Last year DELMIA Quintiq introduced Docker containers. A container is a standard unit of software that packages up software components and all its dependencies in order to easily be deploy the solution on a virtual machine without any installation of these software components.
The use of containers makes it much easier to deploy new solutions or extend existing solution as no installation of software components is required. But before containers can be deployed, they need to be configured. For example to specify the connections between components, name and location of the model, licensing information etc. Such configuration can be quite challenging as there are typically many settings to be provided for a successful deployment. Popular container management tools such as Kubernetes and JFrog are superb in managing the deployment of containers but are limited in supporting DELMIA Quintiq specific configuration. To overcome this challenge, DELMIA Quintiq Environment Manager R2024 Golden will also support the configuration and deployment of Docker containers.
The DELMIA Quintiq Environment Manager is a DELMIA Quintiq solution specifically designed to support the deployment and monitoring of DELMIA Quintiq solutions in customer environments. One of its powerful features is the graphical user interface that allows the user to graphically manage the DELMIA Quintiq component configuration for any given solution. The screenshot below shows a typical configuration (blueprint) with an application server, DB integrator and QTCE.
In one single overview, the user can see:
- What components will be deployed
- On what host the components will be deployed
- What model will be deployed
- What ports are used for connecting the components
- What the deployment status is of the components
A blueprint is created and maintained by using simple drag and drop actions. Double clicking on a component shows relevant properties of the component. Once the blueprint is complete and ready for deployment, QEM will generate an execution plan as shown in the screenshot below:
This execution plans shows the steps that QEM will execute to deploy the blueprint. For each step, the parameters are displayed and can be modified if required. Once the execution has been reviewed, the user can proceed with the actual deployment by pressing "Execute…".
What is also a strong feature of QEM is that it keeps track of the last deployed configuration. If a configuration is changed after it has been deployed, a revision plan will be generated and only the differences will be deployed.
Last but not least QEM can also support High Availability architectures, allowing switching between primary and secondary environments with only a single click. Quite powerful stuff!
With DELMIA Quintiq Environment Manager R2024 Golden, the power of Docker containers can be truly unleashed. If you want find out more about the DELMIA Quintiq Environment, please watch the recording of the webinar on QEM that took place in October of this year.
