Interactive Deployment Workflow
Product documentation enables an end user to understand, install, configure, and run an enterprise product. Technical information when complemented by visual artifacts add to an end user’s delight and value to the technical documentation. Visual artifacts can be delivered as static images, videos, or an interactive illustration. When we establish a two-way communication between the end user and an illustration, we help the user to achieve business goals and HPE to deliver in customer delight. In this paper, we describe and discuss one such visual artifacts that has been developed and delivered successfully to the target audience.
Introduction to Image Streamer
HPE Synergy Image Streamer is an HPE Synergy management appliance used to host, configure and serve operating systems to the HPE Synergy compute modules. The Image Streamer appliance uses artifacts such as Plan Scripts, OS Build Plans, Golden Images, and Deployment Plans to deploy and configure the operating systems for HPE Synergy compute modules. Image Streamer managed by HPE OneView achieves operating system deployment on stateless servers by maintaining the physical state and deployed state of a compute module separately. The software state contains the firmware configuration, network connections, boot settings and the iLO configuration, and is stored in the server profiles available in HPE OneView. The deployed OS volume contains the Golden Image (a combination of a bootable operating system, applications, and I/O driver version) and personality (hostname, IP configuration), and is stored in the Image Streamer OS volume. This stateless experience helps in achieving consistent software deployment and update, easy repair, or replacement of the servers.
Steps required to perform a deployment
To perform a deployment using Image Streamer:
- The Infrastructure administrator configures the HPE Synergy Composer and Image Streamer appliances in an enclosure.(Involves setting up the frames, cabling, and interconnects)
- The Software administrator creates the artifacts and the custom attributes in the appliance using REST API or user interface.
- The Server administrator specifies the OS deployment settings using the server profiles in HPE OneView.
- The Image Streamer appliance creates an OS volume and performs the OS deployment with the specified user settings on the OS volume.
- Once the deployment is successfully completed, the compute module is powered on. It boots and runs from the OS volume. After successful deployment, the server profile is updated with the details of the OS volume.
As evident from the steps to perform a deployment, to setup Image Streamer appliance and then perform a deployment using Image Streamer appliance, a user needs to juggle between a number of documents. These documents can be from a set of Hardware documents to HPE OneView documentation. This causes a new user to spend a considerable amount of time in searching for the appropriate information and then reading it.
With the introduction of interactive deployment workflow (https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=a00006150en_us), a user is provided a guidance to perform steps that leads to deployment. Each step has a definition and link to the required documentation landing page. This interactive workflow saves a lot of time and energy of the user and helps the user to perform deployment in a few steps. The solution emulates the real time Thunderbird Enclosure setup where, the two Composable Infrastructure Slots are engaged by the HPE OneView and HPE Synergy Image Streamer appliances. A click on any step illuminates the corresponding appliance that provides the user a clear insight about the appliance where the step activity is taking place.
What can the audience expect to learn?
The presentation will help the audience understand the logic behind the deployment workflow and will enable them to emulate the workflow to solve configuration and installation problems around new products. This workflow will help attendees to create a customized guided interaction for their customers to achieve deployment solutions.
Meet the presenter
Technical Communicator with 12 years of writing experience. A Post Graduate in Computer Application with strong domain knowledge in Enterprise Software, Finance, and E-Learning products.
Likes to ideate different visual artifacts and implement them for customer delight. Aspires to be a product evangelist someday.