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Tanzu Application Services deployments overview

This topic shows you how to deploy a publicly available application to your Tanzu Application Service (TAS, formerly PCF) space by using any deployment strategy in Harness.

Objectives​

You'll learn how to:

  • Install and launch a Harness Delegate in your target cluster.
  • Connect Harness with your TAS account.
  • Connect Harness with a public image hosted on Artifactory.
  • Specify the manifest to use for the application.
  • Set up a TAS pipeline in Harness to deploy the application.

Important notes​

  • For TAS deployments, Harness supports the following artifact sources. You connect Harness to these registries by using your registry account credentials.
    • Artifactory
    • Nexus
    • Docker Registry
    • Amazon S3
    • Google Container Registry (GCR)
    • Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR)
    • Azure Container Registry (ACR)
    • Google Artifact Registry (GAR)
    • Google Cloud Storage (GCS)
    • GitHub Package Registry
    • Azure Artifacts
    • Jenkins
  • Before you create a TAS pipeline in Harness, make sure that you have the Continuous Delivery module in your Harness account. For more information, go to create organizations and projects.
  • Your Harness Delegate profile must have CF CLI v7, autoscaler, and Create-Service-Push plugins added to it.
  • For the test connection in the connector, Harness uses the CF SDK to get the list of organizations. If the credentials are correct, you get a list of organizations. Otherwise, the connection fails. For more information, see the Cloud Foundry documentation.

Connect to a TAS provider​

You can connect Harness to a TAS space by adding a TAS connector. Perform the following steps to add a TAS connector.

  1. Open a Harness project and select the Deployments module.

  2. In Project Setup, select Connectors, then select New Connector.

  3. In Cloud Providers, select Tanzu Application Service. The TAS connector settings appear.

  4. Enter a connector name and select Continue.

  5. Enter the TAS Endpoint URL. For example, https://api.system.tas-mycompany.com.

  6. In Authentication, select one of the following options.

    1. Plaintext - Enter the username and password. For password, you can either create a new secret or use an existing one.
    2. Encrypted - Enter the username and password. You can create a new secret for your username and password or use exiting ones.

  7. Select Continue.

  8. In Connect to the provider, select Connect through a Harness Delegate, and then select Continue. We don't recommend using the Connect through Harness Platform option here because you'll need a delegate later for connecting to your TAS environment. Typically, the Connect through Harness Platform option is a quick way to make connections without having to use delegates.

    Expand the sections below to learn more about installing delegates.

Installing Harness Delegate

In your Harness project, select Project Setup > Delegates > Install Delegate, and then follow the delegate installation wizard. Use this delegate installation wizard video to guide you through the process.

You can also install the default Harness Delegate. For more information, go to Install Harness Delegate on Kubernetes or Docker.

To learn more about delegate, watch the Delegate overview video.

  1. In Set Up Delegates, select the Connect using Delegates with the following Tags option and enter your delegate name.
  2. Select Save and Continue.
  3. Once the test connection succeeds, select Finish. The connector now appears in the Connectors list.

Install Cloud Foundry Command Line Interface (CF CLI) on your Harness Delegate​

After the delegate pods are created, you must edit your Harness Delegate YAML to install CF CLI v7, autoscaler, and Create-Service-Push plugins.

  1. Open the delegate.yaml in a text editor.

  2. Locate the environment variable INIT_SCRIPT in the Deployment object.

    - name: INIT_SCRIPT  
    value: ""

  3. Replace value: "" with the following script to install CF CLI, autoscaler, and Create-Service-Push plugins.

    info

    Harness Delegate uses Red Hat based distributions like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or Red Hat Universal Base Image (UBI). Hence, we recommend that you use microdnf commands to install CF CLI on your delegate. If you are using a package manager in Debian based distributions like Ubuntu, use apt-get commands to install CF CLI on your delegate.

- name: INIT_SCRIPT  
value: |
 # update package manager, install necessary packages, and install CF CLI v7
 microdnf update
 microdnf install yum
 microdnf install --nodocs unzip yum-utils
 microdnf install -y yum-utils
 echo y | yum install wget
 wget -O /etc/yum.repos.d/cloudfoundry-cli.repo https://packages.cloudfoundry.org/fedora/cloudfoundry-cli.repo
 echo y | yum install cf7-cli -y

 # autoscaler plugin
 # download and install pivnet.
 wget -O pivnet https://github.com/pivotal-cf/pivnet-cli/releases/download/v0.0.55/pivnet-linux-amd64-0.0.55 && chmod +x pivnet && mv pivnet /usr/local/bin;
 pivnet login --api-token=<replace with api token>

 # download and install autoscaler plugin by pivnet
 pivnet download-product-files --product-slug='pcf-app-autoscaler' --release-version='2.0.295' --product-file-id=912441
 cf install-plugin -f autoscaler-for-pcf-cliplugin-linux64-binary-2.0.295

 # install Create-Service-Push plugin from community
 cf install-plugin -r CF-Community "Create-Service-Push"

 # verify cf version
 cf --version

 # verify plugins
 cf plugins

  1. Apply the profile to the delegate profile and check the logs.

    The output for cf --version is cf version 7.2.0+be4a5ce2b.2020-12-10.

    Here is the output for cf plugins.

    App Autoscaler        2.0.295   autoscaling-apps              Displays apps bound to the autoscaler
    App Autoscaler        2.0.295   autoscaling-events            Displays previous autoscaling events for the app
    App Autoscaler        2.0.295   autoscaling-rules             Displays rules for an autoscaled app
    App Autoscaler        2.0.295   autoscaling-slcs              Displays scheduled limit changes for the app
    App Autoscaler        2.0.295   configure-autoscaling         Configures autoscaling using a manifest file
    App Autoscaler        2.0.295   create-autoscaling-rule       Create rule for an autoscaled app
    App Autoscaler        2.0.295   create-autoscaling-slc        Create scheduled instance limit change for an autoscaled app
    App Autoscaler        2.0.295   delete-autoscaling-rule       Delete rule for an autoscaled app
    App Autoscaler        2.0.295   delete-autoscaling-rules      Delete all rules for an autoscaled app
    App Autoscaler        2.0.295   delete-autoscaling-slc        Delete scheduled limit change for an autoscaled app
    App Autoscaler        2.0.295   disable-autoscaling           Disables autoscaling for the app
    App Autoscaler        2.0.295   enable-autoscaling            Enables autoscaling for the app
    App Autoscaler        2.0.295   update-autoscaling-limits     Updates autoscaling instance limits for the app
    Create-Service-Push   1.3.2     create-service-push, cspush   Works in the same manner as cf push, except that it will create services defined in a services-manifest.yml file first before performing a cf push.
note

The CF Command script does not require cf login. Harness logs in using the credentials in the TAS cloud provider set up in the infrastructure definition for the workflow executing the CF Command.

Create a Deploy stage​

Pipelines are collections of stages. For this tutorial, we'll create a new pipeline and add a single stage.

  1. In your Harness project, select Pipelines, select Deployments, then select Create a Pipeline.

    Your pipeline appears.

  2. Enter the name TAS Quickstart and click Start.

  3. Click Add Stage and select Deploy.

  4. Enter the stage name Deploy TAS Service, select the Tanzu Application Services deployment type, and select Set Up Stage.

    The new stage settings appear.

Create Harness TAS service​

Harness services represent your microservices or applications. You can add the same service to as many stages as you need. Services contain your artifacts, manifests, config files, and variables. For more information, go to services and environments overview.

Create a new service​

  1. Select the Service tab, then select Add Service.

  2. Enter a service name. For example, TAS.

    Services are persistent and can be used throughout the stages of this pipeline or any other pipeline in the project.

  3. In Service Definition, in Deployment Type, verify if Tanzu Application Services is selected.

Add the manifest​

  1. In Manifests, select Add Manifest.
    Harness uses TAS Manifest, Vars, and AutoScaler manifest types for defining TAS applications, instances, and routes.
    You can use one TAS manifest and one autoscaler manifest only. You can use unlimited vars file manifests.

  2. Select TAS Manifest and select Continue.

  3. In Specify TAS Manifest Store, select Harness and select Continue.

  4. In Manifest Details, enter a manifest name. For example, nginx.

  5. Select File/Folder Path.

  6. In Create or Select an Existing Config file, select Project. This is where we will create the manifest.

    1. Select New, select New Folder, enter a folder name, and then select Create.

    2. Select the new folder, select New, select New File, and then enter a file name. For example, enter manifest.

    3. Enter the following in the manifest file, and then click Save.

      applications:
      - name: ((NAME))
      health-check-type: process
      timeout: 5
      instances: ((INSTANCE))
      memory: 750M
      routes:
        - route: ((ROUTE))

  7. Select Apply Selected.

    You can add only one manifest.yaml file.

  8. Select Vars.yaml path and repeat steps 6.1 and 6.2 to create a vars file. Then, enter the following information:

    NAME: harness_<+service.name>
    INSTANCE: 1
    ROUTE: harness_<+service.name>_<+infra.name>.apps.tas-harness.com

  9. Select Apply Selected.

You can add any number of vars.yaml files.

  1. Select AutoScaler.yaml and repeat steps 6.1 and 6.2 to create an autoscaler file. Then, enter the following information:

    instance_limits:
      min: 1
      max: 2
    rules:
    - rule_type: "http_latency"
      rule_sub_type: "avg_99th"
      threshold:
        min: 100
        max: 200
    scheduled_limit_changes:
    - recurrence: 10
      executes_at: "2032-01-01T00:00:00Z"
      instance_limits:
        min: 1
        max: 2

  2. Select Apply Selected.

    You can add only one autoscaler.yaml file.

  3. Select Submit.

Add the artifact for deployment​

  1. In Artifacts, select Add Artifact Source.

  2. In Specify Artifact Repository Type, select Artifactory, and select Continue.

    important

    For TAS deployments, Harness supports the following artifact sources. You connect Harness to these registries by using your registry account credentials.

    For this tutorial, we will use Artifactory.

  3. In Artifactory Repository, click New Artifactory Connector.

  4. Enter a name for the connector, such as JFrog, then select Continue.

  5. In Details, in Artifactory Repository URL, enter https://harness.jfrog.io/artifactory/.

  6. In Authentication, select Anonymous, and select Continue.

  7. In Delegates Setup, select Only use Delegate with all of the following tags and enter the name of the delegate created in connect to a TAS provider (step 8).

  8. Select Save and Continue

  9. After the test connection succeeds, select Continue.

  10. In Artifact Details, enter the following details:

    1. Enter an Artifact Source Name.
    2. Select Generic or Docker repository format.
    3. Select a Repository where the artifact is located.
    4. Enter the name of the folder or repository where the artifact is located.
    5. Select Value to enter a specific artifact name. You can also select Regex and enter a tag regex to filter the artifact.

  11. Select Submit.

Add the manifest and artifact as an artifact bundle​

Demo Video​

You can add both the manifest and artifact at the same time as an artifact bundle.

In the Harness service, when you add a manifest, select Artifact Bundle in Specify TAS Manifest Store.

When you use an artifact bundle, you do not need to add an individual artifact in the service's Artifacts section. Instead, you add a compressed file (ZIP, TAR, Tar.gz, Tgz) in Manifests that contains both the manifest and artifact.

Here's an example of a file structure that you would compress for the artifact bundle.

artifactBundle/
 - manifest/
    - manifest.yaml
    - vars.yaml
    - autoscaler.yaml
 - artifact-1.0.war

When you add the artifact bundle to your Harness service, you provide the paths to the manifest, artifact, and any vars.yaml and AutoScaler.yaml files:

picture 1

Configure the following artifact bundle settings:

  • Artifact Bundle Type: Select the type of compressed file. Currently, Zip, Tar, and Tar.gz are supported.
  • Deployable Artifact Path: The relative path to the artifact from the artifact bundle root after extraction.
  • Manifest Path: The relative path to the manifest from the artifact bundle root after extraction.
  • Vars.yaml path: The relative path to the vars.yaml file from the artifact bundle root after extraction. You can add multiple files.
  • AutoScaler.yaml: The relative path to the autoscaler.yaml file from the artifact bundle root after extraction. You can add multiple files.
Overrides

The standard override rules apply to an artifact bundle with these exceptions:

  1. If an artifact bundle store type is selected in in the service then it can be only overridden by the artifact bundle store type in Overrides. A different store type cannot be used in Overrides to override an artifact bundle type.
  2. If the Other store type is selected in the service, then it cannot be overridden by the artifact bundle store type in Overrides. The artifact bundle store type cannot be used in Overrides to override a different store type.

Define target infrastructure​

You define the target infrastructure for your deployment in the Environment settings of the pipeline stage. You can define an environment separately and select it in the stage, or create the environment within the stage Environment tab.

There are two methods of specifying the deployment target infrastructure:

  • Pre-existing: the target infrastructure already exists and you simply need to provide the required settings.
  • Dynamically provisioned: the target infrastructure will be dynamically provisioned on-the-fly as part of the deployment process.

For details on Harness provisioning, go to Provisioning overview.

Pre-existing TAS infrastructure​

The target space is your TAS space. This is where you will deploy your application.

  1. In Specify Environment, select New Environment.

  2. Enter the name TAS tutorial and select Pre-Production.

  3. Select Save.

  4. In Specify Infrastructure, select New Infrastructure.

  5. Enter a name, and then verify that the selected deployment type is Tanzu Application Type.

  6. Select the TAS connector you created earlier.

  7. In Organization, select the TAS org in which want to deploy.

  8. In Space, select the TAS space in which you want to deploy.

  9. Select Save.

Dynamically provisioned TAS infrastructure​

Here is a summary of the steps to dynamically provision the target infrastructure for a deployment:

  1. Add dynamic provisioning to the CD stage:

    1. In a Harness Deploy stage, in Environment, enable the option Provision your target infrastructure dynamically during the execution of your Pipeline.

    2. Select the type of provisioner that you want to use.

      Harness automatically adds the provisioner steps for the provisioner type you selected.

    3. Configure the provisioner steps to run your provisioning scripts.

    4. Select or create a Harness infrastructure in Environment.

  2. Map the provisioner outputs to the Infrastructure Definition:
    1. In the Harness infrastructure, enable the option Map Dynamically Provisioned Infrastructure.
    2. Map the provisioning script/template outputs to the required infrastructure settings.

Supported provisioners​

The following provisioners are supported for TAS deployments:

  • Terraform
  • Terragrunt
  • Terraform Cloud
  • CloudFormation
  • Azure Resource Manager (ARM)
  • Azure Blueprint
  • Shell Script

Add dynamic provisioning to the stage​

To add dynamic provisioning to a Harness pipeline Deploy stage, do the following:

  1. In a Harness Deploy stage, in Environment, enable the option Provision your target infrastructure dynamically during the execution of your Pipeline.

  2. Select the type of provisioner that you want to use.

    Harness automatically adds the necessary provisioner steps.

  3. Set up the provisioner steps to run your provisioning scripts.

For documentation on each of the required steps for the provisioner you selected, go to the following topics:

Map provisioner output​

Once you set up dynamic provisioning in the stage, you must map outputs from your provisioning script/template to specific settings in the Harness Infrastructure Definition used in the stage.

  1. In the same CD Deploy stage where you enabled dynamic provisioning, select or create (New Infrastructure) a Harness infrastructure.

  2. In the Harness infrastructure, in Select Infrastructure Type, select Tanzu Application Services if it is not already selected.

  3. In Tanzu Application Service Infrastructure Details, enable the option Map Dynamically Provisioned Infrastructure.

    A Provisioner setting is added and configured as a runtime input.

  4. Map the provisioning script/template outputs to the required infrastructure settings.

To provision the target deployment infrastructure, Harness needs specific infrastructure information from your provisioning script. You provide this information by mapping specific Infrastructure Definition settings in Harness to outputs from your template/script.

For TAS, Harness needs the following settings mapped to outputs:

  • Organization
  • Space
note

Ensure the Organization and Space settings are set to the Expression option.

For example, here's a snippet of a Terraform script that provisions the infrastructure for a Tanzu Application Services deployment and includes the required outputs:


provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
}

resource "aws_opsworks_org" "pcf_org" {
  name = "my-pcf-org"
}

resource "aws_opsworks_space" "pcf_space" {
  name = "my-pcf-space"
  organization_id = aws_opsworks_org.pcf_org.id
}

output "organization_name" {
  value = aws_opsworks_org.pcf_org.name
}

output "space_name" {
  value = aws_opsworks_space.pcf_space.name
}

In the Harness Infrastructure Definition, you map outputs to their corresponding settings using expressions in the format <+provisioner.OUTPUT_NAME>, such as <+provisioner.organization_name>.

Figure: Mapped outputs.

Select an execution strategy​

Now you can select the deployment strategy for this stage of the pipeline.

The TAS workflow for performing a basic deployment takes your Harness TAS service and deploys it on your TAS infrastructure definition.

  1. In Execution Strategies, select Basic, then select Use Strategy.

  2. The basic execution steps are added.

  3. Select the Basic App Setup step to define Step Parameters.

    The basic app setup configuration uses your manifest in Harness TAS to set up your application.

    1. Name - Edit the deployment step name.
    2. Timeout - Set how long you want the Harness Delegate to wait for the TAS cloud to respond to API requests before timeout.
    3. Instance Count - Select whether to Read from Manifest or Match Running Instances.
      The Match Running Instances setting can be used after your first deployment to override the instances in your manifest.
    4. Existing Versions to Keep - Enter the number of existing versions you want to keep. This is to roll back to a stable version if the deployment fails.
    5. Additional Routes - Enter additional routes if you want to add routes other than the ones defined in the manifests.
    6. Select Apply Changes.

  4. Select the App Resize step to define Step Parameters.

    1. Name - Edit the deployment step name.
    2. Timeout - Set how long you want the Harness Delegate to wait for the TAS cloud to respond to API requests before timeout.
    3. Ignore instance count in Manifest - Select this option to override the instance count defined in the manifest.yaml file with the values specified in the App Resize step.
    4. Total Instances - Set the number or percentage of running instances you want to keep.
    5. Desired Instances - Old Version - Set the number or percentage of instances for the previous version of the application you want to keep. If this field is left empty, the desired instance count will be the difference between the maximum possible instance count (from the manifest or match running instances count) and the number of new application instances.
    6. Select Apply Changes.

  5. Add a Tanzu Command step to your stage if you want to execute custom Tanzu commands in this step.

    1. Timeout - Set how long you want the Harness Delegate to wait for the TAS cloud to respond to API requests before timeout.
    2. Script - Select one of the following options.
      • File Store - Select this option to choose a script from Project, Organization, or Account.
      • Inline - Select this option to enter a script inline.
    3. Select Apply Changes.

  6. Add an App Rollback step to your stage if you want to roll back to an older version of the application in case of deployment failure.

  7. In Advanced configure the following options.

    • Delegate Selector - Select the delegate(s) you want to use to execute this step. You can select one or more delegates for each pipeline step. You only need to select one of a delegate's tags to select it. All delegates with the tag are selected.
    • Conditional Execution - Use the conditions to determine when this step is executed. For more information, go to conditional execution settings.
    • Failure Strategy - Define the failure strategies to control the behavior of your pipeline when there is an error in execution. For more information, go to failure strategy references and define a failure strategy.

    Expand the following section to view the error types and failure strategies supported for the steps in a Basic TAS deployment.

  • Looping Strategy - Select Matrix, Repeat, or Parallelism looping strategy. For more information, go to Use looping strategies.
  • Policy Enforcement - Add or modify a policy set to be evaluated after the step is complete. For more information, go to CD governance.
  1. Select Save.

Now the pipeline stage is complete and you can deploy.

Deploy and review​

  1. Click Save > Save Pipeline, then select Run. Now you can select the specific artifact to deploy.

  2. Select a Primary Artifact.

  3. Select a Tag.

  4. Select the following Infrastructure parameters.

    1. Connector
    2. Organization
    3. Space

  5. Click Run Pipeline. Harness will verify the pipeline and then run it. You can see the status of the deployment, pause or abort it.

  6. Toggle Console View to watch the deployment with more detailed logging.

The deployment was successful.

In your project's Deployments, you can see the deployment listed.

Next steps​

See CD tutorials for other deployment features.

FAQs​

For frequently asked questions about Tanzu deployments in Harness, go to Tanzu deployment FAQs.