Provisioning environments from the blueprint designer (through OpenStack Heat)

If you connect to the target cloud through OpenStack Heat, you can provision an environment directly from the blueprint designer.

Before you begin

This method works only for blueprints that were created with the blueprint designer, not with blueprints that you create on the IBM® UrbanCode™ Deploy server.

Connect to a cloud system.
Create a blueprint and configuration file, and ensure that these files are appropriate for the target cloud system. See Modeling environments for SoftLayer, Modeling environments for Amazon Web Services, Modeling environments for VMware vCenter, or Modeling environments for OpenStack and OpenStack-based clouds.
Confirm that you have access to the ucd-agent-linux-ppc64, ucd-agent-linux-x86_64, and ucd-agent-win-x86_64 agent components. See Mapping teams to objects.

By default, when you provision an environment from a blueprint, the environment is created by using the cloud account information of its cloud project. However, when you create a blueprint for most kinds of clouds, you can specify different user credentials. SeeProviding cloud credentials in a blueprint.

Procedure

Make sure that you are connected to the cloud project and region with which you want to provision the environment. Select the cloud project and region at the top right of the blueprint design server, as shown in the following figures.
The cloud project and region are shown at the top of the screen, as shown in the following figure:
Open the blueprint, and then click Provision. The Provision Blueprint to new Environment window opens.
In the Environment Name window, specify the name of the environment.
In most cases, select a configuration file from the Configuration list. Configuration files are optional if you are deploying to OpenStack and OpenStack-based clouds. You must use a configuration file if you are deploying to any other supported cloud. You can also create a configuration file by opening the Configuration list and clicking Create Configuration.
Note: If you do not select a configuration file, the blueprint is provisioned on the OpenStack server that is associated with your user account.
The window shows the properties in the blueprint and the values in the configuration file. The window also validates the blueprint and the configuration file, including checking that the configuration file has no properties that are not also in the blueprint.
If the configuration file has properties that are not in the blueprint, the window prompts you to sync the configuration file with the blueprint. If you click Sync, another window describes what will happen to the configuration file, such as commenting out extra parameters in the configuration file.
Customize the property values in the window. For example, for some clouds, specify the zone for the environment in the Availability Zone field.
For some clouds, specify the flavor for the environment images in the Flavor field. If the list of flavors does not contain the flavors that you expect to see, make sure that you have registered the flavors with the cloud discovery service. See Configuring SoftLayer image flavors or Configuring VMware vCenter image flavors.

In most cases, you select an SSH key by name in the Key Name field. However, for VMware clouds, paste the contents of the SSH public key in this field.
If you have configured a cost center for the cloud, the Provision Blueprint to new Environment window shows the estimated cost for the environment.
Optional: If you made changes to the properties, you can save the changes to the configuration file by selecting the Save changes to configuration file check box. This check box appears only if you have made changes to properties and are using a configuration file.
Click Provision.

Results

The new environment appears on the Environments page of the blueprint designer and in the list of application environments on the IBM UrbanCode Deploy server.

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