Overview

The WhereScape CICD Enablement Pack is a tool designed to automate and integrate WhereScape 3D and RED with Git-based version control systems. It enables the creation of customizable deployment pipelines, allowing teams to efficiently manage, track, and deploy metadata and configuration changes across environments in a consistent and collaborative manner. 

As part of the CICD Enablement Pack, an audit function within the PostgreSQL database is created which will monitor changes made to the metadata within the PostgreSQL Repository. This will help to reduce the amount of time needed to publish changes to get from the WhereScape Metadata repository.

Architecture

This diagram illustrates how WhereScape 3D and RED integrate with a GIT-based CI/CD workflow using the WhereScape CICD Enablement Pack. 

• The GIT Repository serves as the central source of truth for the version-controlled metadata and configuration. 
• The CICD Enablement Pack acts as a bridge, connecting GIT to WhereScape's automation tools. 
• It interfaces with both RED CLI and 3D CLI, which are command-line tools for WhereScape RED and 3D. 
• These tools interact with their respective PostgreSQL metadata repositories. 
• Both RED and 3D repositories are connected to a target database, where data models and transformations are deployed. 
• An API web service also connects to RED CLI and the RED repository, enabling external systems to trigger or interact with the deployment process. 

Benefits

The WhereScape CICD Enablement Pack provides the following key benefits: 

• Automate the integration of WhereScape 3D and RED with GIT for CI/CD workflows reducing manual steps and chance of human error. 
• Enable version control of metadata and configuration files ensuring auditability, traceability and recoverability of work. 
• Simplify repository setup and environment configuration. 
• Improve collaboration and consistency across development and deployment environments. 
• Support for branching, merging and deployment workflows, aligning with modern DevOps practices. 
• Customizable Workflow Integration allowing tailored automations for each team and project.  

Definitions

Here are the standard definitions used within this document.

WhereScape 3D Configuration. This includes the following settings:

• Category 
• Templates 
• Model Conversion Rules 
• Data Types 
• Discover methods 
• Profiling 
• Database Functions 
• UI configuration 
• Workflows 
• Custom Reports 
• Script Language Definitions 
• Target Storage Locations 

WhereScape RED Configuration. This includes any of the following settings: 

• Repository Options 
• Database functions 
• Data type mappings 
• Extended Properties 
• Host script languages 
• UI configuration 
• Object type definitions 
• Templates 
• Scripts 
• Procedures 
• Connections 
• Deployment applications (WST) 
• Deleted object metadata 
• JSON metadata exports 

WhereScape 3D/RED repository: PostgreSQL database held within the WsMetaServer service. To view the metadata within the PostgreSQL database, the user will be required to register the Localhost server to enable this. (This is not a required step to interact with the CICD pipeline). 

• WhereScape 3D database are named with “ws3d_” as the prefix 
• WhereScape RED database is named with “wsred_” as the prefix 

Workflow: Workflows are tasks which are accessed via buttons within WhereScape 3D which provide quick access to commonly used functionality for the data models you are working on. 

WhereScape repositories: A term relating to both WhereScape RED and WhereScape 3D repositories. 

Developer machine: Refers to the machine or virtual machine being used for WhereScape development activities 

Deployment machine: Refers to the physical or virtual machine used to execute WhereScape Deployment Applications into one or more target environments. 

Next:

Installing WhereScape CICD Enablement Pack