Codename: BlueMix (or just BlueMix) is Platform as-a-Service solution created by IBM. It’s built on top of SoftLayer IaaS also owned by IBM. BlueMix is opened for beta testing and currently free.
In this post I’ll tell you how to create simple Node.js application and link it to the Git repository. As result you’ll be able to deploy your application updates to the BlueMix app instance by calling git push. It is very convenient for incremental updates.
Let’s start.
1) Create BlueMix account
First thing first: go to http://bluemix.net/ and create free account.
After that login and you’ll see BlueMix Dashboard which is similar to my screenshot:
2) Create new Node.js app
Click “Create an Application” button and select “Node.js” runtime:
Click “Create App” and choose your app name:
Now return to Dashboard and see you app there. Give it some time to be started and once you see green light and “running” status visit your URL:
http://ys-nodejs-hello.ng.bluemix.net/
It will show “Welcome to BlueMix!” page. Cool!
3) Link app to Git repository
Next step is linking to Git repository. Click on your application box and app details. There is “Add Git integration” link:
It will ask you to create Jazz account, if you here for the first time. As result you’ll see:
Click “Continue” and let’s move to next step.
4) Make changes via Git
Now your application is placed into private Git repository, integrated with BlueMix. You can get this app to your work machine:
git clone https://hub.jazz.net/git/ysubach/ys-nodejs-hello
cd ys-nodejs-hello
npm install
node app.js
Now open http://localhost:3000/ and you should see “Welcome to BlueMix!” page.
Let’s add new cool function to our application, open app.js file in your favorite text editor and add following lines after app.get('/' ... call:
app.get('/test', function(req, res) {
res.send('Test works!');
})
Restart your app using node app.js command and open http://localhost:3000/test URL. If all ok, then you’ll see Test works! message.
The final step is very simple. Just commit your changes to Jazz repository and open your BlueMix application URL:
git add app.js
git commit -m 'added /test handler'
git push origin master
BlueMix URL for our new function: http://ys-nodejs-hello.ng.bluemix.net/test
I hope you like it!