Introduction
This document 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.
See also Rapid DataStage Upgrade - Technical Prerequisites for a description of the Rapid DataStage Upgrade technical pre-requisites for MettleCI.
MettleCI Platform Components
The following high-level MettleCI architecture shows the key software components to be installed, and their communications between hosts.
Some points to note:
- MettleCI works with all Information Server deployment topologies, including High Availability, Grid, and Cluster environments, For clarity, this diagram shows each tier residing on its own, dedicated host.
- Application Lifecycle Management components can be co-hosted with the other tools on the MettleCI Host or located on another host (on-premise, cloud or SaaS).
Component Connections
The following table describes which interactions take place between the software components listed above, and which functions those interactions support. Note that if a component or protocol isn't specified then it’s either irrelevant to MettleCI, or MettleCI can re-use whatever your infrastructure dictates.
Connection | Client Host | Client Application | Server Host | Server Application | Protocol(s) | Related MettleCI Function(s) | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
3 | Developer Workstation | Web browser | MettleCI Host | MettleCI Scheduler (Azkaban) | HTTP(S) |
| OPTIONAL |
3 | Developer Workstation | Web browser | MettleCI Host | MettleCI Wallboard | HTTP(S) |
| OPTIONAL |
2 | Developer Workstation | Git client | ALM Host | Git service | SSH / HTTP(S) |
| Could be ignored as various Git UI's (HTTPS) provide a lot of support in this area. |
3 | Developer Workstation | Remote Desktop Client | MettleCI Host | Remote Desktop Service | RDP |
| |
1 | DataStage Development Engine Tier | MettleCI Workbench | ALM Host | Git service | SSH (default), HTTP(S) |
| |
5 | MettleCI Host | MettleCI Wallboard | ALM Host | ALM software components | HTTP(S) |
| The MettleCI Wallboard needs to extract data from the work item management and CI / CD components via their REST APIs to present health metrics to users. |
6 | MettleCI Host | MettleCI Wallboard | Information Server Services Tier | Operations Console | HTTP(S) |
| The MettleCI solution will use the ports and protocols mandated by the customer's standards (see IBM IIS documentation) for the database technology that hosts DSODB. |
6 | MettleCI Host | DataStage Client (under the direction of a CI/CD Agent) | Information Server Engine Tier | Information Server processes | Multiple |
| The MettleCI solution will use the same ports and protocols that the customer uses for its standard installation of the DataStage Client on end-user hardware. |
6 | MettleCI Host | SSH | Information Server Engine Tier | SSH server process | SSL |
| The MettleCI solution will use the port that the customer's standards mandate for this protocol. |
MettleCI Host | DataStage Client | Information Server Services Tier | Information Server processes | Multiple |
| The MettleCI solution will use the same ports and protocols that the customer uses for its standard installation of the DataStage Client on end-user hardware. | |
MettleCI Host | MettleCI CLI Plugin (triggered via CI / CD Agent / Slave) | Information Server Services Tier | Information Governance Catalog REST API | HTTP(S) |
| OPTIONAL This is only required where Azkaban is being used as the Job execution scheduling solution. |