App Connect

Co-author - Bijoy Valsan

Let's take a look at how the Flow Run plan operates with IBM App Connect Enterprise as a Service. With this plan, customers using IBM App Connect Enterprise as a Service on AWS can efficiently purchase a specific number of invocations for their Integration flows. In this blog, we will explore the advantages of the Flow Run plan over the VPC plan and provide guidance on deploying a Designer flow or Toolkit BAR file using the Flow Run plan.

VPC vs Flow Run

For detailed examples of what counts as an invocation, see Pricing plans in the App Connect Enterprise as a Service documentation.

Now, let’s explore an example of how to deploy an integration with our new plan.

How to deploy a flow on the Flow Run plan

I have an upcoming event published in Eventbrite. I need to get the list of people who registered for my event daily as a Slack message. I have created an Event-driven flow using the Eventbrite and Slack connectors to achieve this.

Now we can deploy this Flow. For that, let us go to the Manage page.

The Deploy button will navigate the user to the deployment wizard.

After selecting Deploy, a table containing all the completed Designer flows without an existing deployment appears. Select the newly created Flow and click on the "Next" button.

A summary page with the information about the deployed flow name is loaded. We use the Flow name as the deployment name. However, if the Flow name is not alphanumeric and has characters more than 50, then the system will convert the deployed flow name to match the criteria.

Click on the Deploy button. The system now starts deploying the Flow into a shared integration runtime. Once it is complete, you will see the deployment on the Manage page.

To activate the deployment, click on the deployment tile options menu and click Activate.

Once activated, open the options menu on the tile. If trace is not yet enabled, you should see the Start service trace and Start user trace options.

Click the Start trace option for the trace that you want to enable.

A confirmation message appears to warn you that this particular action is triggered for all deployed Designer flows in your instance. This is because Designer flows are deployed to a shared integration runtime.

Click on Start. You should see a notification confirming that the trace has started.

If you open the options menu again on the tile, you should notice that the Start option for the trace that you enabled (for example, service trace) has been replaced by a Stop option. Also note that the Start option for the alternative trace type (for example, user trace) or another deployed and active Designer flow is no longer visible because only one trace can be enabled per integration runtime.

Open the options menu on the tile and click the relevant Collect trace option.

The file then gets downloaded to a configured download location.

You can use the Reset trace option to erase the trace information that has been written to an integration runtime's trace log files.

Open the options menu on the tile and click the relevant Reset trace option.

You should see a notification confirming that the trace has been reset

For active and deployed Designer flows, a confirmation message appears to warn you that the particular action is triggered for all deployed Designer flows in your instance. This is because Designer flows are deployed to a shared integration runtime.

How to deploy a Toolkit BAR file on the Flow Run plan

A Toolkit BAR file deployment is similar to a Designer Flow deployment. The Deploy button opens the deployment wizard.

The table shows all the previously uploaded BAR files without a deployment. If the desired BAR is available in the list, you can select it from the table or upload a new BAR file using the BAR file upload widget on the page and click the "Next" button.

Configuration selection page is loaded. Configurations needed for the BAR file to run are selected here. This step is optional.

Like flow deployment, you will see a summary page with information about the deployed BAR name and configurations. 

Click on the Deploy button. The system now starts deploying the BAR file into an integration runtime, and once it is complete, the you will see the deployment on the Manage page.

To activate the deployment, click on the deployment tile options menu and click Activate.

FAQ

How do you delete a deployment?

You can delete your deployment using the Manage page. But, you must deactivate a deployment before you can delete it.

Where can I find the credentials to connect to a service deployed?

The deployment tile menu has an option to view the credentials. You can see the host URL, username, password, and HTTPS basic authentication header by clicking View credentials.

Is there a size limit for the BAR file?

Yes, a BAR file up to 50 MB is allowed.