Using Jenkins for SOA Deployment Automation

Last month, my client wanted me  to have a framework for automating the builds.Already the build scripts were in place. Because of the amount of changes/code fixes that different teams were checking in, the situation called for daily/frequent builds to be initiated.To make my customers job easy I was on the lookout for automating the deployments using a GUI automation tool. In my previous project we had used Cruise Control. After comparing different automation tools, I decided on Jenkins (Hudson) a more light weight easy to use tool and having strong support base.

To get started download Jenkins.war file from http://jenkins-ci.org/

There are 2 ways in which you can use Jenkins

1. Run Jenkins in Winstone servlet container

The easiest way to execute Jenkins is through the built in Winstone servlet container. You can execute Jenkins like this:

Set JAVA_HOME

Then run java -jar jenkins.war

Accessing Jenkins

To see Jenkins, simply bring up a web browser and go to URL http://myServer:8080 where myServer is the name of the system running Jenkins.

2. Deploy  Jenkins into Weblogic server

The Jenkins.war cannot be deployed to Weblogic server without some changes. These are necessary because of Weblogic's proprietary class loaders which behave differently compared to Tomcat, JBoss, et. al.

Refer the  steps @ https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Weblogic

 

Once the web app is up and running.

In Dashboard --> Create New Job 

Add steps to Execute shell scripts and build files

Once the build is initiated the log entries and progress of build can be monitored in the Console output.

If you ask me which automation tool to pick for your project my answer will be Jenkins.