Getting started with an HCL Commerce environment
Options for setting up an environment
Commerce environment consists of various micro services running inside a container. Each services running and linked together will give you a full environment. There are many ways you can bring up an environment. Here we'll learn various aspects of Commerce environment deployment/configuration.
Single instance environment for getting started with HCL Commerce
In this guide you'll learn how to quickly get an environment running on your local machine using docker-compose. It will show you the minimum required configuration needed to bring up each of the docker images. You can use this method to quickly try out Commerce or for demo/test purpose.
Test environment using docker-compose with vault
In addition to the previous guide, here will learn how to configure the docker images if you don't store secrets (i.e. database info, credentials, etc.) in your configuration file, which is recommended for a Production deployment. Having secrets in your configuration file is a security risk because anyone with access to the configuration files have access to sensitive information. Those sensitive information should be dynamically pulled from a secret management service like Vault, where access to sensitive information is much more restrictive.
Standalone production-like environment using docker-compose
This guide is an extension of the first one where you learned how to bring up a test environment. In a true Production, you'll have 2 instances of Commerce running. One is an Authoring (or auth) instance where you test out various changes to Commerce and another is a Live instance, where you'll promote your changes from the Authoring instance.
Deploying in a Kubernetes cluster on local machine
In a Production environment, you're likely going to be using a cloud native solution where docker containers are deployed to a cluster and configure your deployment that best suits your need. Kubernetes is a popular open-source tool for managing a cluster and deploying docker applications. This guide is intended to help you try out a Kubernetes cluster on your local machine for test purpose and where you can deploy Commerce environment.