Modeling software deployment#
Modeling software deployment in HCL™ Launch includes configuring components and component processes and adding those components to applications. Then, you use processes to deploy the components to environments.
The general steps in this typical workflow include:
- Import the parts of the application as components. See Creating components.
- Create processes that deploy components. See Component processes.
- Create an application to group the components together. See Applications.
- Create an application process that runs each component process. See Creating application processes.
- Create one or more environments on which to deploy the components. See Creating environments.
- Run the application process to deploy the components. See Deploying applications.
- Take snapshots of working deployments so you can save these arrangements and deploy them to other environments. See Creating snapshots.
The following diagram illustrates this workflow:
- Components
Components represent deployable items along with user-defined processes that operate on them, usually by deploying them. - Resources
A resource is a logical deployment target that typically resolves to an agent and a user-defined construct that is based on the architectural model of HCL Launch. - Applications
Applications are responsible for bringing together all the components that must be deployed together. - Application environments
An environment is a user-defined collection of resources that hosts an application. - Application templates
With an application template, you can save and reuse a collection of resources, environments, processes, and tagged components or component templates to create a standardized application. - Application processes
Application processes, like component processes, are created with the process editor. You use application processes to deploy or to roll back components. - Application blueprints
An application blueprint maps application components to a resource template. When you create an environment or provision one from the cloud, you can use the blueprint as a model. - Snapshots
A snapshot is a collection of specific versions of components and processes. Typically, a snapshot represents a set of component versions that are known to work together. In most cases, snapshots include all of the components in an application. - Creating manual application tasks
A manual application task interrupts an application process until manual intervention is done. To create a manual task, add a manual step to an application process and select a notification template. - Creating an approval process
An approval process is configured for an application environment when your organization requires formal decisioning of a deployment. The approval process identifies the deployment that needs approval and the role of the approver. Approval to deploy is granted or denied by the approver. - Inventories
You use different inventories to track installed components and properties in HCL Launch elements. - Processes
Processes are automated tasks that run on agents. - Statuses
Create and apply statuses to track component inventory states or to track component versions in environments and resources. - Properties
Properties are variables that store information about many different elements, including components, environments, processes, and applications. You can also set global properties for the system. - Tags
A tag is a user-defined, shared, short label that you use to classify, view, and conduct operations on objects such as applications, components, agents, and resources.