bosh-release.html.md.erb

---
title: BOSH release resources
owner: Services
---

You can use the resources in this topic to create a BOSH release that integrates a
software service with <%= vars.platform_name %> at the managed service level.

A BOSH release is a directory that contains the source code for your service with everything else that BOSH needs to
deploy it to cloud VMs
running a specified operating system (stemcell). These contents include but are
not limited to, buildpacks, start up scripts, binary artifacts, and a BOSH
manifest containing configuration and deployment properties.

The BOSH manifest specifies the following major components:

- **Packages** that must be installed on <%= vars.platform_name %> stemcells to create VM
images.

- **Jobs** that describe how to install, run, and remove your software.

- A **Monitor** script, that describes how to monitor the health of your
service components and stop or restart them.

## <a id="resources"></a> BOSH resources

These links provide details about BOSH and BOSH releases:

- [BOSH Documentation](http://bosh.io/docs) is the top-level contents page for
BOSH documentation.

- [BOSH Problem Statement](http://bosh.io/docs/problems.html) explains what BOSH
does.

- [BOSH Basic Workflow](http://bosh.io/docs/basic-workflow.html) lists the
high-level steps for creating a BOSH deployment.

## <a id="create"></a>Creating a BOSH release

These topics explain how to create a BOSH release:

- [Creating a Release](http://bosh.io/docs/create-release.html).

- [Defining your Jobs](http://bosh.io/docs/jobs.html).

- [Defining your VMs](http://bosh.io/docs/vm-struct.html).

- [Defining your Runtime Configs](https://bosh.io/docs/runtime-config.html).

- [Monitoring the Health of your Service](http://bosh.io/docs/monitoring.html).

## <a id="docker"></a>Shortcut: Start with Docker images

If you have already packaged your service as Docker images, you can emulate
a managed service deployment using the [Tile Generator](tile-generator.html)
support for `docker-bosh` packages. You can deploy existing
Docker images into BOSH managed VMs on the <%= vars.platform_name %> infrastructure.

While this is a great way to deploy your service on <%= vars.platform_name %>, this is not a long-term, production-ready solution. There is really no
benefit of running your service in containers on the VMs, and it does have
a number of operational ("day 2") drawbacks:

- You introduce more software (Docker) which must be kept up to date, and
has the potential for problems, downtimes, and security vulnerabilities.

- You can no longer take advantage of the patching capabilities of <%= vars.platform_name %> for
stemcells and application dependencies, for example, frameworks, and libraries. Instead,
you become directly responsible for managing all software that is in the Docker
images you deploy.

## <a id="enhancing"></a>Enhancing the BOSH release

After the basic BOSH release is in place, additional features for logging
help you run the service.

For logging information, see
[syslog-release](https://github.com/cloudfoundry/syslog-release).

Expose the property `syslog.migration.disabled` using the
tile's forms because you might not configure syslog draining.

Logs written under the BOSH location `/var/vcap/sys/log` are forwarded
to the configured syslog server by the release.
Integrating syslog forwarding into a tile does not require code changes. It only requires including the release
and configuration forms in the `tile.yaml file.
For an example, see [pcf-examples/tile-for-bosh-with-syslog](https://github.com/cf-platform-eng/pcf-examples/tree/master/tile-for-bosh-with-syslog).

## <a id="backup"></a>BOSH backup and restore

The [BOSH Backup and Restore Developer's Guide](https://docs.cloudfoundry.org/bbr/bbr-devguide.html) describes the framework for release authors to add backup and restore capability.
to their release by using BOSH Backup and Restore (BBR).