This topic presents information about the BMC BladeLogic Rapid Deployment Stack (BladeLogic RDS) for Servers in the following sections:
Overview of the BladeLogic RDS
The BladeLogic RDS is a pre-built virtual appliance that you can download and install to create your own BMC Server Automation sandbox. The BladeLogic RDS is designed for customers who want a small, self-contained BladeLogic system that installs quickly in their environments.
The simple installation provides a server, an operating system, and either a database dump for your existing Oracle or SQL server database, or an Oracle XE database instance to get you up and running in minimal time, without requiring a full BMC Server Automation installation. With the recommended settings, supporting components, and a separate database instance, you can leverage the BladeLogic RDS for small scale QA or production environments.
After installing the BladeLogic RDS, you can use it to:
- Gain familiarity with BMC Server Automation
- Practice smaller scale deployment and provisioning scenarios
- Experiment with new features in updated releases of BMC Server Automation
- Test the impact of changes or patches to BMC Server Automation in your environment, such as new provisioning jobs and packages, before involving your main production environment
- Create a small, portable BMC Server Automation environment to deploy and demonstrate on other sites
The BladeLogic RDS image is provided as an OVF templates on a shared location. This OVF consists of only one preconfigured virtual machine. The BladeLogic RDS image is built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5. The BladeLogicRDS<platform><bsaVersion>-LIN64 image is installed as a part of the BMC Server Automation standalone host that contains the BladeLogic Application Server and File Server.
Note
This image does not include any form of router, VMware Virtual Center, or ESX hosts.
The main components in the deployment environment of the BladeLogic RDS are:
- VMware vSphere Client
- ESX host server
- Application Server
- File server
- Database
These components are described in the following section.
BladeLogic RDS components and versions
You can install the BladeLogic RDS with only one required computer. You can deploy or upgrade all components on a single host. The BladeLogic RDS is a subset of the complete BMC Server Automation solution and consists of the components and versions listed in the following table:
| Component | Description/Purpose | Version |
|---|---|---|
BladeLogic Application Server | The BladeLogic Application Server controls the communication between clients and servers, as well as access to database and file servers. | 8.7.00 |
| File server | The File server stores the contents of files included in snapshots, Network Shell scripts, BLPackages, software packages, and other types of information that are not easily stored in a database. | |
| Compliance Content | The BladeLogic RDS includes pre-installed Compliance Content regulatory and security templates. These templates contain rule sets to automatically check and analyze compliance for every server in your data center. For more information, see Compliance Content component templates. | List of standards and policies |
BladeLogic Portal | The BladeLogic Portal is a web-based user interface that provides a subset of the functionality available in the BMC Server Automation Console. Your IT Operations team can use BladeLogic Portal to execute common server configuration management activities such as patching, compliance, provisioning, and software deployment. For more information, see BladeLogic Portal. | 2.0 |
BladeLogic Dashboard | The BladeLogic Dashboard provides a view into your BMC Server Automation environment and offers tips for optimizing BladeLogic installations. Beyond functioning as a monitoring tool, the Dashboard provides a mechanism to quickly assess the health of all BladeLogic system components. For more information, see BladeLogic Dashboard. | 8.7.00 (Service Health and Value) |
| OVF template | The Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF) template included in the BladeLogic RDS package provides you with a prepackaged and preconfigured set of virtual machines, virtual appliances, and vApps. An appliance typically includes a preinstalled guest operating system and other software. For more information, see the Deploying OVF Templates pages in VMware's vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide. | 8.7.00 |
| Database | The BladeLogic RDS comes pre-installed with Oracle XE database that you can use out of the box. However, because Oracle XE cannot be scaled easily, you may need to configure an external database server using Oracle or SQL database dump files. For more information about configuring an external database, see Configuring the BladeLogic RDS components. | SQL Server 2008 R2 or later Oracle 11gR1 or later |
Webmin utility | Web-based interface, with links to system information, utilities to administer the system, UI client installers, agent bundles, database dumps, dashboard and portal interfaces, documentation, and other BMC resources. | 8.7.00 |
Additional tools provided with the BladeLogic RDS
The BladeLogic RDS also includes:
- References to product guides, best practices, and community content for quick assistance
- Latest regulatory compliance templates for CIS, SOX, PCI, DISA, and HIPAA
- Agent bundles and installer jobs for simplifying the process of server enrollment
- A Quick Start Guide
- BladeLogic Zipkits that contain system packages for provisioning, operation utilities for configuration changes, and server compliance packages for Windows and Linux. A ZipKit is a prebuilt set of automation content designed to simplify the execution of common tasks you might otherwise use BMC Server Automation for, including looking for security vulnerabilities or deploying an application, and many other tasks. BMC Server Automation ZipKits provide BLPackages for common enterprise applications and databases such as MS SQL Server, Oracle 11g R2, MongoDB, MySQL, WebLogic, IIS, and Apache web servers. These packages are built for the community and are supported by the community. For more information, see the list of available ZipKits on BMC Communities.
Limitations of the BladeLogic RDS
If you use the Oracle XE database provided as part of the package, then the BladeLogic RDS has the following limitations:
- The BladeLogic RDS is not intended to be a main production or full system environment. It is primarily intended as a proof of concept, or demo environment.
- The BladeLogic RDS is not scalable.
However, you can scale the BladeLogic RDS if you use an external SQL or Oracle database server. In this case, the BladeLogic RDS can be used as a production or full system environment. See Scaling the BladeLogic RDS.
Additional learning resources
YouTube video link: Rono Jacob presents "BMC BladeLogic Rapid Deployment Stack (RDS)"
Rono Jacob's BMC Communities blog post on the BMC Server Automation version 8.3 RDS: I just want to use BladeLogic!
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