8 Replies Latest reply on Feb 4, 2010 3:44 AM by camunda

    Deployment mechanism details

    gubespam
      Can anyone shed some light on how deployment (of business archives and process definitons) works in jbpm 4? There is an Ant task that can be used to deploy deployments into jBPM, which I have working fine.

      The user guide says that artifacts are deployed directly to the database over a JDBC connection. Now, let's say that my business archive contains classes as well as process definitions. Don't I really have to do two steps, then:

      1. run the ant task to push metadata into the jbpm database

      2. copy the bar file into the jboss deployment directory?

      Without the second step, how would jbpm be able to load my classes at runtime? Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but I don't fully understand how it works.
        • 1. Re: Deployment mechanism details
          kukeltje
          Yes, but from 4.3 (but I'm not 100% sure, see the jira issues and releasenotes for this release) you can add them to the 'business archive' again and deploy only to the db, but I'm not 100% sure. But always keep in mind that you need access to dependent classes anyhow (e.g. external jar files cannot (afaik) be deployed to the db
          1 of 1 people found this helpful
          • 2. Re: Deployment mechanism details
            gubespam

            Gotcha, so there's no magic going on in deployment. The jBPM "deployment" is really just a push of data into the database, right?

             

            On the flip side: Let's say I create a BAR and put it into jboss' deploy directory. Is anything going to happen automatically? Is there any facility bundled with jBPM that allows it to automatically pick up that BAR and "deploy" it to the jBPM database?

            • 3. Re: Deployment mechanism details
              kukeltje

              There was but at the same time was not. Get it? No? Neither did/do I, at least not fully ;-). A jira issue has ben created afaik to get this working (again). Just see the jira and maybe vote for it.

               

              Cheers,

               

              Ronald

              • 4. Re: Deployment mechanism details
                gubespam

                Huh? Not working? What does that mean? I was just trying to understand what the functionality was - ie. what's in the spec? It seems like there is no spec (at least not in the dev or user guides). What specifically are you saying is not working?

                 

                Can you tell what the Jira number is?

                • 5. Re: Deployment mechanism details
                  kukeltje

                  Huh? Not working? What does that mean? I was just trying to understand what the functionality was - ie. what's in the spec? It seems like there is no spec (at least not in the dev or user guides).

                   

                  Exactely... it is not defined. Some reported some things working in some (older) versions of 4. So basically there officially is nothing.

                   

                  https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JBPM-2743

                   

                  Next time do  al little searching in the jira please... I used the words 'jbpm deployment' and selected the open issues and found this as number 4.... It's not so hard.

                  • 6. Re: Deployment mechanism details
                    gubespam

                    Thanks. Honestly, that is strange for something that is so central to using jBPM.

                     

                    As for the Jira, I was totally confused as to what aspect of the issue you were referring to, so thanks.

                    • 7. Re: Deployment mechanism details
                      kukeltje
                      Deploying is central, but that can be done in many ways. So it is not a showstopper. What makes deploying via a .bar file more difficult is that you have to have official checks in place regarding versioning. People can often do that best themselves meaning deciding upfront and e.g. looking if new processes should be deployed when the app (war/ear) is deployed with e.g. a startup servlet or...
                      • 8. Re: Deployment mechanism details
                        camunda

                        Deploying via JBoss Deployer is still under discussion, since it raises a lot of problems to be tackled (deployment of classes associated with the process, especially when using scoped deployment; what happens on undeployment; when is undeployment executed, since a shutdown of the server already does an undeployment as well; ...).

                         

                        This needs some serious thinking, which involves the SOA platform guys as well. And somehow because of the lack of time there wasn't much progress in that area. Especially because there are other ways working as Ronald noted...

                         

                        Cheers

                        Bernd