buildprocess > autodeploy

Purpose

AutoDeploy a automatic J2EE deployment tool. It's a perfect complement to automatic build tools such as CruiseControl or AntHill.
The build tools provide an archive (named artifact) and the end of the process.
Mainly, this archive is a tar.gz or zip file containing a lot of things such :

• applications (ear, war or ejb-jar)
• configuration files which must be presents in the application servers classpath
• some SQL scripts to create or update a database

In an industrial point of view, it's the role of the J2EE administrator to take the archive and to deploy on a targetted environment. Depending of the request from the development team or customers, the J2EE administrator :

• chose an application server product (such as BEA Weblogic, IBM Websphere, JBoss)
• setup the application server with all required components for the application (connection pools, datasources, JMS queues, etc)
• most of the time, create or update a database with script provided in the archive
• deploy the applications

The J2EE administrator normally performs the same steps for each builds in the build tools output.
It requires a lot of work when the J2EE administrator manage a lot of environment.
AutoDeploy takes the hand one time the build tools have provided the archive. It automatically updates targetted environments using a main XML descriptor file.

The J2EE administrator must only maintain the main XML description file by hand or using the web admin console WebAutoDeploy.

AutoDeploy Features

= Supported = Work in progress = Not yet supported

General Support
Integrated scheduler
Local and network (FTP, HTTP, webdav, etc) filesystems support
Direct access in the archive files (tar.gz, zip : not need to uncompress)
JDBC Connection Pool create/update/delete
JDBC DataSource create/update/delete
JMS Connection Factory create/update/delete
JMS Server create/update/delete
JMS Queues create/update/delete
JMS Topics create/update/delete
Ear / War / Ejb-Jar Support
Content Manager Support
Configuration File copy and replace
Embedded WebServices server
Database Scripts launch
Application Servers Support
BEA WebLogic 6.1 support
BEA WebLogic 7.1 support
BEA WebLogic 8.1 support
BEA WebLogic 9.0 support
IBM WebSphere 5.1 support
IBM WebSphere 6.0 support
JBoss 3.2.x
JBoss 4.x
Oracle AS 9i/10g
JonAS
Database Server Support
Oracle 8i, 9i, 10g
DB2
MySQL 3.2.x, 4.x
PostgreSQL 7.x
Publising System Support
Email
Jabber
ICQ
MSN

WebAutoDeploy Features

WebAutoDeploy is the web administration console for AutoDeploy. It manages the main AutoDeploy XML file and can perform action commands to AutoDeploy.

= Supported = Work in progress = Not yet supported

Full pure HTML/CSS console (no ActiveX or Java Applet)
Scheduler setup modification (need daemon restart)
Full support to AutoDeploy components
Force AutoDeploy and application servers actions
Journal log of all actions

Technologies

• Commons Digester : XML parsing
• Commons Logging and log4j : logging system
• Commons Email : email publishing system
• Commons VFS : files manipulation (access to local and remote filesystems)
• Commons CLI : command line manipulation
• OpenSymphony Quartz : integrated scheduler
• Jakarta ORO : string manipulation using regexp
• Apache Xerces : XML writing
• Commons Lang : system property retrieval
• Weblogic JMX Client API : connection to Weblogic server
• Websphere JMX Client API : connection to Websphere server
• JBoss JMX Client API : connection to JBoss server
• Spring Framework : Spring MVC Web framework used in WebAutoDeploy
• Jakarta Velocity : used for view components in WebAutoDeploy