Manage InsuranceSuite apps

After you deploy the InsuranceSuite apps, you can manage them in the Planets app.

Note:

Access to planets is managed by Guidewire Hub. For details, see Access Cloud Platform apps and services.

Important:

All the planets within a star system come with the same set of default InsuranceSuite apps that you can't change. For details, see Set of default InsuranceSuite apps.

To manage the InsuranceSuite apps in the Planets app:

1. In Guidewire Home, select a star system.

2. From Apps , select Planets or select it from your pinned apps.

3. Select a planet.

4. From Applications and add-ons, select InsuranceSuite. In the main overview, you can perform the following activities:

   • Deploy and undeploy InsuranceSuite applications.
   • Check the latest activity and its journal.
   • Check settings.
   • Enable APM.
   • Generate thread dumps for application nodes.
   • Restart application nodes.
   • Check the application and deployment statuses .
   • View Deployment history and Application logs.
   • Access the deployed applications .
   • Set runtime properties.
   • For development planets, edit the server mode for a planet.

Tip:

During activities, the Latest activity turns into Current activity. In Description, you can check what is happening at a particular moment.

Settings

For each InsuranceSuite app, you can check the following settings:

• Server mode in which InsuranceSuite apps are running.

  You can start an app server in different modes to determine whether to enable development and testing features during server startup.
  For details, see Server mode.

• Database settings for a planet.

• Whether the UI and Batch roles are enabled.

  The UI and Batch roles are assigned to server clusters and used for blue/green deployment. For details on the blue/green deployment procedure, see Blue/green deployment.

• Number of scaled nodes.

  Number of nodes on which an InsuranceSuite app is currently running.

• Size of a runtime profile.

  It can be Small, Medium, Large, or Extra Large. Select Details to see the characteristics of each runtime profile.

• Catalina options.

  Options used for communication with Apache Tomcat.

• Whether APM is enabled.

  Status of Application Performance Monitoring for a particular app. As an Insurer Admin, you can enable APM for a particular InsuranceSuite app.

Additionally, for PolicyCenter, you can check the status of High Volume Quoting (HVQ).

Check settings

You check the settings for a particular InsuranceSuite app in the Planets app.

To check the app settings:

1. In Guidewire Home, select a star system.

2. From Apps , select Planets or select it from your pinned apps.

3. Select a planet.

4. From Applications and add-ons, select InsuranceSuite.

5. Go to Settings and search for the InsuranceSuite app whose settings you want to check.

Edit settings

To edit settings for a particular InsuranceSuite application:

1. In Guidewire Home, select a star system.

2. From Apps , select Planets or select it from your pinned apps.

3. Select a planet.

4. From Applications and add-ons, select InsuranceSuite.

5. Go to Settings tab.

6. Select Edit.

7. Edit the settings as needed.

8. Select Save.

You don't need to redeploy InsuranceSuite applications on a planet when you change the following settings:

• Number of nodes
• Block database drop

Changes to all other settings take effect after the next deployment.

Enable APM

Important:

Enabling APM reduces the Credit amount from your annual Credit subscription. For more information about the cost of planets, see Cloud Services Menu .

You can enable APM for a particular InsuranceSuite app. The following conditions apply:

• Your organization must be a Guidewire Cloud customer using the Platform Edition. For details, see Platform Packaging and Pricing.

• You must be in the right access group with Insurer Admin privileges.

To enable APM for a particular InsuranceSuite app:

1. In Guidewire Home, select a star system.

2. From Apps , select Planets or select it from your pinned apps.

3. Select a planet.

4. From Applications and add-ons, select InsuranceSuite.

5. Go to Settings tab.

6. Select Edit.

7. Find the app for which you want to enable APM and check the radio button next to Yes.

8. Select Save and redeploy the app.

Server mode

It is possible to start an application server in different modes. A server mode is a setting that determines whether the development and testing features are enabled during a server start. To control access to these features, you can start an app in one of the three server modes:

• Development Dev

  All the implementation and testing features are enabled.

• Test Test

  All the testing features in a production-like planet are enabled. You can also advance the clock to test the time-based processes.

• Production Prod

  All the implementation and testing features are disabled.

Each planet is created with a specified server mode that is used for all deployments in that planet. For details on features available for each server mode, see the documentation for your InsuranceSuite apps.

Check server mode

You check the settings for a particular InsuranceSuite app in the Planets app.

To check the app settings:

1. In Guidewire Home, select a star system.

2. From Apps , select Planets or select it from your pinned apps.

3. Select a planet.

4. From Applications and add-ons, select InsuranceSuite.

5. Select Settings and go to the Application settings tile.

Change server mode

On non-production (development) and pre-production planets, you can change the server mode. To change the server mode:

1. In Guidewire Home, select a dev or preprod star system.

2. From Apps , select Planets or select it from your pinned apps.

3. Select a planet.

4. From Applications and add-ons, select InsuranceSuite.

5. Select Settings.

6. Select Edit and go to Application settings.

7. Change the server mode.

8. Select Save.

9. Redeploy all the InsuranceSuite apps on this planet.

Application nodes

InsuranceSuite apps run on nodes in server clusters. Each node allows you to run a replica of an InsuranceSuite app. The more nodes an app has, the smoother it runs.

Nodes can also have the UI and Batch roles assigned. Then, the traffic in an app is divided between the two types of nodes, which allows you to perform blue/green deployments.

There are the following types of nodes:

• All

  Regular nodes to run InsuranceSuite apps. Each node is a replica of an app and is responsible for both UI and Batch processing. The UI role is also responsible for the REST API traffic. The REST API calls might impact the performance of the nodes.

• UI & Batch

  These nodes have separate roles:

  • Batch nodes host the internal processing of the InsuranceSuite apps.
  • UI nodes host the UI processing and the traffic for REST API calls. The REST API calls might impact the performance of the UI nodes.

  Nodes with separated UI and Batch roles allow you to perform blue/green deployments.

• HVQ

  Additional nodes, only for PolicyCenter High Volume Quoting.

Check the information on nodes

You can check the number of nodes and if the UI & Batch roles are enabled for a particular app in the InsuranceSuite settings:

1. In Guidewire Home, select a star system.

2. From Apps , select Planets or select it from your pinned apps.

3. Select a planet.

4. From Applications and add-ons, select InsuranceSuite.

5. Select Settings and go to the app whose information on nodes you want to check.

   The UI & Batch nodes are enabled when the setting says On.
   To enable the UI & Batch nodes, submit a case in Guidewire Community.

   The number of nodes indicates how many replicas of the app are currently running.

   The number of HVQ nodes indicates how many additional nodes are enabled for HVQ extension for PolicyCenter.

   

Application nodes restart

You can restart particular application nodes. For example, you can restart nodes if there is an issue with nodes of one type or you can see that the app has issues running properly.

The following rules apply:

• For All and UI nodes, you can't restart all the nodes at once. At least one node must stay up and running.

  Note:
  

  To prevent downtime or higher load on the remaining nodes, Guidewire recommends that you restart only one node at a time.

• For Batch and HVQ, you can restart all the nodes at once.

• You can't restart a node if it's already shutting down.

• You can't restart any nodes during a running deployment.

• You can restart nodes only on a planet with a successful deployment.

Important:

Restarting the nodes doesn't automatically capture either thread dumps or heap dumps. Before you restart the nodes, Guidewire recommends the following actions:

• Generate and save thread dumps.
• To get heap dumps, contact Guidewire.

Prerequisites

Before you can restart a node, you must get the node ID of an application replica that you want to restart. To get the node ID from an InsuranceSuite app:

1. Go to the InsuranceSuite app whose node you want to restart.

   You can access the app through its URL, from the InsuranceSuite main overview.

2. In the InsuranceSuite app, go to Options and select About.

3. Find Server Instance and copy the node ID.

Restart the application nodes

To restart the application nodes:

1. In the InsuranceSuite main overview, in Applications, find the app whose nodes you want to restart and go to Actions → Manage nodes.

   

2. Depending on which type of nodes you want to restart, select one of the following tabs:

   • All
   • Batch (only if the UI and Batch roles are enabled for your app)
   • UI (only if the UI and Batch roles are enabled for your app)
   • HVQ (only for PolicyCenter with HVQ enabled)

3. In Search, enter the node ID that you copied from the InsuranceSuite app and select its check box.

   For All or UI nodes, you must leave at least one node unselected to proceed with the restart. The unselected node ensures that the app remains up and running.

   Note:
   

   To prevent downtime or higher load on the remaining nodes, Guidewire recommends that you restart only one node at a time.

   For Batch and HVQ, you can restart all the nodes at once.

4. Select Restart nodes.

   After the restart, the application replica gets a new node ID. To check if the node is already up, refresh the node statuses.

Thread dumps

To troubleshoot issues with your InsuranceSuite app nodes, you can generate and save thread dumps for each InsuranceSuite app. You can generate thread dumps as follows:

• For a particular node of a particular app.
• For all the nodes of a particular app.
• For only the selected apps and nodes.
• For all the apps on your planet.

After you enter the Thread dumps menu, the thread dumps are immediately downloaded to your machine's RAM. To download them to your hard drive, you must generate and save them. If you refresh the website after restarting the nodes, the thread dumps will be deleted from your machine's RAM, and you might lose important troubleshooting data.

Access thread dumps

You can access the thread dumps in the following two ways:

• Directly from the InsuranceSuite main overview in the Planets app.

  You can also check the status of the thread dump generation process.

  

• Through the Manage nodes menu.

  After you select at least one application node, you can go to the Thread dumps menu to generate the thread dumps for only the selected nodes before you restart them.

  

Generate thread dumps

To generate thread dumps:

1. In Guidewire Home, select a star system.

2. From Apps , select Planets or select it from your pinned apps.

3. Select a planet.

4. From Applications and add-ons, select InsuranceSuite.

5. Select Thread dumps in one of the following ways:

   • In the main overview.
   • In the Manage nodes menu.

6. Select the apps or nodes for which you want to generate the thread dumps.

7. (Optional) Enter the number of thread dumps for a node and the time interval.

   The number of thread dumps must be between 1 and 10.
   The time interval must be between 1 and 15 seconds.

8. Select Generate.

   After the thread dumps are generated, you can do the following:

   • Select next to a particular thread dump to save it.
   • Select Save all to save a zip file with all the generated thread dumps.

   If you refresh the website after the node restart but before saving the thread dumps, the generated thread dumps will be deleted from your machine's RAM, and you might lose important troubleshooting data.

When you generate a new thread dump, it replaces the one that was generated before.

Thread dumps troubleshooting

Generating thread dumps might fail with the following comment:

Unable to generate thread dumps for podID due to missing commands. Contact Guidewire.

Generating thread dumps failed because your application build is missing some configuration. Guidewire needs to prepare a new build with the right configuration before you can generate and save thread dumps. Contact Guidewire.

Access source code

The source code of your InsuranceSuite apps is stored in a Bitbucket repository.

To access the repository:

1. In Guidewire Home, select a dev star system.

2. From Apps , select Planets or select it from your pinned apps.

3. Select the Source code link.

   You can access Bitbucket only from a dev star system. The code becomes available in pre-production and production star systems only through build promotion.

4. In Bitbucket, find the project that you want to work on.

5. Clone the repository using the HTTPS format and a personal access token.

   You can create personal access tokens in the Account screen in Bitbucket. For details, see Clone a Git repository in the Bitbucket documentation.

Access build management

With build management infrastructure in TeamCity, you can test, build, and create Docker images of apps.

To access TeamCity:

1. In Guidewire Home, select a dev star system.

2. From Apps , select Planets or select it from your pinned apps.

3. Select the Build management link.

   You can access TeamCity only from a dev star system.

Access application logs

You can access logs for the deployed InsuranceSuite apps. Guidewire retains your app logs in Datadog.

To access Application logs:

1. In Guidewire Home, select a star system.

2. From Apps , select Planets or select it from your pinned apps.

3. Select the Application logs link.

   You can access logs from all the star systems.

For details on using Datadog, see the Administration Guide for your InsuranceSuite app.