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smart|release QuickStart Guide
Table of Contents
SmartRelease provides flexible and structured management of the release and deploy process. This guide will get you started using SmartRelease and walk you through the essential setup and operation. In this guide we will begin with a quick tour through terminology and definitions in the production, then work through the steps to model releases for a fictional application: Client Portal.
StreamStep SmartRelease Introduction and Tutorial
SmartRelease provides flexible and structured management of the release and deploy process. This guide will get you started using SmartRelease and walk you through the essential setup and operation. In this guide we will begin with a quick tour through terminology and definitions in the product, then work through the steps to model releases for a fictional application: Client Portal.
Users and Groups
Users, groups and roles are the foundation of the security structure of SmartRelease. The SmartRelease organizational model, in a verbal snapshot, looks like this:
- Users are the base level entity that works in the system, users can login.
- Roles: Users have one or many roles that they play, such as deployer or coordinator, rights are granted to roles.
- Groups: Users can be members or one or many groups. Groups are generally the functional groups in your organization and groups may have up to two managers.
- Teams: Users may also be part of teams. A team can contain users and/or groups. Teams are also related to the deployment process. Teams have interest in applications and team members have different roles in different applications
- Bladelogic users have the ability to be synchronized with a specified Bladelogic server.
The relationships will be more obvious as we setup users in the system.
Logical and Infrastructure Modeling
SmartRelease processes are centered on Applications. Applications are comprised of Components. They are related to applications through membership in an Environment. Some components are local to the application such as a JAR file other are Remote Components such as a database cluster. Components subscribe to properties, such as “ip address” or “server port”. Components are installed on Servers. Servers may be grouped into Server Groups. Servers may also be divided into Server Levels. Server levels are used to group servers according to functional use, such as “JBoss servers” or “Load Balancers”.
The Release and Deployment process
SmartRelease release modeling is centered on Requests. A request represents the request to deploy one or many components of an application into an environment. Requests contain the work to be done in the deployment process. Requests are comprised of Steps which can be manual “Check logs for errors” or automated “Deploy package” using the SSH (Capistrano) or Bladelogic automation modules. Requests and steps can be assigned to users and scheduled on the Calendar, they have duration, planned and due dates. Requests and steps follow a series of states and transitions from planned to complete. Requests may be executed as part of an Activity, such as a project or DR exercise. Requests may also be generated as part of an application Lifecycle process. Requests may be characterized by a named Release, such as “August-minor”. Steps can be characterized as part of a Task or Runtime Phase. Steps may be completed as a series where each one must be complete before starting the next or parallel where execution may proceed asynchronously to reflect different dependencies in the work.
Once again, there are many aspects to the request process that will become more obvious as we work through the example.