Purpose of the article: After deploying an example Senzing CloudFormation, such as the Senzing deployment template, you may need to update a running  resource within an active stack; such as the Senzing Web Application. In this blog, we outline how to perform such tasks without having to recreate the entire stack.

Intended Audience: Analytics team (People working on AWS)

Tools and Technology: Senzing App and AWS ECS

Keywords: Senzing , Web Application , AWS

What is Senzing?

Senzing provides considerable cost savings to AWS serverless customers who are deploying entity resolution. Entity resolution software was expensive; people were vigorous and computationally demanding. Senzing slashed compute costs for AWS customers and virtually eliminated the need for expensive entity resolution experts to train or tune the system.

Senzing quickly matches and links data about people, organizations, and other entities. By using Senzing, you can get a return on investment (ROI) in weeks or months!

• Check who is who and who relates to whom in the data
• Can deploy easily and use, no entity resolution experts needed
• Minimal data preparation required
• Can add entity resolution to applications or services in few hours
• Runs in your private cloud or on-premises

Senzing CloudFormation deployment, such as the Senzing deployment template, needs to update a running resource within an active stack, such as the Senzing Web Application. Here are the steps that outline how to perform a task without recreating the entire stack.

Check Current Web Application Version

To check the current version, click on the Senzing logo in the upper right corner. Note the Web App Version – 2.1.1. Web App URL is in the Outputs tab under the CloudFormation stack, where the key is labeled as WebAppUrl.

Update the Web Application

Given instructions and screenshots will vary for the newer versions. The steps will be similar.

• Within AWS, navigate to Elastic Container Service
• Select Task Definitions
• Select the Task Definition for <your_cluster_name>-task-definition-web app
  • <your_cluster_name> will be the name of the CloudFormation stack

• Click the selection box to the left of the Task Definition Name for <your_cluster_name>-task-definition-webapp:1
• The revision number may be higher than one, can use the latest Active revision entry instead
  • Click the Create new revision button

• Scroll down to the Container Definitions section
• Click on the web app Container Name
• Locate the Image data entry box In the Edit container window
• String Senzing support has been identified for the upgrade or modification of the text to the new version
  • In this scenario, we shall use the string latest for updating the latest available version of the entity-search-web-app
• Click Update
• Click Create

• Click into <your_cluster_name>-task-definition-webapp

• Click the selection box to the left of the Task Definition Name for <your_cluster_name>-task-definition-webapp:1
• In the Actions drop-down, select Deregister
• In the warning prompt, click Deregister again

• In the left-hand menu, click Clusters
• Click into <your_cluster_name>-cluster
• Can find the Services tab for the cluster
• The web app service will be showing [INACTIVE] under the Task Definition column
• Click the selection box which is at the left of the web app Service Name
• Click Update

• In the Step1: locate the Task Definition section in the Configure service panel
• Check the drop-down box for Revision is set to two (latest)
  • The number may be higher if you have completed similar steps previously

• Click Next step for the next two panels
• Click Update Service on the final panel
• Click View Service
• Click into <your_cluster_name>-cluster

• The Task Definition for the webapp Service Name should now be <your_cluster_name>-task-definition-webapp:2
  • The revision number should be matching details in the Revision drop-down box in the previous step
  • If the webapp is not showing the status as ACTIVE immediately, it’s still deploying, click the refresh icon to the upper right of the Services table

Stop the Previous Web Application Task

• Click on the Tasks tab which is at the right of Services tab
• Click the selection box to the left of the Task definition for <your_cluster_name>-task-definition-webapp:1
  • It should be showing as INACTIVE
• Click Stop
• In the warning prompt click Stop

Check the New Web Application

• Open the URL of the Senzing Web Application
• Click on the Senzing logo, which is in the upper right corner. The Web App Version will now show the latest version (or the tag specified instead of the latest in earlier steps)

Hope this article was helpful.