
>> On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Seth Chisamore <
">
>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Fellow Cooks,
>>> I've been brainstorming on the best approach to incorporate Java-based web
>>> application deployments into the Chef ecosystem. The tricky thing we have
>>> to contend with, is the two step build/deploy process most Java applications
>>> go through. In most Java shops code is checked out from the SCM and then
>>> some sort of build framework like Maven compiles and packages the
>>> application down into a deployable artifact (usually a WAR file). This
>>> artifact is then deployed into the Java application server(s).
>>>
>>> Right now the data-bag driven application cookbook uses a one-step
>>> approach...ie code is just checked out and sym-linked as "current". It
>>> would be nice to have a Java application that is deployed via this cookbook
>>> follow a similar pattern. The application cookbook can just pull the final
>>> deployable WAR file down from some arbitrary location...ie a valid URL whose
>>> reference lives in the application data bag.
>>> We still have to deal with the "build" portion though....or do we? Most
>>> Java shops that are using something as sophisticated as Chef for application
>>> deployments probably already have a continuous integration server that does
>>> "builds". That's awesome and we shouldn't change it! What we need to do is
>>> just hook into this workflow...ie have Chef be the final mile.
>>>
>>> In order to solve this I propose creating a Maven plugin that would do the
>>> following after a successful build:
>>> -push the completed WAR to a configurable distribution point (Artifactory,
>>> S3 etc.).
>>> -grab a reference to the completed WAR (artifact download url)
>>> -make an authorized PUT request to the Chef server and update the
>>> application data bag with the the WAR's new location/name. We could
>>> probably leverage the jclouds chef-client to do this (ie the CI server or
>>> build machine becomes a node).
>>>
>>> The next time the chef-client runs on all application servers the new
>>> artifact should be pulled down and the deployment is complete. I think
>>> creating a Maven plugin is the best approach since most CI servers work well
>>> with Maven. A smaller shop that doesn't have a CI server could also just
>>> check the code out of SCM and perform a build via Maven.
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>>
>>> Seth
>>> --
>>> Opscode, Inc.
>>> Seth Chisamore, Technical Evangelist
>>> T: (404) 348-0505 E:
">
>>> Twitter, IRC, Github: schisamo
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Mark J. Reed <
">
>