Updated Online Documentation

We’ve converted our documentation to the online HTML format, which is much easier to navigate than the old PDF file. Future releases of DPBuddy will be bundled with this documentation instead of PDF.

Support for DataPower Firmware Version 7

We ran our full test suite against the recently released DataPower Version 7 and did not see any issues. If you’re planning to migrate to version 7 in the future, all your DPBuddy scripts and commands should continue working.

Support for GatewayScript

Support for JavaScript (a.k.a. GatewayScript) is the most noticeable new feature in DataPower firmware Version 7. GatewayScript can be used as part of any processing policy as an alternative to the XSLT-based rules.

Please see this page for the tips on developing and deploying GatewayScript files.

New and Updated Guides and Tutorials

* Getting started with DPBuddy CLI. As this tutorial shows, getting started with DPBuddy CLI is very easy and only takes a few minutes. Download DPBuddy, follow this guide and you’ll be able to run your first automated deployment in no time.
* Automating testing of DataPower services using SoapUI. This post is a must read if you’re looking to implement automated testing of your services.
* How to run DPBuddy tasks from Jenkins. Jenkins provides a nice UI along with many other important features such as job management, log retention and security. If you’re looking to implement continuous integration, automated (or even continuous) delivery of your DataPower artifacts, or if you’re simply running all of your Ant/DPBuddy scripts from command line, follow this guide to create your Jenkins jobs to deploy to DataPower.

DPBuddy Development Update

We’re currently working on the release 3.1.1. This release will have some minor changes and a few bug fixes. It will also contain an updated HTML-based User Guide.

We’re also planning to implement the support for DataPower firmware version 7.0 as soon as it becomes available. This will include supporting DataPower GatewayScript and other new features.

In the meantime, you can always download DPBuddy 3.1 from this link and give it a try.

If you have any questions, suggestions or feature requests, please comment on this post. We appreciate your feedback.

You can easily automate your DataPower deployments with Jenkins and DPBuddy. DPBuddy comes with a comprehensive set of Ant tasks, so you can simply create an Ant script defining your build/deployment process and then invoke the script from Jenkins using the “Invoke Ant” build step.
You can find the details in this tutorial.

Any automated build/deployment process should be accompanied by automated testing. This is required for automated (let alone for continuous) delivery of any application. Services residing in DataPower appliances should also be covered by automated testing. This can be achieved by invoking SoapUI test cases as part of an automated deployment, after all the services have been imported. This article explains how to do it.

We're pleased to announce that DPBuddy 3.1 is now available. The main feature of this release is the DPBuddy command-line interface (CLI). All of DPBuddy's Ant tasks can now be executed as shell commands without having to create or run Ant build files.

For example, to import a file, you can run the following command:

dpbuddy import -file services.zip -assertObjectsUp -save

All attributes of DPBuddy's Ant tasks are translated into command line options, so that DPBuddy commands have the same capabilities as Ant tasks.

Another important feature is the substantially expanded "import" command/task. It provides the following new capabilities:

• Automatic rollback to a checkpoint in case of an import failure.
• Creating the checkpoint before the import.
• Quiescing the domain before the import and unquiescing it after the import.
• Checking that the ports used by the imported services are open after the import.
• Resetting the domain's configuration before the import to clean the domain.
• Setting the domain's comments, which could be used for version tracking.
• Resolving template variables without having to provide an empty "transform" element.

Other new features in this release include the following:.

• A simplified way of specifying DataPower objects in export, assertState, quiesce and other tasks/commands. You can now provide regular expressions defining object types and names via attributes instead of having to define a nested element in Ant, e.g., <dp:export file="${export.zip.file}" classPattern="(WSGatew.*|.*Firewall.*)"/>
• Copy command/task now supports the "incudes" attribute/option so you don't have to specify the nested fileset.
• Copy/command task now supports the "flushCache" attribute/option to automatically clear the XML cache after copying.
• You can specify the environment prefix using the "env" attribute/option instead of having to use the "environment" task.
• Export now gets rid of unused namespace declarations, so the resulting XML file is cleaner.
• The ability to delete all objects related to a particuar service. DataPower does not do it by default, but using DPBuddy you can now clear all artifacts related to a particular service.
• "assertOpenPorts" task/command to verify that specific ports are actually open on the device.
• "testConnection" task.

Download DPBuddy 3.1

New and Updated Guides and Tutorials

• How to Track Versions of DataPower Services. You can easily achieve end-to-end traceability of all deployed services and domains with DPBuddy.

If you’d like to try implementing version traceability, download the trial version of DPBuddy if you haven’t done so already.

Upcoming DPBuddy Release

We’re on track to release DPBuddy 3.0.1 later this month, April, 2014. Some of the newly added features include:

• Ability to delete all objects related to a particular service. DataPower does not do it by default, but using DPBuddy you will be able to remove all artifacts related to a given service or multiple services.
• Ability to update the domain’s “comments” field as part of “import” — this will simplify version tracking of deployed domains.
• Ability to check that specific ports are actually open on the device after import. Simply provide “assertPorts” attribute/option to the “import” command and DPBuddy will make sure that the ports are active.

Other new features coming in 3.0.1 include:

• Command line support.You’ll be able to run any DPBuddy task directly from the command line without have to go through Ant. For example, to import a file, you’ll be able to simply run this command directly from shell/DOS prompt:

  dpbuddy import -file services.zip -assertObjectsUp -save 
  

  
  Read the rest of this post »

A version traceability mechanism should allow us to see versions of all our application components. An applications with UI front-end could have a “help/about” page or use other ways to show its version to an end user or to a developer. On the back-end, the version might be embedded into a manifest file or an application-specific property/configuration file. The version is typically associated with a code baseline stored in a version control repository.

This article explains how to track version of DataPower objects and services.

Secure backup is the only way to backup the entire DataPower device, including keys and certificates. Therefore, it is desirable to run it on a regular basis.

You can easily automate secure backup using DPBuddy. This post explains how.

SoapUI is the de facto standard tool for testing Web services and APIs. It is used by many DataPower developers. However, when SoapUI is used to test DataPower services that rely on XSLT files or other artifacts that have to be authored locally, having to manually upload these files to the device could substantially impair a developer’s productivity.

File uploads and many other test preparation steps can be easily automated using DPBuddy. All that is required is to invoke an Ant target containing DPBuddy’s copy task from the setup script of a SoapUI test step or a test suite. This guide explains how to do it.

It is desirable to keep the configuration of DataPower objects and services under version control. The are many advantages to this approach: being able to re-install a release of an application (of which DataPower configuration could be a component), reverting to an older version of the configuration, being able to diff versions (including diffing across environments) and so on. DataPower itself has built-in support for checkpoints and configuration diffing, but it’s no match for what can be done with a version control tool, especially the one that has a light-weight branching model such as Git.

You can find more details about version-controlling DataPower configuration here.

DPBuddy 3.0 has been released and is currently available for download.
DPBuddy 3.0 comes with a long list of new features and a number of bug fixes and performance improvements. Please see DPBuddy Feature List for more details.