Change Log for Version 6 June 17, 2014 Added support for UCS Director (UCSD) Re-organized portal pages with new setup page for CPTAs to create design targets and modify network zones Fixed issue with populating VDC dropdown when ordering stacks Fixed form issues with the Approval moment for stack ordering ASAP now supports blueprints where neither Puppet nor Chef are used A new service was added to Modify Networks in VDC that assigns each network to an appropriate zone Added support for multiple configuration phases and sequencing within phase, including: A new Configuration Phase Standard (Initialization-Phase 1, Initialization-Phase 2, Finalization, Maintenance, and Decommission). The standard can be expanded, but only the first 3 phases are included in ASAP content; the remainder can be handled via extension. New options, Configuration Phase and Sequence, are available when adding a configuration plan for a server to the blueprint. The default is Finalization. The initialization phases occur first and in the sequence specified, enforcing dependency order for configuring nodes at each phase. For any phase, concurrency can be achieved by using the same sequence number for servers in the same phase. Node classification is re-created during each phase (so any role required at multiple phases needs to specified for each phase separately). Not all servers are required to participate in all phases (ie, some servers can skip phases, and, in fact, the standard use case would be to only have a plan for Phase 3 (Finalization), skipping 1 and 2. The final node classification will be the one for the last phase executed on a given server. It is recommended that all servers have a Finalization phase at a minimum. Maintanance and Decommission phases are not currently implemented but are in the blueprint and can be orchestrated via extension points (they are there to suggest other possible configuration phases to support lifecycle)   ... View more

Change Log for Version 6 June 17, 2014 Support added for virtual machines provisioned through UCS Director (UCSD). Foundational support added for configuration phases (when provisioning application stacks through ASAP (Application Stack Accelerator Pack). Manages sequencing and configuration dependencies. Enhanced Puppet/Chef role registration to allow selection of one or more valid operating system families for the role. Based on template selection, only roles appropriate for that OS will be shown. Fixed form errors in several services that were occurring during Approval moment For Puppet: Fixed Puppet profile parsing of alternate Ruby syntaxes to discover role associations For Windows, fixed to provide environment when running the Puppet agent on a node For Windows, Added -h option to PSExec to execute with elevated privilege For Windows, enhanced bootstrapping to favor PSExec over WinRM if PSExec is installed on the PO server. For Chef: Enhanced bootstrapping for Windows and Linux to allow override of the distribution templates that download and install the Chef client (along with samples for localizing the installation; see the Chef/Sample Distribution Templates folder and the deployment guide for details).     Added feature to support multiple application instances on a single server (see deployment guide for details)     Added "Supports Instances?" to Role Registration Added Instance option when ordering VMs Added services to add and remove instances from a server Creates Databag Item by role by instance and pushes to node attributes ... View more

A patch is available for an issue with Oracle (e.g., using the IAC appliance). There are 2 Catalog Deployer packages to deploy: ASAP_Software_Applications_Sample_Data (deploy one time only) and Stack_Blueprint_Design_and_Management_Services_v4a_patch (if you are deploying for the first time, use this package INSTEAD of the one from the original v4 kit). ... View more

v4 has been uploaded with a new "Intelligent Automation for Stacks" TAP to fix an issue with automation pack dependencies. ... View more

Changes for v4: Updated for compatibility with IAC 4.0 Patch 4 (4.0.0.4) and PSC 10 R2 (with patch 1h) Fixed issues with editing blueprints to add load balancing Added all of the stack ordering services to list of services that can be configured for approvals ... View more

Changes for v5: Updated for compatibility with IAC 4.0 Patch 4 (4.0.0.4) and PSC 10 R2 (with Patch 1h) For Puppet, a retry loop was added to wait for the Puppet certificate authority to sign the new node's certificate Note: The only PO automation packs that have changed since CMAK v4 are the ones for Puppet. You do not need to import the others if you have already deployed v4.   ... View more

Changes for v3: 1. Updated for compatibility with IAC 4.0 Patch 3 2. Added new Delete Blueprint service, which can either remove all service item details for the blueprint or mark the blueprint as deleted, retaining all details 3. Added new blueprint option that instructs the orchestrator to power cycle all servers in the stack in boot sequence after all the servers have been configured by Puppet or Chef. 4. Data retrieval rules have been normalized to work with both MS SQL and Oracle, eliminating the need for separate Catalog Deployer packages for ASAP services 5. ASAP is no longer limited to the four default network zones: Public, Private, Protected Public, Protected Private. It will now recognize all zones as defined in the Network Zone Type standards table (under Stack Design and Management) 6. The My Stacks portlet now includes add on services for individual servers in the stack (similar to My Servers) 7. Several issues reported by the community have been resolved ... View more

Changes for v4: 1. Updated for compatibility with IAC 4.0 Patch 3. 2. Added option to Puppet connection to configure an alternate module discovery path (to point to a working copy when puppet.conf module location is a git bare repo) 3. Added option to Puppet connection to configure an alternate hiera node classification file location, separate from the module path 4. Added option to Puppet connection to configure an alternate URL for Puppet installer. For example, the installer packages can be put on the puppet master to provide a local repository (but needs to be available via a URL (not a UNC path). 5. In the Puppet pre-bootstrapping extension point, custom data can be added to hiera node classification file 6. In the Puppet pre-bootstrapping extension point, a flag can be set to bypass puppet agent installation 7. Added additional fact for Puppet nodes, stack_role_name, which is the registered friendly name for the stack role(s). stack_role reflects the actual classname (without the "role::" namespace) 8. For Puppet CMAK can use PSExec instead of WinRM to run the Puppet agent if it is installed on the PO server and on the system path. Note that WinRM is still used for Puppet agent installation. This allows for an interactive desktop required by many installers that Puppet may be running. 9. Issue with chart data not displaying for Puppet and Chef in the Manage Infrastructure Discovery portlet has been resolved. 10. Added extension point prior to Puppet agent run, allowing override of the timeout value by setting "Timeout Override" or implementing a completely customized run of the Puppet agent. Output variables from the extension include "HasRun" and "CompletedSuccessfully" flags along "Output" of the agent run. 11. For Windows, the Puppet agent run is now asynchronous, allowing for an override of the timeout value for the PowerShell activity that runs the Puppet agent through WinRM or PSExec (see #10 above for the extension point that allows you to override the timeout value). ... View more

Changes for v3: 1. Updated for compatibility with IAC 4.0 Patch 2. 2. Fixed "CM Generate Server Hostname, which was causing non-VM from template orders to fail 3. Fixed display of validation errors in System Health portlet 4. Fixed issues validating connections for Chef and Puppet 5. Added Environment column to Manage Infrastructure portlet for Puppet Roles/Profiles. 6. Fixed problems in RequestCenter.war packaging (removed myServersLayer.jsp from package and bad reference to nsapi.jsp) 7. For Puppet,          Added new connection option to download puppet installer from a local repository          New facts are now available for each node: stack_instance, stack_role, and iac_organization. Can be used by puppetdbquery in puppet code to             get information about other nodes in a stack (requires module  … see deployment guide)         Custom facts can be added to a node by specifying "fact" instead of a class parameter name in the json used to define profile parameters (see deployment guide) 8. For Chef, added stack_instance and iac_organization node attributes during bootstrapping. Can be used to search attributes of other nodes in a stack. ... View more

Changes for v2 include: 1. Updated for compatibility with IAC 4.0 Patch 2. 2. Created new Stack Consumption Business Unit OU to be able to assign just the Stack Consumer role 3. Fixed Portal Page Permissions for Blueprints/Stacks (remember to import services AFTER importing portal pages) 4. Enhanced stack provisioing to configure servers in the sequence defined currently for boot sequence. Only the Puppet/Chef server configuration is queued; servers    later in the boot sequence will wait until those earlier have successfully completed (e.g., allowing a DB server to be created before an application server attempts    to create a DB schema and load data there) 5. No longer reboot services upon completion of stack order (no longer be necessary with new provisioning sequence enhancement) 6. Implemented a number of cosmetic fixes. 7. Version numbers are now recorded and incremented with each edit and copy of a blueprint. ... View more

Damien, I'll need a little clarification on what the customer is looking to do. Currently, we use hiera for node classification and for providing class parameter overrides. I am working on an enhancement right now to provide a mechanism as alternative/addition to class parameter overrides that uses "external facts" to provide additional data about a node. This data is available to the node itself, and after a puppet agent run, is also published to puppetdb. The intention is that this data would be used by dalen-puppetdbquery (puppet module install dalen-puppetdbquery) so that nodes could query custom facts about other nodes. The enhancement will be available in the next version of CMAK, due out next out. If the customer is trying to use puppetdb for external node classification (ENC), this is something we would need to explore further. The solution is flexible enough to allow any customer ENC (easily configured in puppet.conf). As an accelerator, the content can be modified or extended as necessary, but I'd like to understand if this will be a common requirement that we might want to build into the kit itself. As far as setting up your own environment, it's pretty straightforward. Download the Puppet Enterprise all-in-one installer, which let's you manage up to 10 nodes for free. This option is great for learning, demos and POCs. There is an OVA called the "Learning Puppet VM", but I would not recommend using that with CMAK (we've seen some problems doing that). http://info.puppetlabs.com/download-pe.html You will want choose the options to install both master and agent on the same machine, allowing you to start with some basic testing without actually spinning up other nodes to configure. I recommend installing on CentOS 6 (or Ubuntu 12.04). It takes about 5-10 minutes. I have been providing a set of "demo" modules including sample roles, profiles and parameters on request to help get people started. Please reach out to me directly when you get to that point. ... View more

Under display properties, when you make a dictionary field "hidden",  the default is to also mark it as "editable on server side only". This  will prevent a rule from updating the value. Be sure to uncheck this  option and your rule should work fine. Or execute your rule on submit/server side. ... View more

That property is no longer part of CMAK 4.0. It is now called ConfigurationManagement.BootStrap.Linux.Password and it is a hidden string. It is not meant to be a secure password, only a seed password that gets changed during the config process. This is only for situations where IAC does not set a password (like Linux on vCenter) so we need some password to initially connect to the server to install Puppet/Chef. The password would be a common, well known password that is the same across templates; hence, not secure and gets changed to a "real" password during provisioning. The new property is associated with the Configuration Management target type in CMAK 4.0 (there are new Chef and Puppet target types). ... View more