Datasheet foldermanagementpluginforrd
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The document discusses the benefits of automating various IT projects and processes using automation tools. It describes how automation can speed up middleware upgrades, migrations between platforms to reduce costs, building private clouds, upgrading core applications, and platform migrations. It then introduces the Folder Management plugin for RapidDeploy which allows centrally managing folder structures and file configurations across target servers to reduce errors and improve consistency. The plugin enables snapshotting folder structures, comparing files over time, templating files, and deploying filesystem changes.
Datasheet foldermanagementpluginforrd
- 1. Compelling Events for Automation • Middleware Upgrades It’s great when new vendors bring out new features - but often taking advantage of them takes a good deal of time and effort to upgrade the new infrastructure - and introduces risk. Automating the upgrade project speeds it up, reduces the risk and builds a more manageable platform in the future. • Migrating off ‘Premium Product’ With the economy as it is, more organizations are forced to tighten their belts, and one area that has come under particular scrutiny is the annual cost of maintaining installed software. Some organizations have made the decision to move less business critical applications off more expensive middleware onto open-source platforms such as JBoss and Tomcat. This type of project is accelerated when it’s automated and an automation tool makes managing hybrid or heterogeneous environments much easier. • Building a PAAS or a private cloud With pressure on businesses to deliver more innovation to their customers, faster, we see many of our customers building Platforms As A Service and private clouds. These are a lot faster and quicker to set up using an automation tool, and a lot quicker to manage demand once they are up and running. • Core business application upgrades or migrations Many of our customers occasionally need to upgrade or even replace their core business applications - often complex, multi-layered, integrated systems that have evolved over time and have many integration points and are absolutely critical to the minute by minute operations of the business. Using an automation tool can reduce the risk and time associated with such a project. • Platform migrations Sometimes it’s time to move from one platform to another - for instance, customers sometimes feel that a UNIX based platform will offer them performance advantages over an OS400 platform. But moving hundreds of middleware applications might seem like a challenge too far - without automation. Folder Management Insights • Managing folder structures and files on target servers, for example configuration files under a “conf” folder, can be time consuming and prone to error. It is often a manual task and changes in a development environment, when “promoted” to production often means trying to make the same changes in production that you made in development, perhaps with some unique “production only” settings or variables. Often, you’ll need to get the developer who made the changes in development, along with the production operator, to go through and change the files. There is enormous scope for something to be missed, mis-typed or configured wrongly. • This plugin allows you to manage folders on target servers centrally in a configuration management tool. You can snapshot a (Development or “Golden”) folder structure, by giving the top level directory path and a set of filesets to include/ exclude for both configuration and binary files. This snapshot set of files can be compared over time (comparison of checksums for the binary filesets) to determine configuration drift. • The filesets can be templated and parameterised, using environment specific data dictionary files and stored in the SCM tool on the framework server, managed centrally. The template folder structure in SCM can be packaged up for deployment to other targets, thus enabling filesystem files to be configuration managed and deployed out to target servers just as you would for code. RapidDeploy™ Plugin for Folder Management RapidDeploy™ provides organizations with Application Release Automation capabilities to reduce costs, improve productivity and time to value and assure compliance. There is a range of plugins available to extend the core automation framework capabilities to most available platforms and perform integrations throughout the DevOps toolchain. This datasheet refers to the Folder Management plugin. Plugins are downloaded through the Plugin Manager console in RapidDeploy™, or from the MidVision website at www.midvision.com. RapidDeploy™TargetPlugin
- 2. • Rearchitecting Change is a constant and businesses need to continually evolve their IT infrastructure and operations, build new environments for things like Disaster Recovery and automating the build and deployment of these new environments means delivering them faster. Folder Management Plugin Overview The RapidDeply™ Folder Management plugin allows a target filesystem, folder or set of files to be managed by RapidDeploy™. You can snapshot a folder, selecting file patterns to include and exclude. These files can be tokenised and stored in an software configuration management tool. The filesystem can then be pushed out to other machines and machine specific replacement parameters used to “customise” the filesystem on the target machine. If you use software that is not listed here and you would like to manage it using RapidDeploy™ please email [email protected] with the details. For future versions, we aim to have support within two quarters of the vendor announcing general availability, although customer demand can accelerate our development roadmap. RapidDeploy™ Plugins The RapidDeploy™ plugins extend the functionality of the core automation framework and are categorised in the following way: • Toolchain plugins enabling integration with Build Engines, Artifact repositories and Source Control Management tools • Transport plugins enabling use of SSH and Agent capability • Target plugins enabling connectivity with broad range of Middleware Applications and Databases • Cloud plugins enabling connectivity to cloud providers • Business Intelligence plugins to extend the CAF including for example, enhanced comparison functionality and additional reporting capabilities Plugins ship with: • A Library of commonly used tasks • Wizards extensive help information • Predefined automation library elements Want this plugin? Getting hold of it’s easy - either: 1) Go to the Plugin Manager in your installation of RapidDeploy™ and pick your plugin from the list or 2) Go to www.midvision.com Support Downloads RapidDeploy Plugin Downloads and select your plugin from there. If you have any problems, please call or email your MidVision Account Manager. You must license your plugin separately - please speak to your MidVision Account Manager or email [email protected]. If you are an IBM Rational Automation Framework customer and would like access to this plugin, please contact us at www.midvision.com. www.midvision.com©MidVision2013.Allrightsreserved.RapidDeploy™TargetPlugin