Deploying IBM Business Process Manager packages to offline process servers

Overview

In the business process management world, situations may occur where a connection between a running process server and Process Center is neither practical or desired, such as when there is a firewall between the process server and Process Center, or the process server is a production z/OS server housing mission-critical applications and the administrator does not want a Process Center to be connected. This article describes how to create deployment packages from snapshots in the Process Center and deploy them to offline process servers.

What do we mean by offline?

When we refer to a process server as as offline, we mean that it is not connected to a Process Center. In this context, a process server can be started with all its messaging engines and applications running, but if it is not connected to a Process Center, it is referred to asoffline.

Add an offline process server

The Process Center is where deployment packages are created based on snapshots. For this article, we'll use the Advanced Hiring Sample application that comes packaged with the Process Center. The first step is to add the offline server to the Process Center:

1. Log in to IBM Process Center.
2. Click the Servers tab.
3. On the right side of the console, click Add a New Offline Server.
4. Enter a server name of your choice, such as DV_Works_Offline, and click Create.
   The server should now appear in the list with a status of offline.

Create an installation package to deploy to the offline process server

To create the installation package for the Advanced Hiring Sample application, do the following:

1. Select Process Apps => Hiring Sample Advanced(HSAV1) in the Process Center.
2. On the next page click Create a New Snapshot on the right.
3. Give the new snapshot a name, such as HSA_DV_Work. The new snapshot will appear in the list of ProcessApps.
4. Select Install on the right of the snapshot.
5. A page will appear with the list of servers to which you can install the snapshot, as shown in Figure 1. Select the offline server you added earlier. Notice that the Install button on the bottom right changes to Create Installation Package when an offline server is selected, as shown in Figure 1.
   
   Figure 1. IBM Process Center showing servers
   
6. Click Create Installation Package.
7. While the package is being created, you'll see a progress message. WHn the package is created, the message changes to "Deployment Package Available," as shown in Figure 2.
   
   Figure 2. IBM Process Center showing the deployment package generated for a snapshot
   

Extract the installation package

Now that an installation package has been generated for the snapshot, you need to extract it using theBPMExtractOfflinePackage command, as follows:

1. Open a command window on the IBM Process Center machine.
2. Start the wsadmin tool. For example:

   C:\<Installation Root>\bin>wsadmin.bat -lang jython -user <wsadmin user> -password <wsadmin password> -conntype SOAP -port <soap Port>

   
   
3. Using the wsadmin tool, you can display information about the snapshot with theAdminTask.BPMShowProcessApplication command. Listing 1 shows an example of this command and some typical output. Note that you can determine the containerAcronym by looking next to the process application name in the Process Center.
   
   Listing 1. BPMShowProcessApplication
   

   wsadmin>AdminTask.BPMShowProcessApplication('[-containerAcronym HSAV1]') Name: Hiring Sample Advanced\nAcronym: HSAV1 Description: Toolkit: false Tracks: Track Name: Main Track Acronym: Main Default: true Tip: Created On: 2012-12-18 10:31:20.626 Created By: User.9 State: State[Undeployed] Capability: Capability[Advanced] No of running instances: 0 List of Snapshots: Name: Hiring Sample Advanced v801 Acronym: HSAV8_3 Created On: 2012-12-10 10:42:53.397 Created By: User.9 Is Default: false State: State[Undeployed] Capability: Capability[Advanced] No of running instances: 0 Name: HSA_DV_Work Acronym: HSADVW Created On: 2012-12-18 10:31:20.626 Created By: User.9 Is Default: false State: State[Undeployed] Capability: Capability[Advanced] No of running instances: 0 wsadmin>

4. Using the information for the various parameters required by the BPMExtractOfflinePackage, you can extract the package, as shown in Listing 2.
   
   Listing 2. BPMExtractOfflinePackage
   

   wsadmin>AdminTask.BPMExtractOfflinePackage ('[ -containerAcronym HSAV1 -containerSnapshotAcronym HSADVW -containerTrackAcronym Main -serverName DV_Works_Offline -outputFile /tmp/hsav1.zip ]') 'BPMExtractOfflinePackage passed.' wsadmin>

5. The BPMExtractOfflinePackage will report "passed" once the package has been successfully created.

Upload the package

Now that the file has been extracted, you can transfer it to the machine running the process server as follows:

1. By any suitable means, transfer the zip file generated in the previous section to the machine running the target process server. Note that you may want to change the permissions after transfer so that the file can be unzipped by theBPMInstallOfflinePackage commmand.
2. Start the wsadmin tool on the process server. Note: BPMInstallOfflinePackage cannot be run on the Deployment Manager in a Network Deployment (ND) enviroment, it must be run on the node instead. This is an easy error to make. If you see the error message: "This command should be executed for a node where IBM BPM teamworks application is running,"ensure that the command is being run at the correct location.
3. In the wsadmin tool, run the BPMInstallOfflinePackage command, as shown in the example in Listing 3.
   
   Listing 3. BPMInstallOfflinePackage
   

   wsadmin>AdminTask.BPMInstallOfflinePackage('[-inputFile /tmp/hsav1.zip ]') 'BPMInstallOfflinePackage passed.' wsadmin>

Verify the package

In order to verify that the package has been successfully deployed, you can run the Advanced Hiring Sample application in the exact same fashion as if the deployment was done through the Process Center:

1. Log into the process portal of the process server to which the package was deployed.
2. Once logged in, check the right side of the portal. Advanced HR Open New Position should be shown as one of the available processes. Figure 3 shows an example of the Process Portal showing a successful deployment.
   
   Figure 3. IBM Process Portal showing successful deployment of the hiring sample
   

Conclusion

This article described the steps to create, install, and verify BPM packages to offline process servers. This can help you deploy BPM packages to offline process servers when it's not desirable or feasible to connect the process server to IBM Process Center.