WebSphere Commerce Build and Deploy (WCBD) is the first tool to be developed by the WebSphere Commerce development team that addresses the build and deployment aspect of a WebSphere Commerce customization project. The tool is aims to provide a standardized, ANTbased, build and deployment framework that is available to IBMers as well as business partners and customers. It is designed based on the best practices documented in the WebSphere Commerce Information Center. WCBD is designed to satisfy most typical build and deployment needs, leaving only few configuration steps for a quick startup. When needs differ from the standard implementation, the framework scripts can be customized.

WCDB overview

Reference application in V6

Shipped with V7

Series of Apache Ant scripts

Customizable

Supports

CVS, Subversion and ClearCase, Local filesystem

SQL masloadable XML, ACP and ACUG  <—  ***  new data load tool not yet supported

FTP and SCP/SFTP –

Deployment to multiple environments

e-mail notification upon build/deployment success/failure

System flow

Build server extracts from SCM server

Build process runs, outputs

Server deployment package

Toolkit deployment package

Transferred to server deployment system

Update

WAS servers

WC servers

DB servers

Web servers

Build process

Build Process Flow

1.  Extract source code

2.  Compilation, EJB deploy

3.  Create deployment packages

Configuring and running the build process

1.  Setup repository structure

2.  Copy WC libraries to build system (do not need WC installed on build system)

3.  Setup source extraction Ant script (each step in process covered in its own ant script)

4.  Configure build settings

5. Run

Repository structure

Separate folders for common and environment specific files

Build settings

Templates provided

setenv.bat

build-private.properties <- security sensitive properties

build.properties

Build process

wcdb-ant.bat -buildfile wcdb-build.xml -Dbuild.label=<build identifier>

Deployment process

Server deployment process flow

1.  Common dataload

2.  Target specific dataload

3.  Deploy

a. build partial app

b. deploy via wsadmin

c. deploy static web assets

d. sync WC config file

Configure server deployment settings

Templates provided

setenv.bat

deploy-<target-env>-private.properties

deploy-<target-env>.properties

Server deployment process

Backup before deployment <– can add as part of deploy script

Database

WC EAR file

WAS config files

Toolkit deployment process flow

Deploy database

Deploy projects into workspace

Configuring and running the toolkit deployment process

Install toolkit deployment package

Configure toolkit deployment settings

Run toolkit deployment process

Toolkit deployment process

Backup

Database

Workspace

Republish WC application after deploy

Customization highlights

Customization highlights

Do not touch files with wcdb prefix

Files with -common are reusable and provide customization example

Template files have documentation in them

Use <project>- prefix to identify custom files

Customization examples

Other SCMs

Unit test and code validations

Custom processes such as backups

WAS settings such as EJB refs and JVM settings

Best Practices

Include template deployment files in build process

Roll all configurations back into deployment files

Saves time when building new server

Definitely backup before deployment!

Ton of stuff can be configured <- still faster than building your own…

Limitations

New data load tool not supported

Stay tuned for the next topic – Migration

If you are using Management Center without customization in version 6 there are no extra steps required to continue using Management Center in version 7. For customized versions of Management Center you need to follow the Management Center customization migration process using the OpenLaszlo migration tool.