Component Creation Overview

Components are the centerpiece of the Deployment Automation deployment engine. Components associate items that will be deployed, or artifacts, with processes that will deploy them. The following table summarizes the basic steps performed to create components. Related topics are listed below the table.

Component Creation Steps table

Step	Description
1. Define source configuration	Define the source type and identify the artifacts associated with the component. Once the source type is defined, all artifacts must be of that defined type.
2. Create component version	Create the initial component version by importing artifacts into the artifact repository, CodeStation. Versions can be imported manually or automatically. Version imports can be full (all artifacts are imported) or incremental (only changed artifacts are imported). Deployment Automation tracks all artifact changes, which enables you to rollback components or deploy multiple versions of the same one.
3. Create component process	Use the process design editor to create a process for the component. Component processes consist of user-configured steps that operate on the component, usually by deploying it. The available steps are provided by installed plug-ins. As shipped Deployment Automation provides plug-ins for many common functions. Numerous other plug-ins are available from Serena at http://support.serena.com.