Working with Artifacts

As an Application Developer, you use Artifacts to identify and re-deploy the exact same version of a Component deployment on a different Environment.

Important! The actions that you can perform depend on your folder permissions. See: Assigning Release Automation Permissions.

This page includes the following:

About Artifacts

Artifacts are single versions of Application Component deployments, which are located in a certain repository. To access each repository type, connection properties must be defined at Artifact Source Custom Type level. Artifacts reference real files in the repository, which contain the Component version. Examples of Artifacts are: MyApp_05.02.2018.jar, DB-??.sql, /db/v3/scripts/*.sql, MyRepo LATEST.

An Artifact is a version of a file to be deployed. In a Deployment Package, an Artifact is created for each Component.

Click the image to expand it.

Image displaying artifacts in context of ara deployment model

Artifact Sources store all properties that are used to connect to the repository where the Artifacts are located. The type of data stored depends on the Artifact Source type (for example, URI, user, password). You can define an unlimited number of Artifact Sources in the system.

Artifact Source custom types (for example, HTTP or FPT) can be either manually defined or installed via Action Packs.

Prerequisites

Note the following before working with Artifacts and Artifact Sources:

Recommended Design Sequence

Your Artifact Model should be designed in the following order:

  1. Define the Artifact Source. You may need to create a new Custom Type for the new Artifact Source first.
  2. Create an Artifact.
  3. Create a new Package or assign the Component to an existing Package.
  4. Assign the Artifact to a Component. (See: Assigning Artifacts to Components)
  5. Assign the Artifact to a Package Component. (See: Creating and Assigning Artifacts to Package Components)

Viewing Artifacts

  1. Open the Release Automation perspective.
  2. Click the Applications tab.
  3. Double-click a Component to open it.
  4. Click the Artifacts tab. The list of Artifacts that are defined for the current Component is displayed.

Note: Alternatively, you can view the Artifacts that are related to a specific Artifact Source from the Artifacts view. See: Working with Artifact Sources

Viewing Installations of an Artifact

Artifact Installations can be accessed:

Viewing Artifact Assignments

The Package Assignments view shows all Components to which the Artifacts have been assigned.

Creating Artifacts

Artifacts can be created:

Changing the Properties of an Artifact

The properties of an Artifact are defined by the custom type of the Artifact Source.

To change the properties of an Artifact you can use:

The following properties are displayed:

Assigning Artifacts to Components

  1. Open the Release Automation perspective.
  2. Click the Applications tab.
  3. Double-click an Application to open it and select a Component.
  4. Click the Artifacts tab at the top of the view.
  5. Click the Create Artifact button in the toolbar. The Create Artifact dialog is displayed.
  6. Select an Artifact Source.
  7. Enter a name for the new Artifact.
  8. The Source Path and Archive Type (for example .zip, .tar, .tar.gz) fields are populated with the values defined in the Artifact Source custom type. Both fields are editable.
  9. Enter the remote artifact checksum file to be downloaded (See: GetArtifact Action in Component Workflows).
  10. Click Create.

Note: An Artifact assigned to a Package cannot be removed from the Component.

Assigning Artifacts to Package Components

  1. Open a Package and click the Components tab.
  2. Click the Select Artifact inline button on the right side of the page.
  3. Select the Artifact that you want to assign to the Package Component.

    Important!

    • Only Artifacts which have been already assigned to a Component are displayed.
    • The latest Artifact assigned to a Component on which the user has the required permissions will be auto-assigned to a Package during creation.
  4. Click OK.

Duplicating Artifacts

  1. Select the Artifact you want to duplicate and click the Duplicate button in the toolbar. The Duplicate dialog is displayed.
  2. Optionally, enter a new name for the Artifact. It can only contain alphanumeric characters, blanks, ".", "-", "_", "@", "$", "#".
  3. Clear the checkbox to remove the component assignments from the source artifact.

Important! Passwords are not copied to the new Artifact.

Deleting Artifacts

You can delete an Artifact from the Artifacts list of an Artifact Source. Click the Delete button in the toolbar.

Notes:

Conditions to delete entities of type Artifact

GetArtifact Action in Component Workflows

The GetArtifact Action is included by default in all Component Workflows created with the option Create a blank Component Workflow (see: Adding Component Workflows) or with the Application wizard (see: Creating Applications Using the Wizard).

For compliance purposes, this Action downloads the Artifact and the checksum file from the external artifact source (repository) and transfers them to the local agent. The values retrieved from the repository will be then compared with the values calculated by the system. If the values do not match, you can decide if you want to resume the deployment or cancel it.

You can do the following:

Note: Click the image to expand it.

For more information, see: GetArtifact Action

See also: