Testing a topology design

Use the Test tab to test and manage topology design provisioning without having to publish the design or create a service offering. You can test the following types of topology designs:

• Partial design - A partial design is any design that contains capabilities. Such a design cannot be provisioned on its own and requires the selection of one or more compatible microservice designs. The partial design and the microservice designs are then composed to form a composite design, which can then be provisioned. During the test run of a partial design, you will be prompted to select from the list of candidate microservice designs. A valid microservice design:

  • Is a concrete design. See definition of Concrete design below.

  • Contains either of the following:

    • Concrete components that support each of the capabilities used in the partial deign, each of which supports all of the required characteristics specified on the capability in the partial design.
    • A concrete component that supports a particular capability used in the partial design and that supports all of the required characteristics specified on the capability in the partial design. For this use of microservice designs, you must select Custom Selection on the Design Composition screen during the Test Run wizard, and you can make a separate microservice design selection for each capability used in the partial design.
  • Has property values configured for all required properties in the design.
  • Is not a composite design that was created by the combination of a partial design with another concrete design, unless that composite design was subsequently saved as its own design (see the description of Composite design below for more information).
  • Has no validation errors.

  For example, consider a partial design that includes a concrete component My App with relationships to Web Server, Application Server, and Database Server components.

  Assume the Web Server, Application Server, and Database Server have required characteristics of Apache Web Server, PHP, and MySQL, respectively.

  The partial design could be provisioned with a single microservice design that contains Apache 2.4 Web Server, PHP 8, and MySQL 5.5 components, respectively supporting the Web Server, Application Server, and Database Server capabilities, which respectively support the characteristics Apache Web Server, PHP, and MySQL, with each component configured to be provisioned on a Server. Alternatively, separate microservice designs can be selected for each of the three capabilities included in the partial design.

• Composite design - The combination of a partial design with one or more microservice designs creates a composite design that is itself a concrete design. A composite design is typically hidden from view in the list of topology designs. It can be made visible by navigating to the Test tab of the associated partial design and clicking Save Design for the test run that created the composite design. This enables the composite design to be published and exposed to subscribers as a service offering, and also allows selection of the composite design as a microservice design when performing test runs of partial designs.
• Concrete design - A design that contains no capabilities. A concrete design can include components that support a capability. However, a concrete design cannot directly contain capability components, such as Server, Web Server, Application Server, Database Server, and Platform.
• Microservice design - A microservice design is a concrete design that meets all or some of the needs of a partial design. When deploying a partial design, you can either select a single microservice design that meets all the needs of a partial design or you can select separate microservice designs for each capability that exists in the partial design. Because partial designs are generally focused on applications and typically do not contain infrastructure components (such as servers), the partial design is sometimes referred to as an application design, while the concrete design (or designs) it gets deployed with is called a microservice design.

Tasks

You can view the following information in the Test tab:

• The name of the test run
• Date and time of the test run
• Current status of the test run
• The user who initiated the test run

You can perform the following tasks in the Test tab:

• Cancel the realized design so that the instance is terminated. You must cancel before you can delete.
• Delete a canceled or failed deployment instance. You must cancel before you can delete.
• Save Design - Saves a new composite design, which will appear in the All Designs list for topology designs. Save Design is available only for partial designs that have successfully completed the Test Run process.
• Test Run button - See Test Run Wizard.
• Click the gear icon and select Refresh to refresh data in this tab.
  

You can link to detailed results of test provisioning by clicking the name of the test run. You can see the following information and perform the following tasks:

• Overview tab shows details of the test run.

  • Cancel the realized design so that the instance is terminated. You must cancel before you can delete.
  • Delete a canceled or failed deployment instance.

• Events tab shows:

  • Event Time - The time the event occurred.
  • Lifecycle Stage - The lifecycle stage and phase of the event execution, such as Deploying or Undeploying.
  • Action - Operations, such as deployment and server restart, that are executed during the test run.
  • Source - The design component that is the source of the event.
  • Status - The current state of the test run. If you click on an event, you see details about the event in the Overview tab and property values used in the test run in the Properties tab.

• Topology tab shows:

  • The topology diagram, properties, status of the test, and an instance summary.
  • Select a server component in this tab to see properties in the right panel and available actions below. You can invoke an action to verify that it is working.
• Providers tab shows which provider instances have been used for deployment.

Test Run Wizard

Use Test Run on a topology design's Test tab to test the design directly from the Cloud Service Management Console without having to publish the design or create a service offering.

The Test Run wizard allows you to specify the following:

• Display Name - Enter a display name or use the system proposed name of Test run of <design name>.
• Environment - (Optional) Select an environment that restricts provider selection to only those providers located in the selected environment.
• Service Design - (Available only for partial designs) Select a design from the list that, together with the partial design, will form a composite design that can be provisioned. The list displays concrete designs that support all capabilities and required characteristics in the partial design, as described in the Concepts section earlier in this topic. If the partial design contains multiple capabilities, you can also select Custom Selection and then select separate microservice designs for each capability in the partial design.
• Group Property - (Available only for designs containing groups) Configure the Instance Count for each group used in the design.
• Component Property - Configure property values for each component used in the design. The unit is displayed for properties that are set as measurable.

Best Practices

• After deployment cancellation, the test run is still listed in the tab. If you no longer need the entry, you can delete it.
• Select a new name for every test run so you can distinguish between them.
• Test your designs using various deployment scenarios and property configurations to ensure design stability before publishing.