Automated Deployment solution for multiple Java web-apps

Question

I\'m looking for solutions, preferably open source, that can manage deployments of multiple interdependent java web-applications.

The solution requires an ab

Answer 1

Since this old thread comes up first on google search I want to add a new alternative:

Ansible executes commands over SSH and it is very easy to setup and use. It only takes a few hours to understand the concepts and start writing your own tasks.

Excerpt from site:

In addition to not requiring any daemons or bootstrapping, Ansible's Playbook language is the simplest systems management language out there. It reads like English. We believe you have other work to do, so we want you to get things done quickly and get out of your way.

Answer 2

My suggestion is to use a combination of tools (separation of concerns, the right tool for the right problem) that will help you to accomplish your objective, let me mention some of the ones that I've used:

• SVN or Git (SCM)
• Maven (Software project management and comprehesion tool)
• Jenkins (To create/trigger your CI and CD process)
  
  • Artifactory Plugin: https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Artifactory+Plugin (To promote your artifacts to Artifactory and to be able to release artifacts [https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Jenkins+Artifactory+Plugin+-+Release+Management])
  • Rundeck Plugin: https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/RunDeck+Plugin (To integrate Jenkins with Rundeck)
  • Build Pipeline Plugin: https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Build+Pipeline+Plugin (To create your delivery pipeline)
• Artifactory http://www.jfrog.com/open-source/ (To store your SNAPSHOT and RELEASES of your artifacts)
• Rundeck http://rundeck.org/ (To turn your operation procedures in self-service jobs)

in addition to the tools mentioned above, there are other that can be helpful and you can use them according to your project needs: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/java/deployment-tools-2227133.html

Now talking about the problem. The first thing that I noticed is that you mentioned that you already have your release artifacts in your repository manager (like Artifactory), so the next step that we need to do is a way to orchestrate the deployment of these artifacts at the same time, I think one option is to use the Paremeterized Build (https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Parameterized+Build, where you need to define multiple parameters that will contain the different versions of the artifacts that you want to deploy, once the user fills these values we will use them to pass as parameters to a rundeck job (rundeck is a tool that helps you to orchestrate tasks in different nodes), this rundeck deployment master job will receive the parameters and will orchestrate the deployment of your artifacts. Some examples of the steps that a rundeck job will contain are: Stop your Container, Backup your current Components, Start your Container, Download your artifacts from your repository manager, Create Resources in your Container, Deploy your components in your container, Execute your DB Deploy, Send an email if the process fails, etc .. Usually each of these steps are sub-jobs (that also receive parameters), and at the end we create one master job that uses/orchestrate all these sub-jobs.

Let me add some images examples of this type of CD process. This example is only deploying War/Ear artifacts, but it can help you to see the big picture:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-FVAopZZjDWdGl0WlNjX1RnRDQ&usp=sharing

I hope this can be helpful.

Answer 3

Check out ControlTier, an open source deployment tool based on a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) repository that aims to be a complete, enterprise-ready system for automating the deployment and management of multi-tier and distributed application services. According to its website:

ControlTier is a community driven, cross-platform software system used to coordinate application service management activities across multiple nodes and application tiers. The project is fully open source and many of the project contributions come from DTO Solutions ongoing consulting work for large scale e-commerce, software-as-a-service, and financial services operations. Go to Installation to get and install the software.

alt text http://controltier.org/mediawiki/images/d/d2/ControlTier_HighLevel.png