Introduction

This section describes the hardware, software, and network configuration that needs to be in place before MettleCI can be deployed and configured in your environment. The platform delivered will include all MettleCI software, and will interface with your nominated non-production Information Server environment to enable the demonstration of all of MettleCI's capabilities.

The deployment topology of a MettleCI platform, whether being used for evaluation or production purposes, has been deliberately designed to be as simple as possible. The biggest difference between evaluation and production deployments of MettleCI is the selection of software components residing on the dedicated MettleCI Host that would be better deployed to separate servers. Alternatively, some components of the MettleCI stack could be delivered by integrating with existing solutions already in place in your organisation. While MettleCI is easily integrated with Customers' existing Jira, Git, and Bamboo instances, describing the full range of integration options available is beyond the scope of this document.

The delivered architecture will focus on evaluation purposes only, and has been designed for ease and speed of deployment. The evaluation will validate which parts of this architecture could be re-used for a MettleCI production deployment, and which may need to be re-deployed or reconfigured to meet your organisational requirements.

Whilst not representing our recommended production deployment of MettleCI, this MettleCI architecture assembles all of the software forming MettleCI's DevOps platform for Information Server into a single, pre-configured, easily deployed package. This optimises the time spent on the evaluation process.

MettleCI Platform Components

The following high-level MettleCI architecture shows the key software components to be installed, and their communications between hosts. 

In-scope Hosts

• Developer's Workstation: Where the Windows DataStage Designer client is typically run

• Application Lifecycle Management Tools: One or more hosts running Work Item Management, Git, and Build services

• Information Server Development Environment: Your development instance of Information Server, which may be deployed in any topology, and on any number of hosts.

• Other Information Server Environment(s): Downstream Information Server environments, including testing and (optionally) Production.  These environments can be MettleCI deployment targets without requiring the deployment of any MettleCI components. 

• MettleCI Agent Host: A MettleCI-dedicated Windows server hosting an IBM DataStage Client tier which is used by your Build system's agent, in conjunction with the MettleCI Command Line Interface, to automate build and deployment activities.

Connections

1. The MettleCI Workbench application running on your DataStage Engine tier needs to performs a commit to your Git platform.

2. The MettleCI Workbench application running on your DataStage Engine tier needs to perform a dynamic lookup of Work items when displaying the Git Commit page.

3. The Developer Workstation provides data engineers with access to the ALM tools' user interfaces via a supported web browser.  This should cover...

   1. the Git host, 

   2. the Work item Management host, and

   3. the Build Host

4. The Developer Workstation requires regular DataStage client tier access to the development environment's ...

   1. DataStage Engine tier, and

   2. DataStage Services tier.

5. The Developer Workstation provides data engineers with access to the following components via a supported web browser:

   1. OPTIONAL The MettleCI Scheduler (Azkaban) user interface

   2. OPTIONAL The MettleCI Wallboard  

6. Your Build system performs its duties via its agent installed on the MettleCI Host

7. The MettleCI Host requires regular access to the development environment's ...

   1. DataStage Engine tier, and

   2. DataStage Services tier

8. The MettleCI Host requires regular access to the downstream test environments' DataStage Engine and Services tiers, to affect automated deployment.

See also