Jelastic

Jelastic

Deployment instructions for Jelastic (WiP)

Prerequisites

Jelastic is a licensed PaaS provider platform where different third party companies operates in different areas. In the nordic region Jelastic is hosted by the Stockholm based company Elastx.

1. Start by creating a (trial) account at: https://app.jelastic.elastx.net/.

Deploy!

The Jelastic deployment and administration interface is, unlike most of its competitors, purely web-based. There is no command line interface and to support automated continuous integration Jelastic provides a Maven plugin.

Step By Step Guide

1. Login to the Jelastic management interface: https://app.jelastic.elastx.net/

1. Create a new environment using the "Create Environment" button.

The Jelastic Management interface screen is divided into three sections; the top-most show your environments and their respectively services. The middle section shows content (currently the Deployment Manager), and the bottom section, hidden in this image, displays the interface activity log.

1. Configure your environment by enabling services; for this deployment we start by adding a Tomcat Application Service. We also changes the name into something less non-sense (Note! The identifier is unique for the Jelastic platform).

1. Next add a MongoDB instance by clicking the MongoDB (?) icon in the service section. In this workshop we will use the provided RockMongo web interface to setup MongoDB and therefore a public IPv4 is not necessary. However, if you would like to access the MongoDB instance externally you will need to enable this. When done, we press "Create", and ..

1. ..Jelastic is creating your environment.

1. When finished we have an empty environment setup and configured.

1. By now you should have received two mail confirmations from the platform. One stating that your newly created environment is created and ready for use and..

1. ..the other one contains important login information for the MongoDB host.

1. We now need to configure the database. Access the MongoDB administration interface by clicking the left-most MongoDB service icon as shown in the view.

1. Access the RockMongo interface using the credentials found in the mail.

1. Start by adding a database for the Notes application. Navigate to the "Databases" section using the top navigation.

1. Create a new database by clicking the "Create New Database" button and ..

1. ..name it "notes".

1. Next add a database user. Access the "Authentication" section located in the drop-down.

1. Add the Notes database user; username: "mongo", password: "secret".

1. If correctly added the user should appear in the user list.

1. Switch back to the Jelastic Management interface and access the MongoDB service information using the right-most service icon and select ..

1. .."Info".

1. A popup displays the details concerning the MongoDB service. We are only interested in the hostname so store this in your head (alternatively your copy buffer).

1. Now access the Tomcat Application Service configuration by clicking the service icon with a wrench-glyph and access the "variables.conf" file located below the server/-directory.

1. We are now going to add two environment variables; one is called "environment" and used by the Notes application to determine during runtime which PaaS we are currently running. The other one is the fully qualified MongoDB connection URL (from three steps up or from the confirmation mail). Note! Don't forget to save the file when done!

1. Deploy our pre-build .war artefact using the "Deployment Manager".

1. Deploy the artefact to the environment using the drop-down.

1. Press "Deploy" (if wanted it is possible to deploy the artefact to a custom content root).

1. The artefact is now being deployed into the environment.

1. When finished access the deployed application using the leftmost service icon for the environment and..

1. ..done!