Modifying Blueprints

Overview

For this tutorial we will modify the number of virtual machines created by the tutorial blueprint, and convert some of the static properties like core count and memory size into variables. It is expected that you have completed the Deploying Infrastructure tutorial before you begin this tutorial.

To make these changes, we'll go through a typical modification workflow where we'll treat the environment you have just created as your PROD environment and from this clone a DEV environment

Goals

By completing this tutorial, you will learn to:

• Create a Development Environment

• Change the Blueprint

• Test the Changes

• Publish the Blueprint

• Update your Production Environment

Clone your Tutorial Environment

Set up a development environment that is derived from your production environment:

• Open the tutorial environment detail view.

• Using the Hamburger menuin the upper-right, select Duplicate.

• Rename the cloned environment to "development".

• Using the Hamburger menuin the upper-right, select the environment credentials to use

• Using the Hamburger menuin the upper-right, set the environment prefix to "dev".

• Set the admin_public_key variable contents. This can be the same public key you already used.

Enable Development Mode

• Click on the Environment List link below the new environment's name.

• In the "Dev-Enabled" column for the "development" environment, click to enable development mode. It should turn to a checkmark.

• Click on the "development" environment to see the details again.

Deploy the "development" Environment

You have not changed the blueprint yet, therefore when you apply this environment it will stand up another virtual machine environment. You typically want to apply the environment before you make changes because you can then use the "Preview" action after making changes to see what would happen.

Start Editing

To make a blueprint draft and begin editing:

• Click on the Tutorial.Yml blueprint entry.

• Click on the Edit button.

Adding Variables

Paste in the following new variables just below the admin_public_key variable:

  vm_cores:
    description: Number of vCPUs for the VM(s).
    type: integer
    min: 1
    default: 2
  vm_memory:
    description: Amount of memory for the VM(s).
    type: string
    default: 4 GB
  vm_count:
    description: The number of VMs to provision.
    type: integer
    min: 1
    default: 1

In the compute.vm.example resource, make the following changes:

• Change the value of cores from 2 to (( vm_cores ))

• Change the value of memory from 4 GB to (( vm_memory ))

• Add a new property named count and set the value to (( vm_count ))

Once complete it should look like this:

Correct compute.vm.example changes

Notice that since we have modified the blueprint it is now considered a draft. The version at the top says 1.0 draft. If you click on that, a list of older versions appears. You can compare this draft with any older version using the compare action in this list.

Testing

Now that you have made some changes, you can preview those changes to see if they would effect any difference in your development environment:

• At the bottom of the blueprint editor, select the "development" environment.

• Click Open to go to the "development" environment with the draft blueprint. (You must open the Version menu and select the draft, known issue)

• Click Preview to run a preview job.

• Switch to the Environment view and wait for the job to finish, then open it.

• Click on "Details"

• Scan the list for "Inspect Changes" - if there are no links, no changes were made. Given the variables added to the tutorial made no changes, this is expected.

Now try modifying the vm_count variable in the development environment, setting it to 2. After you do that:

• Click Preview to run a preview job.

• Inspect the job details and you will find some changes were made. Unlike before, changes are expected because you changed the VM count from 1 to 2.

• Click Apply to apply the environment.

• Using the venue-specific management console, confirm there are now two VMs.

• Modify the vm_count back to 1.

• Click Apply to apply the environment.

• Using the venue-specific management console, confirm there is once again only one VM.

Publishing

Assuming all jobs succeeded, we've made modifications and tested them, so we are ready to publish an update to this blueprint. Since the change is compatible with the previous version (all the variable defaults are the same as the static values from version 1.0), you can make the new version 1.1:

• Go to the Blueprints detail view.

• In the ... (ellipsis) menu, select Promote New Version.

• Set the new version to 1.1 and click Promote.

Now that a new version of the blueprint has been published, you can update the blueprint version used in your "production" environment:

• Open the "tutorial" environment (remember, this is your "production" environment).

• Toggle open the version menu for Tutorial.Yml.

• Select version 1.1

• Apply the environment to provision it with the latest changes. If you do not change any variables, there will be no changes.

• You can now experiment with changing the vm_count, vm_cores, and vm_memory variables.