Serena Deployment Automation 6.0 Readme

About this Release

Welcome to Serena Deployment Automation version 6.0. See the New Features tab for a list of new features in the latest release.

If you have an existing installation that you want to upgrade, see Upgrades.

Helpful Links

http://www.serena.com/support

Documentation Center Deployment Automation Page

User Forums

New Features

Deployment Automation version 6.0 contains important enhancements and defect fixes.

To learn more about Deployment Automation, visit these areas:

Enhancements

The following enhancements were made in this release.

Improved user interface and navigation
The new user interface offers many benefits, including the following:
- Deployment Activity: Easily review and analyze deployment information in the new Deployment page.
- Recent Activity: Get a quick visual view of recent activity in applications' and components' Activity pages.
- Role-based UI: Make the available options match the roles for management, administration, and deployment-only users by leveraging the enhanced role-based menu model.
- Process Wizard: Running and scheduling processes is easier with the new process wizard.
- Environment and Pipeline Views: Graphical views for environments and pipelines make editing and conceptual understanding easier.
- Context-focused: Slide out menus and overlays keep key information at your fingertips when you need it but hidden when you don't. Presentation of key details are in context with the objects they relate to.
- Visual Recognition: Graphical buttons throughout give quick visual recognition.
- Consistency: Consistent navigation themes ease roll out to new users.
- Filters and Search: Additional filters and searches make it easy to narrow the display to just the items you need to work with.
Simplified Installation Process
The required JDBC driver files that are used by Deployment Automation to connect to the Deployment Automation database are now provided by the installer. This means you do not have to download the drivers before you perform a new Deployment Automation install.
Tomcat and Java Runtime Environment (JRE) Version Update
The Deployment Automation 6.0 server and agent are now installed with Tomcat 8 and JRE 8 on all platforms.

Defect Fixes

In addition to the enhancements, a number of defects were addressed.

Visit the Knowledge Base to see the defects fixed in this release.

Upgrades

For details on upgrading Deployment Automation agents and agent relays, see the version 6.0 Serena Deployment Automation User's Guide.

To upgrade a Deployment Automation server, use the version 6.0 server installer to upgrade from the following on Tomcat servers only:

Deployment Automation versions 5.1.2 to 5.1.6
Serena Release Automation versions 5.1 and 5.1.1
If you are upgrading from Serena Release Automation versions earlier than version 5.1, first upgrade from that version to version 5.1 as documented in the version 5.1 Serena Deployment Automation User's Guide, and then upgrade to version 6.0.

For any other upgrade scenarios, please contact Serena Support for assistance.

Note: Community Edition users should post any questions on the community forum.

Updated Tomcat and Java Versions

The Deployment Automation 6.0 server and agent are now installed with Tomcat 8 and JRE 8 on all platforms. If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Deployment Automation and you have custom SSO configuration settings, you must apply the same settings to Tomcat 8.0 accordingly.

In version 6.0:

The Deployment Automation server only supports Java version 8.0 (Java JRE or JDK 1.8.0.25 or greater)
The Deployment Automation agents support Java 6.0, 7.0, and 8.0 (Java JRE or JDK 1.6.0.43 or greater, 1.7.0.25 or greater, 1.8.0.25 or greater)

Note: The upgrade replaces the current version of Tomcat that is installed on the SDA server, but does not automatically migrate other applications (such as Dimensions CM) from the old Tomcat into the new Tomcat. After the SDA 6.0 install, the previous Tomcat installation remains on disk; if you have other products that use the previous Tomcat instance, you can migrate them into the new Tomcat 8 installation as required.

JDBC Files

The required JDBC driver files that are used by Deployment Automation to connect to the Deployment Automation database are now provided by the installer. This means you do not have to download the drivers before you perform a new Deployment Automation install. If you are upgrading from an earlier version and you modified the standard JDBC drivers, the upgrade process preserves your existing JDBC files and connection information, and automatically copies the files to the appropriate directory location for you.

About Upgrading Agent Relays

Agent relays for version 6.0 that are configured for server-initiated connection are compatible only with Deployment Automation servers version 5.1.5 and above. You cannot connect to version 5.1.5 and above agent relays through network relays as was possible in earlier server versions. If you attempt to do this, the agents connected through the agent relay will not be in Online status.

Known Issues

For a complete and up-to-date list of issues found in this release of Deployment Automation, refer to the Knowledge Base.

Issues known to exist at the time of release are as follows:

For MySQL databases, upgrades do not work under Windows. If you are using MySQL as your database and want to upgrade to version 6.0, please contact Serena Support.
The documentation incorrectly includes information on running global processes from application processes. The section on this in the User's Guide and User's Help, "Run Global Process" in "Application Process Utility Steps", is not valid. Running global processes from application processes is not supported because there is no way to identify the resource to be used by the environment for these processes. You can run global processes from component processes.