Install Software AG products like never before

Significantly reduce effort for large-scale installations with Command Central 9.12

Command Central 9.12 introduces a web User Interface (UI) for product installation and instance management. The UI is similar to the well-known Software AG Installer but also enables parallel installations for large landscapes. It does not matter if your installation’s nodes are local or remote—you can easily install everything from one place.

Issue 1, 2017 Download PDF

Install in a complex landscape

It has never been easier to install Software AG products in complex landscapes than with Command Central 9.12. While previous versions of Command Central already offered options for remote product installations, such as composite templates and CLI commands, those options were aimed at advanced DevOps developers who wanted to automate the complete landscape creation and configuration. Command Central 9.12 introduces a user-friendly installation UI that helps regular users easily provision a complex landscape.

Each triggered installation is handled asynchronously so that Command Central can execute several installations in parallel, as shown in Figure 1. This reduces the overall time needed for installing across several nodes.

Figure 1: The Relationship Between All Existing Installation Interfaces and Their Platform Managers

Command Central installation vs. Software AG Installer

Command Central has several advantages over Software AG Installer for installing products in a large complex environment.

First, there is no need to transfer images to the target environment. Once you define the installation source in Command Central, either as a connection to Empower or as an image, it will be used for all installations in the environment.

There is no need to transfer the installer to the target machines, nor to log in remotely and trigger the installation. Everything is centrally orchestrated through the UI in Command Central. To use Command Central remote control, you must have the Software AG Platform Manager running on the target machine.

An installed set of products can be easily copied from one installation to create a similar one. This functionality is built into the installation UI and does not require additional installation scripts.

Creation of default” instances is not part of the installation process. This gives you more time to create database schemas and organize licenses before creating an actual instance of a product.

All licenses are kept centrally in the Command Central License Repository, so there is no need to copy those licenses to the target machines.

Command Central can compare the installed nodes to make sure they are equal when building up clusters.

Install Software AG Platform Manager

Before provisioning a new landscape, you must first bootstrap Software AG Platform Manager (SPM) on the target nodes and connect them to Command Central. SPM is a lightweight agent that controls a single Software AG installation.

We recommend you bootstrap SPM either via the Command Central UI wizard or the Command Central Bootstrap Installer.

Installing SPM via Command Central UI

To remotely bootstrap SPM via the Command Central UI, you should navigate to the “Installations” tab and click on the “+” sign as shown in Figure 2. This will open a wizard where you can connect an existing remote SPM or bootstrap a new SPM via a Secure Shell (SSH).

If the target machine is Windows®, an SSH server must to be installed and configured there. For more details, please refer to the Command Central Help.


Figure 2:
Remotely Bootstrap SPM via the Command Central UI

Installing SPM via Command Central Bootstrap Installer

The Command Central Bootstrap Installer can be found in the Software Download Center on Empower, next to the Software AG Installer, as shown in Figure 3.


Figure 3:
Command Central Bootstrap Installer on Empower

Download the version for the platform that is needed for your target environment. Copy it on the machine and install SPM with the following command:

To specify custom ports for the platform manager refer to the bootstrap installer help screen (--help).

SPM will be directly started after the installation. In Command Central, connect to the newly bootstrapped platform manager via the “add new installation wizard.” To open the wizard navigate to the “Installations” tab and click on the “+” sign. Give the target host where SPM was just started and select the “Platform Manager is already installed” option as shown in Figure 4.

The installation will be added to landscape and the SPM status will be shown in Command Central.

Figure 4: Connect the Bootstrapped Platform Manager in Command Central

Install products like never before

The SPMs are now in place and it is clear what products have to be installed on them. For example, there might be a stateful webMethods Integration Server cluster with Terracotta Server Array stripes communicating via Universal Messaging active-active cluster. Additionally a My webMethods Server cluster might be required to process the business process management tasks in high availability. Command Central will help you install these scenarios easier than ever before with more control and in less time. Let’s explain the details.

Note: Installation UIs will work only against SPM 9.8+!

Start from the major Command Central screen and navigate to the “Installations” tab. Select a SPM installation where you want to install new products, then navigate to the “Products” tab. Click on the “+” sign to start the installation wizard as shown in Figure 5 and 6.


Figure 5:
Install New Products


Figure 6: The Installation Wizard

Next, select the source repository. A mirror repository will only function if you install SPM 9.10 or later. Select a set of products to be installed. All products that are not supported by the installer are greyed out. A dependency check is automatically performed as the user proceeds through the wizard.

Note that in the Command Central installation workflow, the instance creation for Integration Server, My webMethods Server and Universal Messaging are separate from the product installation. 

Give life to your installations—instance creation

In Command Central, the installation process is separated from the instance creation process. This gives you greater flexibility to:

  • Create database schemas in a random moment
  • Specify instance names—this is especially useful when creating a UM cluster
  • Provide licenses on instance creation and not directly at the time of installation

Note: UI instance creation works only with SPM 9.12+!

To start managing instances in your landscape, navigate to the “Installations” tab and select the SPM installation where you want to create new instances. Navigate to the “Instances” tab, click on the “+” sign and choose an instance type as shown in Figure 7. 


Figure 7: Manage Instances

Instance types are dependent on the products available on a particular SPM installation. In Figure 7, only the Integration Server is installed on the target SPM.

Choosing the instance type will start the instance creation wizard. The instance creation wizards are different per product, as shown in Figure 8. 


Figure 8
: Instance Creation Wizards Differ by Product

Summary

The new installation functionality provided by Command Central is a leap towards easier and more scalable installation and operation of Software AG products in a complex landscape. The user experience makes onboarding simple—everyone who is familiar with the Software AG installer will feel comfortable instantly.

While Command Central is designed to be backward-compatible and the 9.12 version can work with SPM 9.0+, some product dependencies make SPM 9.12 the first version that can close the installation loop through the UI as it supports both product installation and instance creation.

Want to test the new functionality? It takes less than 10 minutes to check it out. Simply install Command Central 9.12 from its bootstrap installer, add the Empower repository and instantly start provisioning products following the instructions provided in this guide.