Command Central 10.11 | Common Use Cases with Command Central | Install or Upgrade Product Installations with Stacks
 
Install or Upgrade Product Installations with Stacks
After you complete the steps in this topic, you will have installed or upgraded the Software AG product installations in your environment through Command Central stacks.
A stack represents a set of product installations. In the stack, the products from the installations are organized in logical layers, see Understanding Software Stacks. The layers in the stack refer to Command Central templates, which have the details required to install or upgrade the products. The templates are imported in Command Central and you can define layers in different stacks that refer to the same template. Based on how you run the stack, you can create fresh installations or upgrade the existing installations that Command Central manages.
Level of Difficulty
Moderate to Low. When you work with the Command Central stacks, most of the install or upgrade actions are automated, but you should be familiar with how the products in the webMethods product suite interact and work together.
Prepare for the Install or Upgrade with Stacks
*Install and configure Command Central as described in the Software AG Command Central Help.
*Make sure you have valid license keys for the Software AG products that you include in the stacks.
*Check the Software AG Command Central Supported Features Matrix for the supported product configuration and migration types.
*When installing products, check Installing Software AG Products for any product-specific requirements.
*When upgrading products, follow the instructions in Upgrading Software AG Products On Premises to prepare the existing installations for the upgrade.
*Download the Command Central bootstrap installer (for the release version of the fresh installation or the target upgrade version) and save the downloaded Command Central bootstrap installer file into the $CC_HOME/profiles/CCE/data/installers directory. You can then specify this bootstrap installer in the infrastructure layer of the stack.
Step 1: Set up Repositories
The repositories are the source of the product or fix installation files. You can connect to the Software AG repositories (hosted on Empower and added in Command Central as master repositories), create a local copy of the Empower repositories (added as mirror repositories), or use a product or fix image (created by the Software AG Installer or Software AG Update Manager and added as an image repository). Command Central will use the repositories to install the products and apply the fixes available for those products.
1. Choose a repository setup that works for you: Understanding Software Stacks
2. Set up the repository credentials:
* Create Credentials Aliases
*"COMMON-CREDENTIALS Usage Notes" in Configuration Types for Command Central and Platform Manager OSGI ENGINE (the command line interface)
3. Add the repositories:
* Connect to Software AG Repositories; Create, Refresh, or Change Sources for a Mirror Repository of Products or Fixes (the web user interface)
* sagcc add repository products; sagcc add repository fixes (the command line interface)
Step 2: Import the Product License Keys in Command Central
Import the license keys for the products that you want to install (or upgrade) and assign an alias to each license key: Import Product License Keys for Instances or Components and sagcc add license-tools keys.
Step 3: Configure the SSH Connection to Each Remote Machine
Check if the UNIX or Windows operating system on the remote machine has a Secure Shell (SSH) server running. Also, make sure that the system is configured for remote access with the user account for the Software AG products.
*Set up the connection to the remote machine and the credentials alias for the SSH user: Bootstrapping Platform Manager Using the Default SSH and WinRM Templates; "COMMON-CREDENTIALS Usage Notes" in Configuration Types for Command Central and Platform Manager OSGI ENGINE
*Optional. Configure a substitute user: Bootstrapping on a Remote Machine with a Substitute User
Step 4: Create the Stacks
Use one of the following options to create a stack:
*Create a stack from scratch. With this option, you create the stack and its layers using the default templates (from sagdevops-templates) or templates generated from existing installations that Command Central manages. For details about creating a stack from scratch, see Creating a Stack, sagcc create stacks, and sagcc create staks layers.
*Use auto-create stacks. With this option, Command Central automatically creates the stacks for the installations that you specify as described in Create Software Stacks from Existing Environments and sagcc create stacks auto. Note that you can use this option only for standard product installations managed by Command Central.
Step 5: Prepare the Property Files to Use with the Stacks
Create one or more properties files with the values that you must specify for the required input parameters of the layers in the stack. You can also customize other parameters in the layers with a properties file, for example if you want to specify different values for different environments. In the Stacks view of the Command Central web user interface, you can import the properties file(s) that you want to use for the layers in a stack. You can also export the parameters you specify for a layer into a properties file.
Step 6: Run the Stacks
After you create a layer in a stack and specify the required properties for the layer, Command Central installs the products in the layer automatically on the specified host machines.
When you want to upgrade product installations through a stack, you can conduct a dry run of the upgrade to identify and troubleshoot issues before the actual upgrade. During the dry run, Command Central generates the migration templates for the upgrade, but does not apply them on the target machines. For instructions how to run the upgrade operation, see "Create an Upgraded Installation Using Command Central and Software Stacks (10.1 and Later)" in Upgrading Software AG Products On Premises.
Note that if you have custom files and configurations that should get copied (such as adapter jar files), you must run the upgrade as follows:
1. Click Dry run to generate the migration templates.
2. Locate the migration templates in the Templates view and add the custom files or configurations in the generated templates.
3. Run the actual upgrade and click the option to re-use the generated templates.
Step 7: Monitor and Troubleshoot the Template Application
Use the Jobs view in the Command Central web user interface to monitor the status of the template apply job and access the logs: Correcting a Failed Composite Template Apply Operation.