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).

User Accounts

MettleCI needs the dedicated accounts described in the sections below to enable installation activities as well as support on-going operation.

MettleCI Host

1. Two Windows user accounts are required for the purpose of installing and administering MettleCI-related components on this host. They must...

   1. ideally be named mciconfig1 and mciconfig2

   2. have administrator privileges sufficient to

      1. run Windows tools "...as administrator"

      2. install software for use by other users on the host; and

      3. create, remove, start and stop Windows services.

   3. Note: The second account acts to complement the first account in case the owner of the first account becomes unavailable, for whatever reason, or we collectively choose to perform work in parallel. 

2. A Windows user account is required to act as a service account for executing MettleCI services. It ...

   1. would ideally be named mciservice

   2. must have only sufficient privileges to run the services installed by the mciconfig* accounts

DataStage Development Engine Tier

1. An operating system user account and corresponding DataStage application account for in-bulk tasks (e.g. CI, CD) performed by MettleCI

   1. Ideally named mciagent

   2. Accessible via SSH from both the MettleCI Host and the MettleCI consultant's computer.

   3. Capable of accessing your DataStage Engine Tier's filesystem such that DataStage can read files and directories generated or modified by this account.

      1. In particular this account will make changes to the contents of your DataStage Projects directory.

   4. Primary group must be dstage (or equivalent as configured for your DataStage platform)

   5. On *nix hosts, this account must be able to source the $DSHOME/.dsenv file.

   6. The DataStage application account must be assigned the Information Server Suite Administrator and DataStage Administrator roles.

2. An operating system user account and corresponding DataStage application account for use by MettleCI end-user functions (e.g. MettleCI Workbench)

   1. Ideally named mciworkb

   2. Accessible via SSH from both the MettleCI Host and the MettleCI consultant's computer.

   3. Primary group must be dstage (or equivalent as configured for your DataStage platform)

   4. root must be able to run commands under this user (via sudo) from within a SysVinit service.

   5. On *nix hosts, this account must be able to source the $DSHOME/.dsenv file.

   6. The DataStage application account must be assigned the Information Server 'Suite Administrator'  and 'DataStage Administrator' roles.

Password Expiry

All MettleCI-related service accounts (both application and operating system) should have passwords that don't expire. A change to a service account password will require updates to MettleCI configuration to re-enable the MettleCI functions that rely on that service account. Unplanned service account password changes are highly likely to cause unnecessary delays.