Live Deployments in Release

The Live Deployments feature enables you to track deployments from various sources and embed them in your release process. Previously, only deployments that were started from a task in the release process were known in Release. You can now listen to deployment events from external tools like Digital.ai Deploy and ArgoCD and view live updates in Release. All the deployment activities are on the same page, whether it comes from cloud-native Kubernetes environments or classic middleware. Additionally, you can make the external deployments part of the release flow, even when they are not orchestrated by Release.

• The Live Deployments dashboard helps you track "what is deployed where" and "what is the status of the deployed applications".
• Digital.ai Deploy and ArgoCD are supported. Support for other tools will be available in subsequent versions.
• Embed live deployment event in your release process using Webhook Event Triggers and the Webhook: Wait for Deployment Event task.

Prerequisites

• Release 24.3 (or later) with Runner setup
• Argo CD and Deploy container plugins for Release (installed by default)
• Deployment providers: Deploy 24.3 (or later) and/or Argo CD servers

The Live Deployments feature lets you:

• Onboard new deployments—set up new deployments in external deployment providers such as Digital.ai Deploy or Argo CD by using the step-by-step automated workflow.

• Connect to existing deployments—in other words, connect to existing deployment providers and listen to existing application deployments from external deployment providers such as Digital.ai Deploy or ArgoCD.

  

In this context, depending on what you want to do, you must have the required setup in place to configure Live Deployments in Release. In other words, you must have the required setup to run Deploy, Release (including the Release Runner) and Argo CD, and to deploy the applications. You must also keep the Argo CD and/or Deploy server credentials handy so that you can set up connections between your Release instance and the existing deployment providers.

In the case of Argo CD, you must also have administrator permissions on the Argo CD server to enable webhook events for applications using the config map generated during the Live Deployments configuration. For more information, see Argo CD Notification Services—Webhook.

Working with the Live Deployments Dashboard

Here's an example Live Deployments dashboard—both the List and Tile views.

Live Deployments Dashboard—List View

Live Deployments Dashboard—Tile View

The Live Deployments dashboard shows the following information for every deployed application:

• Name of the application
• Version of the deployed application
• Status of the deployed application
• The environment to which the application was deployed
• Duration since the application was last updated

Action Menu to Manage Deployed Applications

You can do the following for every deployed application in the Live Deployments dashboard.

• View in deployment system—lets you open the application in the external deployment provider. Here's an example application in Argo CD.

  

• View Configuration details—lets you view the application configuration details.

  

• Delete application—lets you undeploy an application. For more information, see Delete Applications.

Filter Applications

You can filter applications by name to find the application you want in a long list of applications in the dashboard.

Resync Deployed Applications

Click Resync in the Live Deployments dashboard to manually refresh the current state of applications in Release.

For example, when you do not want to see cached deployments in the dashboard or if something went wrong, you can click Resync to refetch the current state of all the deployed applications.

Set up Connections in Release

As a first step, you must establish connections in Release to Deploy and Argo CD servers that you may have.

1. Click Connections > Digital.Ai Deploy Server.

   The New Digital.ai Deploy Server settings page appears.

   

2. Type the required details to create a connection between the Digital.ai Release and Digital.ai Deploy servers.

3. Click Test to check the connection and save the changes if the connection is successful.

4. Click Connections > ArgoCD: Server.

   The New ArgoCD: Server settings screen opens.

   

5. Type the required details to create a connection between the Digital.ai Release and Argo CD servers.

6. Click Test to check the connection and save the changes if the connection is successful.

Your Digital.ai Release server is now successfully connected to Digital.ai Deploy and Argo CD servers.

Connect to Existing Deployments—Argo CD Server

Here's how you set up live deployments for an existing Argo CD server.

1. Select a folder in which you want to set up live deployments.

2. Click Connect from the Connect existing deployment tile.

   

   The Create deployment server workflows page appears.

   

3. Click Run workflow from the ArgoCD setup deployment server tile.

   The Choose connection page appears.

   

4. Select the Argo CD server you want to connect to from the ArgoCD server drop-down list and click Next.

   

5. An automated configuration task is triggered to configure the Argo CD server.

   

   This automated task generates the Argo CD config map that is required to enable live application event notifications in Argo CD.

   

6. You must copy the manifest and configure webhook in Argo CD to enable live application event notifications. For more information, see Argo CD Notification Services—Webhook.

7. Click Finish in the Autoconfig response page once you copy the Argo CD config map. Another automated task is now triggered to fetch the target server (Argo CD) details.

   

8. Once the target server details are fetched successfully, the Live deployment configuration name page appears.

9. Type a name for the deployment configuration.

   

10. Click Next. The Live deployment configuration filter page appears.

    

11. Type the application filter to listen to only those applications you are interested in. You can use regex to filter the applications. Typing .* (the default) tracks all the applications.

12. An automated task is triggered to apply annotation to all the applications matching the specified filter.

    

13. If successful, you will see the You're all done message. Click Close.

    

14. The Live deployment status dashboard appears with the list of deployed applications and their status.

    

Connect to Existing Deployments—Digital.ai Deploy Server

Here's how you set up live deployments for an existing Digital.ai Deploy server.

1. Select a folder in which you want to set up live deployments.

2. Click Connect from the Connect existing deployment tile.

   

   The Create deployment server workflows page appears.

   

3. Click Run workflow from the Deploy setup deployment server tile. The Choose connection page appears.

   

4. Select the Deploy server you want to connect to from the Deploy server drop-down list and click Next.

   

5. An automated configuration task is triggered to create configuration items in Release for connection to the Deploy server and to generate CIs in Deploy to enable live event notifications.

   

   

6. Click Finish in the Autoconfig response page once the webhook configuration on the Deploy server is successful.

   

7. The Live deployment configuration name page appears.

   

8. Type a name for the deployment configuration.

   

9. Click Next. The Live deployment configuration filter page appears.

10. Type the application filter to listen to only those applications you are interested in. You can use regex to filter the applications. Typing .* (the default) tracks all the applications.

11. Type the environment filter to listen to only those environments you are interested in. You can use regex to filter the applications. Typing .* (the default) tracks all the environments.

    

12. Click Next.

13. An automated task is triggered to create webhook configuration CIs on the Deploy server. The Check configured CIs page appears at the end of this step.

    

    

14. Click Finish.

15. The Live deployment status dashboard appears with the list of deployed applications and their status.

    

Delete Applications

You can delete applications from the Live Deployments dashboard. Deleting an application essentially undeploys the deployed application.

To delete (undeploy) an application:

1. Click the ellipses icon of the application you want to undeploy.

2. Select Delete application from the short-cut menu.

   

3. A confirmation message appears.

   

4. Click Delete. The Application Details page appears.

   

5. Verify the application details and click Next.

6. An automated undeploy task is triggered to undeploy the application.

   

7. A You're all done message appears once the application is undeployed successfully.

   

8. Click Close.

Edit or Delete a Live Deployment Configuration

To edit or delete a live deployment configuration:

1. Click Configure from the Live deployments dashboard.

2. Click the ellipses icon of the configuration you want to edit or delete.

   

3. Select Edit or Delete from the short-cut menu to edit or delete the configuration respectively and follow the on-screen wizard.

   

Add New Deployments

1. Click Configure from the Live deployments dashboard.

2. Click Add.

   

3. Click the Add server tile.

   

4. Follow the on-screen wizard and add a new Deploy or Argo CD server as discussed in the following sections:

   • Connect to Existing Deployments—Argo CD Server
   • Connect to Existing Deployments—Digital.ai Deploy Server
   • Onboard New Deployments

Onboard New Deployments

You can set up new deployments in external deployment providers such as Digital.ai Deploy or Argo CD by using the step-by-step pre-defined automated workflows.

1. Click Onboard from the Onboard new deployment tile of the Setup live deployments page.

   

2. Click Run workflow to run any of the following workflows and follow the on-screen wizard to complete the onboarding.

   

• AWS Lambda setup function with Digital.ai Deploy
• Argo Rollouts install
• ArgoCD install
• ArgoCD setup application
• Azure setup application with Digital.ai Deploy
• Digital.ai Release setup folders and variables
• GCP setup application with Digital.ai Deploy
• Helm application setup with Digital.ai Deploy
• Tomcat DataSource setup with Digital.ai Deploy
• Websphere JaasAlias setup with Digital.ai Deploy