Creating the configuration development environment

When you create the configuration development deployment, you deploy i2 Analyze on a single server in the same deployment pattern as your intended production system.

Before you begin

The easiest approach is to use the containerized configuration development environment as your schema development environment and configuration development environment. The containerized environment provides functionality that makes it easier to develop your i2 Analyze configuration, including:

  • No requirement to install a database management system locally

  • Improved experience for editing configuration files

  • A simplified deployment process

After you develop your configuration in the containerized development environment, you can export your configuration to use with your on-premise deployment toolkit in the pre-production, test, and production environments.

If you intend your production deployment to contain only the i2 Connect gateway, and to be accessed only through Analyst's Notebook, you can use your schema development environment as your configuration development environment. In this scenario, you can move to develop the i2 Analyze configuration.

If your intended production deployment contains the Information Store, ensure that you have access to the following files from the schema development environment so that you can copy them to the configuration development environment:

  • The Information Store schema

  • The associated charting scheme

  • The security schema

  • The user registry, user-registry.xml

If you did not create a schema development environment because you intend your production environment to contain the Chart Store, you must retrieve equivalent files from the deployment toolkit:

  • The Chart Store schema, chart-storage-schema.xml

  • The associated charting scheme, chart-storage-schema-charting-schemes.xml

  • The example security schema, example-dynamic-security-schema.xml

For deployments that include the Chart Store, the following procedure explains how to create an example user registry when it becomes necessary to do so.

Procedure

  1. Install any prerequisite software to prepare your server for the configuration development environment.

    • For the configuration development environment, prepare your server for the Single server deployment topology with the same components and database management system as in your intended production system.

  2. Create the configuration directory in the i2 Analyze deployment toolkit.

    1. Navigate to the toolkit\examples\configurations directory where you installed i2 Analyze.

    2. Copy the configuration directory from your chosen base configuration to the root of the toolkit. For example, copy the toolkit\examples\configurations\information-store-opal\configuration directory to the toolkit directory. For more information about the different base configurations, see The base configurations.

  3. If you are using SQL Server as your database management system, copy the example topology.xml file from configuration\examples\topology\sqlserver to the configuration\environment directory. Overwrite the existing topology.xml file in the destination directory.

  4. If you are using IBM HTTP Server, in the topology.xml file set the value of the http-server-host attribute to true.

To allow the deployment toolkit to create and modify components of i2 Analyze, you provide user names and passwords for each of the components in your configuration.

  1. Specify the user names and passwords to use for the deployment in the toolkit\configuration\environment\credentials.properties file. For more information about credentials in i2 Analyze, see Specifying the deployment credentials.

  2. Copy the JDBC driver to use with the deployment to the configuration\environment\common\jdbc-drivers directory. For more information, see Specifying the JDBC driver. You do not need to provide a JDBC driver for deployment that contains only the i2 Connect gateway.

  3. Use the deployment toolkit to populate some of the mandatory settings with default values:

    setup -t generateDefaults

    The environment.properties and topology.xml are modified by this toolkit task. For more information about the default values that are provided, see Configuration files reference.

  4. Specify the i2 Analyze schema, charting scheme, and security schema that you previously prepared.

    1. Copy your i2 Analyze schema, charting scheme, and security schema files to the configuration\fragments\common\WEB-INF\classes directory.

    2. In the configuration\fragments\common\WEB-INF\classes\ApolloServerSettingsMandatory.properties file, set the file names of the schema, charting scheme, and security schema.

      • If your deployment includes the Information Store or the Chart Store, set SchemaResource and ChartingSchemesResource.

      • If your deployment includes the i2 Connect gateway and you have developed a gateway schema, set Gateway.External.SchemaResource and Gateway.External.ChartingSchemesResource

      • In both cases, set DynamicSecuritySchemaResource

  5. Deploy i2 Analyze:

    setup -t deploy

  6. If you created a schema development environment, copy the user registry file from that environment to the deploy\wlp\usr\shared\config directory in the new environment.

    If you did not create a schema development environment, execute the following command to create an example user that you can use to log in:

    setup -t ensureExampleUserRegistry

    The user has the user name 'Jenny' and the password 'Jenny'.

  7. Start i2 Analyze:

    setup -t start

    The URI that users must specify is displayed in the console. For example:

    Web application available (default_host): http://host_name:9082/opal/

What to do next

After you deploy i2 Analyze, you can begin Developing the i2 Analyze configuration.