Processes and content process sets
Processes
Processes are sets of instructions with the following primary uses:
- Deploying package instance content
- Working with channel and environment configurations
Processes fall into the following categories:
Process type | Description |
---|---|
Content deployment process | These processes deploy pieces of instance content to a channel. They are associated with content, and they interact with the appropriate APIs to have that content correctly consumed or prepared. |
Content post-process | These processes activate deployed instance content on particular channels. They are associated with content, and they activate the servers and services that consume the deployed content. |
Content removal process | These processes remove pieces of instance content from a channel during an instance removal. They are associated with content, and they undo the actions of content processes. |
Environment pre-process | These processes prepare an environment for a deployment. They are associated with environments. They do not interact with channels directly. Instead, they perform global tasks on the environment itself. Add only activities that do not interact with channels to an environment preprocess. |
Environment post-process | These processes finalize an environment after a deployment. They are associated with environments. They do not interact with channels directly. Instead, they perform global tasks on the environment itself. Add only activities that do not interact with channels to an environment post-process. If you restart a deployment, these processes run again. |
Configuration drift process | These processes specify what to do in the event of a configuration failure or drift. They are associated with channel templates. |
Channel provisioning process | These processes prepare specific channels for a deployment. They are associated with channel templates, and they run before the content being handled for a deployment. They configure computers for the servers, services, and tools that are necessary to perform and complete a deployment. |
Where a process can be used depends on its type. Each process evaluation produces log output that you can view in the console. Deployment-related process results are available when you are viewing the deployment results pages. You can view channel process results by using the System Procs menu command on the Report tab. Processes are run by engines. If no engine services are connected to your database, no processes run.
Content process sets
Content process sets are critical to configuring the system to deploy content correctly. These sets:
- Identify processes to use for deploying and removing content
- Can be generic or specific. The more specific they are, the more control you have over deployment processes and infrastructure management. Ideally, you should have a content process set specification for each type of content and each type of destination identified in the package definitions.
For example, suppose that you have a business need or policy to apply extra protection activities when deploying a WAR file to an application server in a production environment, compared with the application servers in a test environment. You would create content process set specifications that identify each set of processes that apply to the business policies of each environment, such as "WAR file for production" and for "WAR file for test."
Also, if the WAR file had to be deployed to both IBM WebSphere and JBoss, you would create content process set specifications to identify each set of processes for the application servers, such as "WAR file for WebSphere" and "WAR file for JBoss." So, the entire resulting set of content specifications would be:
- WAR file for test JBoss
- WAR file for test WebSphere
- WAR file for production JBoss
- WAR file for production WebSphere
When the system deploys a package, it evaluates the package instance, and then runs the content-deployment processes. Next, it runs the content post-deployment processes. Using these processes, you can deploy content into an infrastructure during the deployment phase and then activate or reactivate services to consume and serve that content during the post-deployment phase.
To learn more about how to create and manage processes and content process sets, see Creating-and-managing-processes-and-content-process-sets.
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