BMC BladeLogic Server Automation (BSA) makes it easy to package and deploy software applications. This topic walks you through the process.
The topic includes the following sections:
Most organizations need to deploy a range of software to the servers they provision. For example, you may need to deploy software used for monitoring, backup, security agents, server hardening, patching, and compliance validation. Sometimes these deployments can take days when performed manually.
Automating software deployment can provide substantial time savings, especially for complex software packages. There are many types of packages that you can deploy, which vary across the range of operating systems supported by BSA. This walkthrough shows how to deploy a MSI (Microsoft Software Installer) package on a Windows system. For more information about the types of packages you can deploy, see BLPackage overview.
For this walkthrough, you log on as BLAdmin, the default superuser for BSA. Note that in live deployments, BMC recommends that you grant access based on roles with a narrower set of permissions.
Procedure | Example screen | |
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1 | Using the BSA console, open the Depot folder and navigate to a subfolder. Right-click and select New > Software > MSI Package. The Select Installable Sources dialog box opens. If necessary, you can create a subfolder by clicking the Depot folder, right-clicking, and selecting New > Depot Folder. | |
2 | Using the dialog box, navigate to the MSI package stored previously. Click OK to accept default behavior and copy the installer to the file server. The Add Software window opens. It provides many options for customizing the behavior of a software deployment. For this simple software deployment, you can accept the default behavior.
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3 | Click Finish to accept the default behavior defined on the Add Software window. The MSI package is listed in the depot folder you selected. | |
4 | Right-click the MSI package and select Deploy. The New Deploy Job wizard opens. It lets you define a Deploy Job for the package. By defining the package itself and the Deploy Job, you can control how a software application can be moved from the Depot to a server. | |
5 | Provide a name, description, and place to store the Deploy Job. | |
6 | Click Next and click Next again. The Targets panel opens. Use it to specify a target where the software package should be deployed. | |
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8 | Click Next. The Job Options panel opens. Change Logging level to All Information. This setting is a good practice while developing a new job. At a later time, if are you satisfied with the job's performance, you can edit the job and return this setting to Errors and Warnings. | |
9 | Click Finish. The job begins to execute. You can monitor its progress on the Tasks in Progress panel. | |
10 | When the job completes, open the Jobs folder and navigate to the job you have defined. Right-click the job and select Show Results. In the right pane, a tab opens and shows the results of the job. A green check indicates success. |
In this walkthrough, you packaged a simple application and then created and executed a Deploy Job to deploy that application to a server.
Now you can potentially use the Deploy Job you created as part of a post-provisioning job that deploys an application to a new server after the operating system is installed.
You could also use the techniques shown here as an introduction to deploying more complex applications.
A good resource for packaged software applications are BSA ZipKits. They provide BLPackages for common enterprise applications and databases like MS SQL Server, Oracle 11g R2, MongoDB, MySQL, WebLogic, IIS, and Apache web servers. These packages are built for the community and supported by the community. For more information, see the list of available ZipKits on BMC Communities.