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Serena Deployment Automation 6.1.3 Readme
This readme file contains information about this release. Last updated on 2016-12-15.

Contents

About this Release

Welcome to Serena Deployment Automation version 6.1.3. See the What's New 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

Supported Configurations

Detailed information about supported platforms and software configuration is available in the Supported Platform Matrix. (In the row for this release, click the link in the Platform Matrix column.)

Third-party Tools

For more information regarding third-party software copyrights and license information, refer to the files under "Downloads" or "News" at http://www.serena.com/support.

What's New

For information on changes included in this release, see the following:

Enhancements and New Features

The following enhancements and new features are included in this release.

  • New Notification Scheme for When Agents Go Offline

    You can now configure a notification scheme so that the appropriate personnel are notified when agents go offline.

  • New WebSocket Communication for Client-Server

    WebSocket communication is now used for client-server communication, such as for the notification counters shown in the upper right of the user interface. This enables the data to be refreshed faster and reduces traffic between the client and server.

  • Enhanced Auto Upgrade

    Auto upgrade has the following enhancements:

    • Plugin upgrades are now suggested in addition to server and agent upgrades
    • Agreement to receive upgrade eligibility information is now a separate option from that of data collection
    • Only users with the appropriate permissions can agree to and receive upgrade eligibility information
  • Improved Performance

    Performance has been improved in the following areas of Deployment Automation:

    • Database indexing
    • Application environments page
    • Resource groups tree
    • Plugin tree
  • New Amazon Web Services (AWS) CloudFormation Plugin

    With the new AWS CloudFormation plugin you can:

    • Use existing templates with dynamic runtime values for the chosen service or application architectures
    • Provision the services or applications
    • Modify the template values
  • Enhanced JBoss 7 Plugin

    The JBoss 7 plugin has the following new steps:

    • Enable Data Source
    • Remove JMS Queue
    • Remove JMS Topic
    • Start Server Group
    • Stop Server Group
    • Start Server
    • Stop Server
  • Enhanced Atlassian JIRA Plugin

    The JIRA plugin has been updated to support REST API rather than SOAP API.

  • Enhanced ServiceNow Plugin

    The ServiceNow plugin has been updated to support REST API rather than SOAP API.

  • Enhanced Citrix NetScaler Plugin

    A Check Service Status step has been added to the Citrix NetScaler plugin.

  • Updated ChangeMan ZMF Plugin

    The ChangeMan ZMF Plugin now supports the ChangeMan ZMF 6.1.1 Connector. This enables Deployment Automation to integrate with ChangeMan ZMF 8.1.1.

  • Updated Unix/Linux Installer

    The following changes have been made to the Deployment Automation installer for Unix/Linux servers:

    • The Serena Common Tomcat user must be specified upon upgrading to this release. For details, see Upgrades.
    • The HPUX JDBC driver is no longer included in the installation; you must download and install it separately.

For details on the new features, see the Serena Deployment Automation User's Guide or User's Help on Documentation Center.

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

This section provides important information for upgrades to Deployment Automation 6.1.3. Before you upgrade, review the following sections, and then proceed with the upgrade.

Backing Up Deployment Automation

Before upgrading the server, you should back up your current server as follows:

  1. Stop Serena Common Tomcat.
  2. Run the following backups in any order.
    Note: These backups should be done in a single session while Serena Common Tomcat is stopped so that the data stays in sync.
    1. Backup your database. If Derby is used this step can be omitted.
    2. Backup your Deployment Automation profile folder and its subfolders.

      The default location of the profile is:

      C:\Users\username\.serena\ra

      where username is the name of the system user under which the server was installed

      Tip:

      To find the location of your profile, view the installed.properties file under the serena_ra web application and look at the installLocation property. You can find the installed properties in the Serena Common Tomcat web application conf folder. The default location for version 6.1.2 installed.properties file is:

      C:\Program Files\Serena\common\tomcat\8.0\webapps\serena_ra\conf

    3. If you have any subfolders in your profile that are virtual links pointing to external storage such as relocated CodeStation directories, you should back up those external storage locations as well.
    4. Backup your serena_ra web application. It is recommended that you backup the entire Serena Common Tomcat folder that contains your serena_ra web application, but at minimum back up the serena_ra folder and its subfolders. The default location for Deployment Automation version 6.1.2 is:

      C:\Program Files\Serena\common\tomcat\8.0\webapps\serena_ra

  3. Continue with your upgrade.

Server Upgrades

You can upgrade to this release from the following on Tomcat servers only:

  • Deployment Automation versions 5.1.2 to 6.1.2
  • 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 6.1.3.

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

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

To upgrade a Deployment Automation server:

  1. Before beginning the upgrade, backup your current server as detailed in Backing Up Deployment Automation.
  2. Download and run the version 6.1.3 server installer.

  3. UNIX/Linux Only: As part of the upgrade installation process for a Deployment Automation UNIX/Linux server system, you must specify the owner of the Deployment Automation installation.

    You must ensure that the user specified is also the owner of the Serena Common Tomcat instance, especially when Serena Common Tomcat hosts other applications in addition to Deployment Automation. The owner is the user name used to run the Tomcat process. During the upgrade, folders inside the Tomcat instance are configured as owned by the specified owner, and if the user name and owner do not match, the Tomcat process may not be able to read them or write to them.

    If the upgrade of Deployment Automation does not also involve an upgrade of the Serena Common Tomcat system, then the specified user name is used in a number of commands to set the ownership of the following folders:

    tomcat/8.0/work

    tomcat/8.0/temp

    tomcat/8.0/logs

    <user profile location>, by default: /opt/serena/sda/serena/.serena/ra

    During a Serena Common Tomcat upgrade, the ownership of the entire Tomcat installation is set to the specified user name. A Serena Common Tomcat upgrade is done when upgrading from Deployment Automation version 6.1.0 or earlier, but not when upgrading from version 6.1.1 and version 6.1.2.

About Notification Schemes

The new notification schemes are added to existing schemes during the upgrade. To keep backward compatibility, if changes for a scheme are detected, the upgrade does not affect that scheme; otherwise, the scheme is upgraded to the latest version.

About JRE and Tomcat Versions

The Deployment Automation 6.1.3 server and agent are installed with Serena Common Tomcat 8.0 and JRE 8.0 on all platforms. If you are upgrading from a version of Deployment Automation earlier than version 6.0 and you have custom SSO configuration settings, you must apply the same settings to Tomcat 8.0 accordingly.

In Deployment Automation version 6.1.3:

  • Servers support only Java version 8.0 (Java JRE or JDK 1.8.0.25 or greater)
  • Agents and agent relays 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)
Important: On Windows, JRE 8.0 is required for an agent relay to be installed as a service. On all platforms, to restrict the security protocols, you must use version Java 8.0.
Note: The upgrade replaces any previous versions of Tomcat that are installed on the Deployment Automation server, but does not automatically migrate other applications (such as Dimensions CM) from the old Tomcat into the new Tomcat. After the Deployment Automation 6.1.3 installation, 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 8.0 installation as required.

About JDBC Files

The required JDBC driver files that are used by Deployment Automation versions 6.0 and above to connect to the Deployment Automation database are 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 Agent and Agent Relay Upgrades

For details on upgrading Deployment Automation agents and agent relays, see the version 6.1.3 Serena Deployment Automation User's Guide or online Help.

CAUTION:
Agent relays for version 6.1.3 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.

About Plugin Upgrades

For details on upgrading Deployment Automation plugins, see the version 6.1.3 Serena Deployment Automation User's Guide or online Help.

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:

  • WebSocket error upon initiating the Web client when a proxy server is used

    The client now requests a WebSocket connection upon initial connection to the server. If you receive a WebSocket error, you may need to configure your proxy server to support the WebSocket connection. In some cases, the proxy server may need to be upgraded. For more information, see Knowledgebase item S141934.

  • Existing agents may not come back online after the server upgrade to version 6.1.3.

    Due to changes to security protocols supported starting in version 6.1.1, agents using earlier versions of Java, such as Java 6, may not be allowed to connect to the server after the upgrade. If your agents do not come online after the server upgrade, you will need to upgrade them by following the instructions in Knowledgebase item S141622.

  • When a large number of agents are moved from one unidirectional agent relay to another, agents of versions prior to 6.1.2 may not automatically appear online.

    When a large number of agents are changed to point to a different unidirectional agent relay, agents of versions prior to 6.1.2 may not automatically come online. These may be listed as CONNECTED or OFFLINE.

    To bring them online, in the Agents / Pools pane you can click the Test icon or you can restart the agents.

  • The ChangeMan ZMF plugin Host Address cannot be an IP address; it must be host name.

    If you enter the IP address in the ChangeMan ZMF plugin Host Address field, when you run the process the connection fails and the following error is listed in the output log: "Host address cannot be empty and cannot contain special characters". You must enter the host name in the Host Address field.

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