How to setup your SCAS/IWD/PureApp plugin development environment?

The IWD technology is used in different IBM products such as IBM SmartCloud Application Services (SCAS) and IBM PureApplication (part of the PureSystems product line).

This technology uses patterns to deploy application and the underlying infrastructure. Pattern-types defines the rules to design patterns. SCAS out of the box provides pattern-types such as the “Web Application” or the “Java” pattern-types. Developers wrote the plugins which define the pattern-types.

The IWD technology provides a Plugin Development Kit (PDK) which allows you to develop your own plugin for IWD and therefore add extra functionality to exiting pattern-type or write your own. The PDK also provides a number of wizard and editors to help you during the IWD plugin development.

Check this video (older PDK version, now it is much more easier).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHBkeV5Wzuk&list=PLe-4bVgNcJvijRMNquMz8Xt3meXHJOd2y&index=13[/youtube]

To setup your environment you will need:

1) An Eclipse environment, I used the Eclipse SDK platform 3.7.2
2) Install the PDK (SCAS is currently running IWD 3.1.0.2 which support PDK 1.0.0.4).
3) Python interpreter: SCAS is using 2.6.4 and the installation method, of course, depends on the OS.
4) Python Eclipse plugin, which will provide you Python editor.
5) JavaScript Development Tool: This will provide you basic json editor.
6) Also the FireFox JSON add-on is very useful to read the storehouse.

1) Eclipse:

Install Eclipse as usual.

2) PDK:

The PDK provided on SCAS R1.0 is the PDK 1.0.0.3 but you can use the version 1.0.0.4 which is available via the SCAS InfoCenter. You will find there also the procedure to install it. In case of the link doesn’t work follow this path for the installation procedure:

SCAWS-PDK installating PDKThe plugin can be downloaded from DeveloperWorks
Tips: Once you install Eclipse, you will find the ‘ant’ tool in the plugins/org.apache.ant…./bin directory of you Eclipse installation.
Here the main steps:

  1. Download and install Eclipse
  2. Download the Plugin Development Kit from the SmartCloud Application Workload Service console. It important, you use the version provided by the console because pattern-type generated by PDK 1.0.3 can not be uploaded on version 3.1.0.1, it needs version 3.1.0.2 of IWD. You can find here the compatibility matrix between PDK and IWD version here
  3. Unzip the PDK in a directory
  4. run ‘ant’ in this directory.
  5. Install the plugin on the Eclipse platform.
    For that you have to open the “Help” menu->Install New Sotftware, click on ‘Add’, provide a name and select the ‘Archive’ located in the PDK directory called ‘com.ibm.maestro.plugin.pdk.site.zip’.
  6. Open the Workload Plug-in development perspective.
  7. From the Windows preference, select ‘IBM Workload Plug-in’.
  8. Enter the SCAWS IP address, the user ‘cbadmin’ and his password.
    SCAWS PDK Credentials
  9. You can ‘Test’ the connection.
  10. “OK”

3) Python Interpreter:

From pydev.org you can download the version 2.6.6 for your specific OS. Of course, please check first if not already installed.

4) Python Eclipse Plugin:

The python Eclipse plugin will provide you python editor which is very useful while developing virtual application scripts.
To install it, please follow, the procedure described at: PyDev Installation Guide.

5) JavaScript Development tool:

From the Eclipse repository, search the ‘JavaScript Development Tool’ and install it.
SCAS Install JavaScript Development ToolsThen associate the *.json files with the ‘JavaScript Editor’.
SCAS Associate JavaScript Development Editor to json file6) FF JSON Add-on

As you know, many files in the storehouse are in a json format and thus the FireFox Json add-on is very useful to view json file in a well formatted way.
I installed the JSONView add-on which provide this kind of view when you open a json file from the SCAWS console.
SCAS FireFox JSONView Add-on example