NOTE Dimensions Deployment is the default CM deployment model, for details about using Deployment Automation see Introduction to Deployment Automation.
Dimensions CM manages individual items, or groups of items, as they move through the development process. The deployment change management process is defined by a series of development stages linked to the Global Stage Lifecycle (GSL). For each stage of the GSL one or more physical or logical locations on disk, known as deployment areas, can be setup to contain a snapshot of the items at that stage.
The Global Stage Lifecycle (GSL) is the base database lifecycle that items follow through the deployment process. This is a sample GSL with five stages from development (DEV) to system integration testing (SIT), quality assurance (QA), pre-production (PRE-PROD) and production (LIVE), with two deployment areas assigned to each stage:
TIP Dimensions CM executes deployment and build operations asynchronously in deployment areas. To use this functionality you should define a user name and password (or a credential set) for each deployment area.