Folders for organizing applications

[tmart]

Some folder-based organization to applications in the GUI and CLI would be really helpful... and might also lend itself well to a role-based security model. :)

This could be used to organize client, departments, versions of the same app, different deployments of the same version of a given app, etc., etc.

Please:
... allow more than one level of folder
... allow both apps and folders to exist at any level
... and please only restrict the duplicate folder names within a common parent (so we could have top/a/b and top/b)

It might be nice if folders could have a boundary/properties that would allow redirecting various apps' main's properties up to the folder level. This would provide an "easy" global property implementation.

It's all easy, right? Anyhow, thanks for listening. :)

-- Tim

[tmart]

I was considering putting this in a new request, but maybe it makes sense to put in here...

It would be nice to have the Application tab in the GUI as well as the "ls" and "app list" commands offer some information regarding last starttime/uptime of each app. Like an ls -l might do. This could help identify apps that haven't been used for some time when there might not otherwise be a good way.

Thanks

[tmart]

Another thing that this folder model could support would be better IP address management. We could add IP addresses to the boundaries of each folder, representing various domains/groups/departments/clients/whatever. Those IPs would basically be punched through for each hierarchy and inherited (redirected back to the folder's properties) by the apps. This way there could be one place to go look for the IP addresses.

We'd want to be able to modify the boundary & properties without restarting apps within each folder, however.

-- Tim

[PeterNic]

Tim,

Excellent ideas. I think we can expand the notion of the folder beyond just container of applications but also to provide context -- security, IP address/VLAN pools, as well as user-defined variables which will nest in scope.

The challenge might be that to move an app between folders, I would need to stop it -- this would allow me to keep the namespace clean; if that's too much of a limitation, it can be solved, too.

Best regards,
- Peter

[PeterNic]

It would be nice to have the Application tab in the GUI as well as the "ls" and "app list" commands offer some information regarding last starttime/uptime of each app. Like an ls -l might do. This could help identify apps that haven't been used for some time when there might not otherwise be a good way.


Tim, I believe this is already in place -- the GUI app list shows the app uptime in the state column; the 'app info' command shows the start date/time for the app. How would you like to see this in the app list (http://doc.3tera.com/AppLogic29/CliApplication.html#AnchorList) output?

Best regards,
- Peter

[tmart]

Peter, yes, the app uptime is available in the GUI, but is it in the CLI (I might expect to see it in "app list --verbose")? But again, nearly as important as the current uptime is the last uptime of the app and some historical stats.

These are things that might be useful in something like an "app list --history" ... all of these should probably survive an "app rename" but be reset on the new grid location after a migrate:

App Name (app name)
Previous App Name (if it has been renamed, save only the last name)
Current App State (stopped/running/failed/whatever)
App Create Datetime
Last App Build Datetime
Last App Build user
Last App Modify Datetime
Last App Modify user
Last Stop Datetime
Last Stop user
Total number of times that components have been restarted due to node failure since last "app start"
Total Runtime (life of app)
Migrated via (source grid name and app name and user name, if applicable - if the app was created locally, this data is blank)