Contents

• 1.0 What's New
• 2.0 Software Compatibility Requirements
• 3.0 Installation Considerations
• 4.0 Upgrade Considerations
• 5.0 Known Issues

1.1 What's New in Serena Release Manager 4.0.1

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.

1.2 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

New features of Serena Release Manager 4.0.1 include the following:

• Release Content Planning

• Identify and track all release content as part of the release train, such as requests, requirements, or other associations

• Specify an order, or priority, for release content

• Select a risk assignment, such as Low, Medium, High, or Critical

• Enter a numeric value to represent the effort or other weighting for a content item

• Requests for Change (RFC) Creation

• Create a request for change directly from a release train in Release Manager

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.

See the Serena ALM Installation and Configuration Guide before beginning an installation or upgrade of Serena Release Manager.

• The Serena ALM 4.0.1 installation includes a new version of the Serena Common Tomcat Web server. This version requires Dimensions CM 12.2.2 and is not backwards compatible with previous releases of Dimensions CM.

  If your configuration co-locates Serena ALM with Dimensions CM 12.2.1.1 or older, Dimensions CM must be upgraded before installing Serena ALM 4.0.1.

  The Serena ALM 4.0.1 installer will upgrade the Serena Common Tomcat Web server if the older version is detected. This upgrade moves the pre-existing Tomcat files into a backup location, tomcat6_pre4.0.1, and then installs the new common tools.

• To take advantage of the new Vault Request and Vault Template functionality, you must use Dimensions CM 12.2.1.1 or above. The patch for Dimensions CM 12.2.1.1 is available on the Serena Customer Support Knowledgebase in Patch P2682.

3.1 Licensing

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

• Serena Release Control: Use Serena License Manager.

• Dimensions CM: Use Serena License Manager.

• Serena Release Automation: Obtain a license from Serena Support. See the Serena Release Automation User's Guide.

• Serena Release Automation, Powered by Nolio: Obtain a license from Serena Support. See the Serena Release Automation (Nolio) Installation and Administration Guide.

3.2 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 ALM Installation and Configuration Guide.

3.2.1 Server Considerations

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

The upgrade from Serena Release Manager version 4.0 to version 4.0.1 may be done using the Serena ALM installer and post-installation instructions as documented in the Serena ALM Installation and Configuration Guide in "Serena Release Manager Typical Upgrade". Upgrades from versions prior to 4.0 to version 4.0.1 should be done using the manual upgrade instructions included in the same guide in "Serena Release Manager Manual Upgrade".

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 4.0.1 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. (DEF231317)

2. If you are 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. 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)

4. 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)

5. 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 saving, you should verify that your changes were made in the configuration files. (DEF222109)

6. 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)

7. If you are using SBM as a DCR provider for a release package, the RLM administrative user ID must have access to Dimensions CM as well as to SBM or Release Manager will not display SBM projects. (DEF225157)

8. You cannot log into the Serena ALM Configurator if your system has an expired SSO certificate. If you receive an error similar to "ALF SSO Gatekeeper error", you must reset the expired certificate as documented in Serena Release Manager Installation and Configuration, "Troubleshooting". (DEF224185)

9. For the SSM integration, the release train workflow does not pass the Implementer value to the SSM Change Request workflow. The workaround is to set the Implementer value in a transition override for these transitions, preferably to the same user ID specified in the itsm.connection.properties file. (DEF222088)

10. If you are using Internet Explorer as your Web browser, in vault requests and vault templates, filters added in the Options tab are not saved. (DEF226349)

11. If you receive a timeout error when creating the first release train, you must increase the Web services timeout value on your SBM server. To do so, in SBM System Administrator, navigate to Options | Settings | Database. In the Web Services section of that form, increase Web Service Invocation Timeout to a greater value, such as 60 seconds. (DEF231638)

12. Deployment tasks for all release packages are shown in the report for each release package. (DEF231760)

    To fix this issue, do the following:

    1. In the native SBM user workspace (enter the Serena ALM URL without shell=alm), select the Deployment Task tab.

    2. In the navigation pane, expand the Reports section.

    3. Click Find Reports.

    4. Search for the Assigned Tasks report.

    5. Click Modify Listing to edit the report.

    6. In the Search filter section, add following filters:

       Release Package in (Query At Runtime)

       and

       Stage in (Query At Runtime)

       and

       Deployment Type in Instance