Example: end-to-end provisioning

In this example we are going to look at how you can use the BigFix Operating System deployment and Server Automation applications to complete an end-to-end server deployment. This example shows a process starting with the deployment of an operating system profile on a newly created computer through to the point where the newly created computer is up and running as a web server. The entire process is fully automated end-to-end using an Automation Plan.

To begin the process, we first create a simple two step Automation Plan, as follows:
  • For step 1, we want to provision a new computer with an operating system and a software image. We can do this by adding the Deploy operating system to one or more registered computers Fixlet as the first step in our Automation Plan. The operating system profile contains a version of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux® operating system. This version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux® contains an Apache HTTP system.
  • Then we add a second step to our Automation Plan. This step is a baseline with six components that we have created for this purpose. Step 2 will apply a patch to the Apache HTTP system and then start the Apache web server so that when the Automation Plan has completed, we have provisioned a new computer and it will be up and running as a web server. The baseline contains components for the following:
    • Change the CPU usage
    • Stop the Apache server
    • Apply a patch
    • Restart the computer
    • Start Apache
    • Set the CPU usage back to normal level

To run the Automation Plan we click Take Action:

  1. For step 1, we need to target the Bare Metal Server that contains the operating system profile that we want to deploy for the new computer. We also need to specify the required parameters for step 1 in our Automation Plan. These required parameters are:
    • MAC address of the new computer.
    • The new computer's computer name. We need to note this as we need to provide it when specifying the target for step 2.
    • We select the Bare Metal Profile that we want to deploy on the new computer. This is the operating system profile that we want to deploy on the new computer.
    This completes the first step in the Automation Plan, and by the time this step has completed, the new computer will be provisioned with an operating system and an Apache web server.
  2. For step 2 in the Automation Plan, which is to apply a baseline to this new computer created in step 1, we must specify the target computer. Because the target computer does not yet exist and we cannot select it in the system, we need to target it by its computer name that we entered in step 1. We enter the computer name that we specified for the new computer in step 1 of the Automation Plan.
  3. The Automation Plan is now ready to go so we click OK. The Automation Plan is then executed and we can track its progress.
After the Automation Plan has completed, a new computer has been created and is up and running as a web server.