Optimizely 12 Containerized for Linux

Vote:
 

Hi, 

Some background: My client wants a test deployment of Optimizely 12 in their onprem Kubernetes Cluster. Not being experienced with either Optimizely/Episerver, SQL, or Docker/Kubernetes I am wondering if someone could give me a push/guide me in the right direction. 


I have successfully been able to build the solution Foundation Net Core connecting it to a local sqlexpress database. I have also tried following this guide Working with docker and containers - .NET 5 Series, Part 3 written by Mark Hall, but I am not able to get it working on my Windows developer machine with WSL2. Either way I have created an image of the project "Foundation Net Core" which can be found here: https://hub.docker.com/repository/docker/snorrejablonski/optimizelydotnetcore

At this stage I am even unsure which questions I should ask, but to start I will list some questions that I hope might have an answer or at least get me a bit further:

  1. How do i "connect" an Optimizely 12 deployment like the one I have created an image of to an existing database inside a Kubernetes cluster? 
    1. Are there any limitations to which types of databases Optimizely can connect to?
    2. Are there any other variables than the connection string in "appsettings.json" I need to modify?
  2. In the repo at Github the procedure for getting Optimizely 12 up and running is to run the setup.cmd as it is with this setup-file that the sql-server++ is defined. Is this something that should be put into the Dockerfile?

And also, if my questions are wrong and you think I should ask other ones, please indulge me and help me out! All help is greatly appreciated 😄

#268115
Dec 09, 2021 15:30
Vote:
 

I'll have to look more closely at your questions when I have more time, but as a starting point I've got an in-progress (but largely working) Docker version of foundation-mvc-cms here: https://github.com/daniel-isaacs/foundation-mvc-cms/tree/net5-docker

I started from the blog post you linked, but made a few changes. It also includes an nginx reverse proxy in front.

Notes/short version of what’s going on via the Docker setup, roughly broken out by what each file’s doing:

  • .env
    • Defines some variables for the setup, used by the other files
  • docker-compose.yml
    • We’re bringing up three separate containers, one for the site (foundation-web), one for the database (foundation-db), one for nginx (foundation-nginx) – this sets some properties for bringing them up.
  • docker/Sql.Dockerfile
    • This defines how the database container should be built. There isn’t much to this one, except that it includes running a script (docker/build-script/SetupDatabases.sh) that creates the DB and users – that script is part of the original setup.cmd, rewritten in bash.
  • docker/Web.Dockerfile
    • This defines how the web container should be built – it covers a bunch of the other stuff from the setup.cmd, including:
      • Restoring the nuget packages
      • Running the npm build scripts
      • Building the web app (dotnet build…)
      • Publishing the web app (dotnet publish….)
    • It finishes by running a script (docker/build-script/wait_sqlserver_start_and_attachdb.sh) that waits for the database to come up (hardcoded 2 minute wait), and then launches the web app.

In theory, the steps to bring it up should be:

  1. Clone the repo:
    git clone https://github.com/daniel-isaacs/foundation-mvc-cms.git
  2. Change to the correct branch:
    git checkout net5-docker
  3. In Powershell or WSL (I’ve been using Ubuntu for my testing), go to /src/Foundation and build the Docker image (it may take a little while):
    docker-compose build
  4. Once it’s built, start the containers:
    docker-compose up -d
  5. It’ll take at least 2 minutes for it to come up (there’s a 2 minute delay built in so the DB has time to do its thing). To check if it should be ready, run the following command – if it’s ready, it should output the connection string and the port (and if it’s not ready yet, the output should just be blank):
    docker logs foundation-web
  6. Once it’s ready, try to load the site: http://localhost:4000
  7. When you’re done, you can spin it down with:
    docker-compose stop

 Once it's up, login is admin@example.com / Episerver123!

#268434
Edited, Dec 15, 2021 19:10
Vote:
 

Thank you so much for this thourough response! I have now gotten it to work on Docker, and my current challenge is getting the "translation" from docker-compose to a Kubernetes deployment, service, and pvc. If you have any experience on that matter I would love to hear it!

#268565
Dec 17, 2021 9:29
Vote:
 

Glad that first step is working!

I haven't been able to work on the Kubernetes side of things, but here is a blog post on how to set up the Optimizely CMS sample site using Kubernetes -- I haven't tried it, but it may be helpful for applying to the foundation site as well: https://dev.to/stoffe/optimizely-on-kubernetes-4k9n

#268700
Dec 20, 2021 16:01
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