Oracle Cloud: create Docker container with Java via CLI

This tutorial demonstrates, how to set up an instance of Oracle Application Container Cloud Service (ACCS, under the hood running Docker) with a pre-configured Java environment via the PaaS Service Manger (PSM) command line interface (CLI).
If you have followed my former postings on this

• Using PaaS Service Manager (PSM) for Oracle Cloud under Windows
• Running Oracle Cloud Stack Manager CLI from Notepad++

you should be ready to go when running a Windows client. Whatever OS and editor you are using, the tutorial expects that you have setup your psm, so it speaks to your Oracle Cloud Identity Domain.

The general idea of the Cloud Stack Manager is, that you define your wanted environment in a template first. That environment might consist of several instances and is called a stack. When you got your template, upload it to the Oracle Cloud Stack Manager and create as many instances, as you like.

I have always been a friend of starting with the simplest possible example and don't move on before that is understood and running. So this tutorial shows step-by-step how to set up a stack with a single ACCS Java instance.

1. Create a template

Pick your favorite editor and write your first template. Ideally, the editor supports running shell commands in the background and pipes the output to an editor window. 

Here is my template:

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--- template: templateName: Simple-Java-Template templateVersion: 42.0 templateDescription: "Hello Template World" parameters: containerName: label: Container Name description: Please enter the name of the Java Container type: string mandatory: true sensitive: false minLength: 2 allowedPattern: "[a-zA-Z]*" parameter1: label: Parameter1 description: Some Parameter 1 type: string mandatory: false sensitive: false parameter2: label: Parameter2 description: Some Parameter 2 type: string mandatory: false sensitive: false parameterGroups: - label: Mandatory Parameters parameters: - containerName - label: Some Other Parameters parameters: [ parameter1, parameter2 ] resources: abContainer: type: apaas parameters: name: { "Fn::GetParam":containerName } subscription: MONTHLY runtime: Java

The first general section is quite obvious: a name, version and description.
Then comes the parameters section. In fact, I only need one parameter to ask for the name of the container. But to demonstrate the Parameter Groups, I added two unused parameters.
The parameterGroups section covers the groups Mandatory Parameters and Some Other Parameters. These groups are for the UI to visually group the parameters.
The resources section is where the wanted resources are listed with their parameters. Here we only have one ACCS instance with Java taste. For the name parameter, we insert the value of the containerName parameter by using Fn::GetParam. The only other mandatory parameter is the chosen subscription.

2. Import the template

Now that we have a template, we are ready to go. It is a good idea to validate the template first by using PSM with the following line:

psm stack validate-template -f Simple-Java-Template.yaml

The output should look like this (from Notepad++)

As everything is OK with the template, it can be imported by using

D:\programme\python\Scripts\psm.cmd stack import-template -f "D:\Project\PSM\Simple-Java-Template.yaml"

and the output should look like this:

Switch to the UI to double check that the template is available in the Cloud Stack Manager

Of course this can also be done using the PSM command

psm stack list-templates

but the result gets quite a bit long. Just the relevant first lines:

3. Create an instance from the template

Now that we have a valid template imported into Cloud Stack Manager, we can start creating instances based on that.

When creating an instance via the UI, the following dialog comes up

That shows what the parameter groups are good for: they group the parameters.

But this tutorial is about using the command line. Create an instance using the PSM via

psm stack create -n ArneStack -t Simple-Java-Template -f ROLLBACK -p containerName:ArneJava

Copy the returned Job ID and check the status via

psm stack operation-status -j 4761735

and the output should look like

The same can be found in the UI when clicking on the status text.

Wait until psm stack operation-status returns something like

{
    "activityDate":"2017-03-31T13:37:31.896+0000",
    "message":"Creation of stack ArneStack successful."
}

Double check by executing

psm stack list

to see your newly created stack listed:

4. Test and delete the instance

Go the the UI and click on the name of the stack. This will bring you to the Stack Overview.

Click on the Application Web URL

That should bring up the test page. So with the instance is up and running this tutorial is finished. Delete the instance with

psm stack delete -n ArneStack

5. More information

Two more complex examples are delivered with your Oracle Cloud subscription, you will find them in the templates section of the Cloud Stack Manager UI. One with a MySQL DB and a PHP container (Oracle-LMP, a LAMP stack without Apache) and one with an Oracle DB and a WebLogic Server (Oracle-JCS-DBCS-Template).

Some Documentation:

• Using Oracle Cloud Stack Manager
• PaaS Service Manager Command Line Interface Reference

Running Oracle Cloud Stack Manager CLI from Notepad++

When creating template files for the Oracle Cloud Stack Manager (PSM), I find it usefull to run the PSM Command Line Interface (PSM CLI) directly from my favorite editor Notepad++. Here is a short how-to.

1. Install 32bit Notepad++

The required plugins won't run with the 64bit version. Not an issue for me, as I never brought the 32bit version to the limits. Get it from the authors site:
https://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v7.3.3.html

2. Install the Notepad++ Plugin Manger

Not sure, if the newer distributions already come with it. If you don't have a menu item Plugins|Plugin Manager, get it from Sourceforge and install it: https://sourceforge.net/projects/npppluginmgr/

3. Install NppExec

Open Plugin Manager (Plugins|Plugin Manager|Show Plugin Manager), pick the NppExec Plugin from the list of available Plugins. After restart, it should be available.

4. Save a command for PSM CLI and run it

With a PSM template open, hit F6 in Notepad++. Enter the following command for eg. PSM validation (adjust the path to your environment) and save it.

D:\programme\python\Scripts\psm.cmd stack validate-template -f "$(FULL_CURRENT_PATH)" 

5. Re-run PSM validate while editing

Via CTRL-F6, the last command can be re-run, so just write your template and CTRL-F6 to validate it.

VMWare Cloud Onboarding and Scaling with Ravello

This tutorial is about importing a VM from a VMWare infrastructure on-premise into the cloud with all its settings (storage, networking, VLAN's etc). Maybe you are running out of resources, but need to grow your VM or just need to free some resources in your VMWare environment without deleting some of the VM's.

Here is the VMWare client tooling, showing a running Linux VM. That 2012-Test VM should be migrated to a cloud environment.

Switch to Ravello and navigate to Library/VM's

Select Import VM.

If you haven't installed the upload tool, you get a download link. Install the Import Tool if necessary. Then log into the Import Tool and select Upload.

Choose Extract and Upload VM's from vCenter, vSphere or ESX (recommended).

Login with your VMWare credentials

Browse your VM's.

Use the search, if you have too many. Then choose the wanted VM and click Upload.

Waiting for the upload to be done. A good time to get some new coffee...

Finally done. That one took about an hour.

Switch to your library to find your new VM. Ravello also imported the VM sizing, which is 1 CPU, 4 GB RAM and 36 GB disk. Click on Edit and Verify VM and finish editing. The point about that is: after uploading the VM, it is available within seconds, as it runs in its original format. No conversion is necessary, the VM can immediately be used in an application.

To use that newly uploaded VM in an application, go to Applications, click on Create Application and on Create to finish that dialog.

Drag & Drop the VM into the application.

Switching to the NIC's tab shows, that the VLAN tag has also been imported.

On the Network tab see the networking. Click on Publish to publish the application to a cloud service provider.

Make your choice, then click on Publish. In this case, we did choose Performance Option. Only with that Option you can choose a location. A reason to do that may be latency requirements. Here, we selected the Location 'Europe West 2'.

Here you are, your on-premise VM is now running in the cloud.
But what if you might want some more horsepower, now that you can access resources from the cloud? Why not add more RAM and CPU?

As we already published this application to a cloud service provider, we need to stop the application first. Hint: if you already know, that you want more capacity, do this before publishing.

Change the settings to your like and click on Save.

Now this is important, so that is probably why the developers highlighted it and show you a warning. Click the Update button, or your changes won't apply.

Restart the VM, here are your 4 cores.

So this tutorial demonstrated, how fast and easy a VM can be copied from a given VMWare environment on-premise to a cloud service provider using Oracle Ravello. Relevant attributes as networking inlcuding VLAN-tagging have been imported. The VM has just been moved to the cloud, but thanks to Ravello it does not need to be converted (as with other vendors solutions), it just runs. Once running in the cloud, it is easy to scale up (and down again) the VM to your needs.