This document contains important information about the 3.5 release of Serena Release Manager.

What's New

What's New in Serena Release Manager 3.5

Serena® Release Manager is the orchestrated solution for application release management that enables you to plan, manage, and automate the deployment of applications into test, pre-production, and production environments with one-click deploy, start-to-finish traceability, and end-to-end visibility.

Features

Features of Serena Release Manager include the following:

• Simplified release control
• Integration of Serena Release Control, Release Vault, and Release Automation
• Visual calendar views
• Integration with the Serena Orchestrated ALM set of solutions

The Serena ALM 3.5 release provides a powerful, user-friendly, role-based user experience for Release Manager, Requirements Manager, Development Manager, and Dashboard. It includes:

• Foundational building blocks for custom extensions and future ALM releases
• A common architectural approach and implementation for all ALM suites
• A single installer with a simplified user experience

• Serena ALM Provider Framework
• Single location for administration
• Common implementation approach
• Ease of configuration
• Common Tomcat Port
• Simplified installation to a single location
• All Serena products are now running on same port
• Extended ALM Configurator
• Single point of configuration for provider changes
• Instant log view to allow immediate investigation of activities
• ALM suite level configuration

Software Compatibility Requirements

For details of supported versions of the products in the Serena Release Manager suite, supported platforms, and third party integrations, see the Serena Release Plan on the Serena Customer Support website on the product roadmap under Supported Platforms.

To get to this information from the Serena Support website main roadmap page, select Release Manager and then select your version.

Installation Considerations

You should plan your installation and configuration according to the detailed documentation provided with each product in the Serena Release Manager suite. The documentation provided with Serena Release Manager guides you through the process.

Licensing

Use the following methods to apply licenses for the Serena Release Manager suite of products.

• Serena Release Control: Use Serena License Manager to apply licenses for Serena Release Control.
• Dimensions CM: Use Serena License Manager to apply licenses for Dimensions CM.
• Serena Release Automation: Enter license keys for Serena Release Automation from the Help menu of Serena Release Automation. See "Updating Serena Release Automation Center License" in Serena Release Automation Center Installation and Administration Guide.

System Requirements

The system requirements for successful installation and execution of Serena Release Manager depend on your organization's usage requirements. You should determine your organization’s specific needs using the detailed documentation for SBM, Dimensions CM, and Serena Release Automation. For more details, see the Serena Release Manager Installation and Configuration Guide.

Server Considerations

For optimal performance, Serena recommends that SBM and Dimensions CM be installed on separate physical servers.

Upgrade Considerations

The upgrade from Serena Release Manager version 2.1 to version 3.5 is a manual process as documented in the Serena Release Manager Installation and Configuration Guide in "Serena Release Manager Upgrade".

Configuration Differences

The primary configuration differences between versions 2.1 and 3.5 are as follows:

• The RLM war file has been renamed from rlm.war to alm.war.
• The URLs in the properties for the clients and providers now use the new ALM Web service names.
• In the dm.cfg file ALF configuration lines, DimensionsUnderReleaseManagementControl has been changed to DimensionsUnderOrchestratedApps.
• The sbm-client-connection.properties file, configured through the ALM Configurator SBM tab, now has username and password. This is now a required configuration to enable you to create objects in Serena Release Control. If this connection is not configured properly, you will receive a checkuniquness error.
• Additional comments have been added to the configuration files to make them more self-documenting.
• The following new configuration files in the classes directory now store the table values for Serena Release Manager and Serena ALM:
• rlm-sbm.properties
• sbm.properties
• The following configuration files no longer exist in the classes directory:
• sbm-client.properties
• dm-client.properties
• For reports that appear in the user interface, names and configuration have changed completely to provide a consistent and quicker way to display the data you want on the user interface. See the Serena Release Manager Installation and Configuration Guide, "Managing Release Control User Interface Reports".

User Interface Differences

The new Serena ALM user interface differs significantly from the user interface in prior versions of Serena Release Manager. The primary differences are in the landing page and initial navigation; the underlying forms have the same layout as they did in the prior release. Some differences in the user interface navigation are as follows:

• Use the Actions menu instead of Create Release for creating objects.
• There are pages for each type of object rather than lists of objects to choose from in My Inbox categories.
• My Inbox is now called Inbox.
• There is a new Zoom button that expands the related page to full screen. This behaves differently for the split view shown for My Work than it does for a single view such as that shown for the calendar. For example, if your landing page includes both My Work and the calendar view, when My Work is zoomed in, single-click an item to show the content of the selected item in the lower pane, or preview pane, instead of showing the calendar. When My Work is in zoomed out mode, you must double-click to select an item, and the selected item’s form appears in a separate window. If you zoom in on the calendar section of the page, the calendar is opened to fill the page. You must click the My Work option in the left navigation pane to return to the My Work view.

For more details on the UI navigation, see the Serena Release Manager Getting Started Guide, “Navigating Serena ALM and Serena Release Control”.

Known Issues

Solutions are available for known issues in the Serena Customer Support Knowledgebase. These solutions provide details about the issue and list associated fixes as they become available. Generally available fixes can be downloaded from the solution page online.

Issues known to exist in Serena Release Manager 3.5 are as follows:

1. If you are using Internet Explorer 8 as your Web browser, you must select Compatibility View in the IE Tools menu. Otherwise, some user interface elements, such as the Gantt view of the release train calendar, may not be displayed properly.
2. Using the Firefox version 13 Web browser, you cannot manually enter sequence numbers when trying to re-order a list of deployment tasks. (DEF221479)
3. In Internet Explorer 9, if you remove a release package from an application release, the resulting pop-up window is not sized properly. You must expand the window to see the results. (DEF222077)
4. You cannot log out of the ALM Configurator once logged in through SSO. To resolve this issue, you must clear your Web browser cache. (DEF216580)
5. If you navigate to the ALM Configurator while logged into Serena ALM, and the user you are currently logged in as does not have permission to use ALM Configurator, you will receive an Axis2 error. To log onto the ALM Configurator, you must log out of the Serena ALM user interface, and then log into the ALM Configurator with an authorized user ID. (DEF222075)
6. If the ALM Configurator cannot save information to one of the configuration files, there is no obvious feedback. If you do not receive a successful message after clicking Save, you should verify that your changes were made in the configuration files. (DEF222109)
7. If you attempt to save ChangeMan ZMF deployment tasks in deployment process templates, the forms are incomplete. You must create ChangeMan ZMF deployment tasks from release packages only. (DEF220545)