Quick Start—helloWorld Deployment

This section gets you started by providing immediate hands-on experience using key product features. The helloWorld walk-through demonstrates how to create a simple deployment using out-of-the-box features.

In outline, deployments are done by performing the following steps:

• Define Components

  Components represent deployable artifacts: files, images, databases, configuration materials, or anything else associated with a software project. Components have versions which ensure that proper component instances are deployed. See Components for more information about creating components.

• Define Component Processes

  Component processes operate on components, usually by deploying them. Each component must have at least one component process defined for it. For helloWorld you will create a single component that contains a number of text-type files (artifacts), and define a simple process that moves—deploys—the artifacts.

• Define Application

  An application brings together all deployment components by identifying its components and defining a process to move them through a target environment (by running component processes, for instance). See Applications for more information about creating applications.

• Configure Environment

  An environment is a collection of resources that represent deployment targets–physical machines, virtual machines, databases, J2EE containers, and so on. Each application must have at least one environment defined for it.

• Identify Agent

  Agents are distributed processes that communicate with the Serena Release Automation server and perform the actual work of deploying artifacts. Generally, an agent is installed on the host where the resources it manages reside. Agents are associated with applications at the environment level.