Central configuration management allows teams to manage configurations in a centralized repository. Configurations can be versioned, inherited in a hierarchy, and consumed by applications through a client that pulls configurations from the repository. This eliminates the need to manually distribute and tweak local configurations, and enables self-service access to configurations.

1. PimpYour
Pipeline
Central
Configuration
Management
Jens Saade, youngculture
April 25th 2015, Iasi CodeCamp Romania

3. ReferencesAbout youngculture Group
Jens Saade
Head Innovation & Technology E-Commerce
Engineering Background (Retail, PIM, E-Commerce)
Located in Zürich, CH
Dev
Process
Architecture
Innova2on
Ini2a2ves

4. Central Configuration
Repository
Appliance in Continuous
Delivery
Automation &
Configuration
Intro youngculture
E-Commerce

5. Intro:
E-Commerce
@YC

6. youngculture ECOM team delivers highly
integrated E-Commerce Solutions based on
the Hybris Platform.

7. Customized B2C Storefront Showcase

8. B2C & B2B
Shops and
PIM Systems

9. Delivering good quality in a highly
complex project environment is only
possible by aligning team, processes
and infrastructure environments.

10. Con2nuous
Delivery
Configura2on
Mgmt
Test
Automa2on
Cloud
Services
Automated
Provisioning
Workspace
(Confluence,
JIRA)
Prac2ce
Meetups
Integrated
Communica2on
(HipChat)
System
Monitoring
HW/OS
(NewRelic,
Nagios)
Applica2on
Monitoring
Logs
(Elas2cSearch/
Kibana,
Splunk)
Performance
(Dynatrace),
Delivery
Environment
Environments
CAM
Collaborate
AutomateMonitor
TeamsSystems
Projects

11. Automation

12. Continuous Delivery
Familiar with the Concepts?
Tried applying it in own Company?
Part of your Culture?

13. AUTOMATION
is hard work ...
expensive to establish...
and can get pretty complex
BUT
... reduces monkey work
... speeds up the dev & delivery processes
... calms down stress level
...and raises confidence and quality.

14. Release anytime, reproducible
Create
Hybris
Projects,
Extension
and Addons
Setup
Continously
Build
deployable
artifacts
Build
Assess
Software by
Automated
Testing
Test
Continuous Delivery
Overview
Install for
testing,
acceptance
and
production
Deploy
> Commit Stage > Acceptance Stage > Deployment Stage
Feedback Feedback Feedback
Establishing a Delivery Pipeline is a joint team effort! It involves lots of disciplines
and evolves constantly.

15. CustomersDevelopers Product
Owner
Scrum
Master
Delivery Process: Automation is Key
Test Execution Env
Jenkins
CI
Artifactory Repository
Git
Repository
Hybris
Node
YC
Deploy
Client
Apache
HTTPdSelenium
Gatling
JMeter
Test Exec Hybris Test
Commit Stage
Acceptance Stage
Deploy Stage
Continuous Delivery
Monitoring Node
Stage/Production
Hybris
Node1
Hybris Cluster
Apache
HTTPd
Varnish
Apache
HTTPd
Varnish
DB
Cluster
Load Balancer
ElasticSeach
Logstash
Kibana
Zabbix
External
Monitoring
NewRelic
Hybris
Node 2
YC
Deploy
Client
YC
Deploy
Client
Hosting Environment
TeamsInfrastructures
Maintenance team

16. One essential problem left:
Configurations

17. Ecosystem of
Configurations
Versioned
Software
Artifact
Dev
1
Dev
2
Ops
1
Ops
2
QA
Test specifc
artifact
versions for
regressionQA on
features
Create new
Conf
Property
Share his
conf with
Dev 2
Prepare
Rollout
Conf for
tonight
Enable
feature for
customer
Req
Eng
Introduce
new concept,
define triggers
A=1
B=true
c=debug

18. 7
Env.properties
?
Project Specific
236Project.properties
436Advanced.properties
7
Env.properties
?
Project Specific
236Project.properties
436Advanced.properties
Node 1
7
Env.properties
?
Project Specific
236Project.properties
436Advanced.properties
Node 2
7
Env.properties
?
Project Specific
236Project.properties
436Advanced.properties
Node 3
1 Clustered Environment
Dev(s)
QA Systems
Production
UAT/Stage
...
Hybris Configuration Stack (Properties based)

19. (manual)
Configuration

20. Central
Configuration
Management

21. Diversity: Support complex environment setups
!=
We need good concepts how to configure
environments nearly equivalent
but allow flexibility for individual deviations

22. „The most efficient way to manage
configuration is to have a central service
through which every application can
get the configuration it needs.“
Jez Humble and Dave Farley
„Continuous Delivery: Reliable
Software Releases through
Build, Test, and Deployment
Automation“, Addison-Wesley
2010

23. Artifact
Generic
Configuration
Machine
Java VM
Rolling out Configurations
Configurations get
packaged and rolled out
JVMs are bootstrapped
from packaged
configurations
Machine
Java VM
Machine
Java VM
Machine
Java VM
Environment
Configuration

24. Turning from distributing (and manually
tweaking) local configurations ...
... to a centralized environment
that hosts configurations for self-service.
Direction change:
Push -> Pull

25. Artifact
Machine
Java VM
Rolling out Configurations, alternative
Rollout Software Artifact as
usual, but keep it generic,
just provide configuration
IDs
Isolate configurations from the
deployment package and provide
it centrally from the CCR
Machine
Java VM
Machine
Java VM
Machine
Java VM
UUID
Generic
Configuration
CCR
Environment
Configuration
UUID
UUID UUID
UUID
UUID
Generic
Configuration
Environment
Configuration

26. Hierachical Key-Value Store
Configuration
Configuration
UUID3
UUID4
Machine
Application
Client Wrapper
Central Configuration Repository (CCR) and Consuming Clients
Agent pulls
configuration properties
via REST / Json
Then injects properties
to JVM System context
MachineMachineMachine Machine
Machine
Machine
Machine
MachineMachineMachineMachine
Machine
Machine
Machine
Machine
Machine
REST / Json
discoBit
A
P
I
Admin UI
CCR

27. CD & CCR
Applied @YC

28. Configuration Hierarchies
Automated space
UUID1
Shared space
UUID2
UAT Environment
UUID7
UAT node 1
UUID8
UAT Node 2
UUID9
QA: Nightly Build Test System
UUID6
Personalized Conf Developer A
UUID3
Personalized Conf Developer B
UUID5
Ops
1
Ops
2
QA
Dev
1
Dev
2
Req
Eng
Continuous Delivery
Cycle

29. Customized (env1)
UUID3
Customized (env2)
UUID4
Machine
Java VM
discoBit Java Agent (UUID4)
System Context Injection via Java Agent
discoBit
Agent pulls
configuration properties
via REST / Json
Then injects properties
to JVM System context
Automated space
UUID1
Shared space
UUID2

33. jsaade@MacBook-Pro:~/hybris/hybris-commerce-suite-5.4.0.0/hybris/bin/platform$ ./hybrisserver.sh
Launching a JVM...
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:33 PM com.v3rticle.oss.discobit.client.bootstrap.DiscobitSettings <init>
INFORMATION: [discobit] configuring server from system: http://127.0.0.1:8089
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:33 PM com.youngculture.ecom.hybris.discobit.HybrisDiscobitAgent execute
INFORMATION: Reading discobit configuration from http://127.0.0.1:8089::bb2835fb-466c-4143-8081-ffcd60c49467
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:33 PM com.v3rticle.oss.discobit.client.bootstrap.DiscobitSettings <init>
INFORMATION: [discobit] configuring server from system: http://127.0.0.1:8089
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:33 PM com.v3rticle.oss.discobit.client.bootstrap.DiscobitSettings <init>
INFORMATION: [discobit] configuring server from system: http://127.0.0.1:8089
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:33 PM com.v3rticle.oss.discobit.client.DiscobitConnector authenticate
INFORMATION: [discobit] authentication response: HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:33 PM com.v3rticle.oss.discobit.client.DiscobitConnector authenticate
INFORMATION: [discobit] authentication cookie: [[version: 0][name: JSESSIONID][value:
65452FC130FE2F87E8655BF05D5F0A90][domain: 127.0.0.1][path: /][expiry: null]]
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:34 PM com.youngculture.ecom.hybris.discobit.HybrisDiscobitAgent execute
INFORMATION: injected 677 properties to system context
WrapperManager: Initializing...
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:39 PM org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule begin
WARNUNG: [SetPropertiesRule]{Server/Service/Engine/Host/Context} Setting property 'disableURLRewriting' to 'true'
did not find a matching property.
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:40 PM org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule begin
WARNUNG: [SetPropertiesRule]{Server/Service/Engine/Host/Context} Setting property 'disableURLRewriting' to 'true'
did not find a matching property.
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:40 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol init
INFORMATION: Initializing ProtocolHandler ["http-bio-9001"]
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:40 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol init
INFORMATION: Initializing ProtocolHandler ["http-bio-9002"]
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:45 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol init
INFORMATION: Initializing ProtocolHandler ["ajp-bio-8009"]
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:45 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina load
INFORMATION: Initialization processed in 5834 ms
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:45 PM org.apache.catalina.mbeans.JmxRemoteLifecycleListener createServer
INFORMATION: The JMX Remote Listener has configured the registry on port 9003 and the server on port 9004 for the
Platform server
Apr 20, 2015 1:42:45 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService startInternal
INFORMATION: Starting service Catalina

34. Key Take
Aways

35. Key Take Aways
• Simple, unified approach to avoid wide-spread
configuration and their mutation
• Language & product agnostic
• Enabling other teams and colleagues to take
controlled influence on configs in general
• Needs a clear strategy concerning delivery cycle,
security and infrastructure

36. Usecases
• Configure applications in hosting enviroments,
test farms, desktops
• Developers share configurations while creating a
solution
• QA configures their testing systems individually
• Dark launching of software changes
• Feature toggling for indidual usage profiles

37. Pros
• Central administration
• Create multi-level configuration inheritance
• Turn from a push-based model to a consumer
pull-based self service
• Allow fine grained access to (parts) of
configurations for different stakeholder roles
• Change properties without rollouts (trigger
reload events instead)
+
+
+
+
+

38. Cons (yes there are)
• Accessibilty from environment to CCR needs to
be resilient, fallbacks needed (e.g. local caching).
• Configuring during runtime can have unforseen
side effects in your application (check lifecycle).
• Administrative access to configurations needs to
be well thought.
-­‐
-­‐
-­‐

39. Where to go next? Potential Extensions
• Tracking changes possible (who did what and
when)
• Add versioning by storing configs in an SCM for
rollbacks ore regression testing
• Stage changes for different rollout scenarios
• Add hierarchical config structures like YAML

40. Questions?

41. Thanks!
Mail: j.saade@youngculture.com
Twitter: @jenssaade
youngculture.com
Hybris.com
discoBit.com

42. Appendix

43. Continuous Delivery Hosting
QA Testing
Jenkins CI
Embedding into Continuous Delivery Flow
discoBit
Application
Instance 2
UUID 2
Application
Instance 1
UUID1
Application
Instance n
UUID n
Config
Repository
REST API
Artifactory
Distributable
Artifact
Acceptance Stage
Deploy Stage
deploybuild configure
UI
1
2
3
Commit Stage
env.properties
project.properties
advanced.properties

44. Continuous Delivery
QA Testing
Source (git)
Jenkins
Stacked Configurations in the Central Config Repo
Commit Stage
env.properties
discoBit
Application
Instance 1
UUID3
Acceptance Stage
Deploy Stage
deploybuild configure
Automated space
UUID1
Shared space
<extends>
UUID2
UUID1
<extends>
Customized (env2)
Customized (env1)
UUID3
UUID4
Devs’ Machine
Application
Instance 3
UUID4
Application
Instance 2
UUID3
1
2
project.properties
advanced.properties
merge