Setting IBM® Bluemix™ preferences

This preference page is part of the functionality and tooling available in Domino® Designer to provide the infrastructure needed to modify, configure, and deploy XPages applications to and from Bluemix™.

To open the Bluemix™ preference panel, select File >Preferences and then select Domino Designer >IBM Bluemix.

The IBM® Bluemix™ preference panel lets you specify the following settings so that you can work with efficiently with applications on Bluemix™.

IBM® Bluemix™ Server settings

The IBM® Bluemix™ preferences panel lets you specify the following so that you can work with applications on Bluemix™.

• URL - Specifies the URL of the Bluemix™ server that stores your Bluemix™ applications
• Username - Specifies the user name of the account that you use to sign on to the Bluemix™ server that stores your Bluemix™ applications
• Password - Specifies the password of the account that you use to sign on to the Bluemix™ server that stores your Bluemix™ applications

After you have set the Bluemix™ server settings, you can test your connection to the server by clicking on the Test Connection button at the bottom of the IBM® Bluemix™ portion of the IBM® Bluemix™ Preferences panel

Deployment settings

The IBM® Bluemix™ preferences panel lets you specify the following so that you can work with applications on Bluemix™.

• "Wait for all instances to start" checkbox - When pushing an NSF up to the Bluemix™ server by using the Deploy button, a Designer job is started which creates the app on Bluemix™, updates the app staging info, uploads the files, etc. When this process completes, a start command is issued to Bluemix™ to begin staging the app. Bluemix™ then stages the app - which can sometimes take a period of time. If this checkbox is checked, the Designer process waits and polls Bluemix™ until Bluemix™ reports back that all application instances are up and running successfully. It then displays a dialog indicating that the deployment was successful (see the "Display success dialog when complete" checkbox). If the checkbox not checked, the Designer process finishes after it issues the start command to Bluemix™ and does not wait for the app to start and for Bluemix™ to report back the staging status.
• Timeout - Specifies the amount of time (in seconds) that you want Designer to spend polling Bluemix™ to report back the staging attempt status. If the app has not started within the timeout limit, this probably means that something has probably gone wrong with the deployment attempt and the app cannot be staged. This setting limits the time that you want Designer to be polling Bluemix™ for status reporting.
• Display success dialog when complete checkbox - Checking this checkbox specifies that you want to be notified when your application deployment process to Bluemix™ has completed successfully.

Hybrid Integration Profiles

The IBM® Bluemix™ preferences panel lets you specify the following so that you can work with hybrid applications on Bluemix™. Hybrid applications can be defined as ones where your application is deployed on Bluemix™ but it accesses its data from outside of the boundaries of the Bluemix™ platform. In other words, the key characteristic of hybrid applications is that the application data resides outside of Bluemix™.

The settings in this portion of the IBM® Bluemix™ preferences panel are there to assist you in setting up and configuring hybrid applications for use with Bluemix™. This section allows you to specify the settings for a frequently used hybrid configuration that can be easily added to your Bluemix™ applications using the Bluemix™ manifest editor. The preferences that you can set in this section of the panel include the following:

• General settings - The Bluemix manifest editor supports the hosts and domains options. These options are found on the General page in the manifest editor. The Hosts option lets you specify multiple hostnames or subdomains. Each hostname generates a unique route for the application. The Domains option lets you specify specify multiple domains for the application.
• Remote Data Connection - This section let you specify information about the desired private cloud or on-premises server. In this portion of the panel you specify
  • Server address - specifies the IP address of the desired on-premises or cloud-hosting server (for example, 126.228.15.68).
  • Server name - specifies the name of the desired on-premises or cloud-hosting server (for example, onpremises/yourserver).
• Runtime Application Container - specifies server credential information related to the desired Runtime Application Container. In this portion of the panel you specify
  • Server name - specifies the name of the runtime application container server (for example, xpagesruntime/runtimeserver).
  • Server ID file - lets you browse for the ID file location that contains the ID file that will be used during application staging (for example, C:\Domino\data\runtime-server.id).
  • Server ID password - specifies the optional password associated with the ID file that will be used during application staging.
• Enable directory assistance for authentication - Checking this option lets you allow the runtime application server to use a Domino® user directory on the remote server as follows: 1) to authenticate Internet users against the credentials in the directory, 2) to resolve users during NAMELookup calls, and 3) to resolve members of groups when authorizing database access. In this portion of the panel you specify
  • Domain name - specifies the domain name of a Domino® directory on the remote server.
  • Domain directory - specifies the file name of a Domino® directory on the remote server.

You can store and manage multiple (a maximum of twenty) hybrid configurations (profiles) for use in your Bluemix applications. This list of profiles can be edited.