For up-to-date product documentation, see the IBM MobileFirst Foundation Developer Center.

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation on cloud

Using V8.0.0, we can run instances of MobileFirst Server and MobileFirst Analytics in IBM® Containers on IBM Bluemix. Alternatively, we can also run instances of the MobileFirst Server on Cloud Foundry as Liberty for Java™ application on IBM Bluemix and connect them to MobileFirst Analytics instances deployed in IBM Containers on IBM Bluemix.

Supported operating systems include Linux and Mac OS X.

V8.0.0 package overview

The V8.0.0 package contains the artifacts to create a MobileFirst Server as a Cloud Foundry Liberty for Java application or as an instance in IBM Containers, a MobileFirst Analytics container, and the components necessary for configuring and deploying them to IBM Bluemix.

• The MobileFirst Server offering contains the following product components:
  • IBM MobileFirst™ Platform Server
  • IBM MobileFirst Platform Operations Console

  These product components are deployed either as Liberty for Java application or are deployed in IBM Containers.

• The MobileFirst Analytics contains the following product components:
  • IBM MobileFirst Analytics server
  • IBM MobileFirst Analytics console

  These product components can be deployed only in IBM Containers.

• More components:
  • Liberty for Java runtime
  • Configuration files
  • Scripts to build and deploy

You customize your product components in the containers before they are built and deployed to the IBM Containers service on Bluemix®.

See also Package structure and contents

Note: The Reports database is deprecated and does not work with IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation on IBM Containers. Instead, use a MobileFirst Analytics container. Ensure that the project WAR files in your containers do not have any artifacts or configurations that are related to the deprecated Reports database.

Using the IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation on Liberty for Java Cloud Foundry application

Go through the following main steps for using V8.0.0.

1. Customizing the product components included in the offering .zip.
2. Uploading and deploying the Cloud Foundry application with your customization.
3. Run the Cloud Foundry application on IBM Bluemix.

Using the IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation Containers

Go through the following main steps for using V8.0.0.

1. Customizing the product components included in the container.
2. Build the container image format with your customization.
3. Deploy and running the built images on the IBM Containers service.

Prerequisites

The following elements are required.

• A Java Runtime. See the system requirements for version information.
• Cloud Foundry CLI plug-in for IBM Containers (cf ic).

  Note: The prerequisite for using this plug-in is to install Cloud Foundry CLI. For details, see CLI and dev tools.

• A Docker installation

  Note: This installation is optional and is required if we want to install the MobileFirst Server in IBM Containers or if we want to install MobileFirst Analytics.

• An IBM Bluemix account

• Package structure and contents
  The V8.0.0 ibm-mfpf-container-8.0.0.0.zip package unpacks to the scripts and other necessary contents that deploy to IBM Bluemix.
• Set up V8.0.0
  To set up MobileFirst Server V8.0.0, we can follow the procedure described in this topic..
• MobileFirst Server as Liberty for Java Cloud Foundry application on IBM Bluemix
  We can setup and configure the MobileFirst Server V8.0.0 as a Liberty for Java Cloud Foundry application on IBM Bluemix using the procedure described here.
• MobileFirst Server container
  This section contains the information you need to configure and run a MobileFirst Server container.
• MobileFirst Analytics containers
  This section contains the information you need to configure and run MobileFirst Analytics containers.
• Securing containers
  
• Removing a container from Bluemix
  When we remove a container from Bluemix, we must also remove the image name from the registry.
• Removing the database service configuration from Bluemix
  If you ran the prepareserverdbs.sh script during the configuration of your V8.0.0 image, the configurations and database tables required for MobileFirst Server are created. This script also creates the database schema.
• Log and trace collection
  IBM Containers for Bluemix provides some built-in logging and monitoring capabilites around container CPU, memory, and networking. We can optionally change the log levels for our MobileFirst containers.
• Troubleshooting tips
  Here are tips for resolving common problems that might occur.
• Apply IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation interim fixes
  Interim fixes for IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation V8.0.0 on IBM Containers can be obtained from IBM Fix Central (http://www.ibm.com/support/fixcentral).
• Resolving problems with IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation deployed in IBM Containers or as Liberty for Java Cloud Foundry application on IBM Bluemix
  When we are unable to resolve a problem encountered while working with IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation on IBM Containers, be sure to gather this key information before contacting IBM Support.

Parent topic: Deploy to the cloud