rPath for Release Automation

Automating System Provisioning and Maintenance

rPath for Release Automation

The Gap between Apps and Ops
System provisioning and maintenance is slow and expensive because of a cultural and process gap dividing the worlds of application development and IT operations. Once an application is functionally complete, it is thrown over the wall to IT operations, which takes custody of the app and becomes responsible for its deployment and maintenance. Typically, these processes are executed manually or through custom scripts and other shallow approaches to automation.

Systems are constructed around the application based on a series of independent stepslayering on operating system, middleware and other toolingto create a complete software stack that is ready to run. Because the resulting system is the sum of these uncoordinated steps, there is no consistent way to explicitly understand which componentsand more specifically, the exact versions, dependencies and relationships between the componentsare included. Systems become an unmanageable black box. For most IT organizations, the process of deploying an application is manual, taking weeks or months and causing business lines to miss opportunities. Some IT organizations implement custom scripts to automate these processes. This may help to accelerate some of the manual steps, but it fails to address the fact that the process itself remains flawed: systems are inconsistently cobbled together without an adequate or ongoing understanding of the system definition, dependencies and version histories.

rPath for Release Automation

As a result, organizations experience escalating delays, costs and risks caused by:

"At Vindicia, we face the dual challenges of compliance mandates and agile development. Luckily, the rPath approach has enabled us to ensure scalability, consistency and control of our system provisioning and maintenance processes." Brett Thomas, CTO, Vindicia

V e r s i o n i n c o n s i s t e n c y b e t w e e n l i f e c y c l e p h a s e s manual assembly of systems often creates version inconsistencies between QA and production phases. Even subtle differences in system versions often cause QA-certified applications to break in production. I n e f f i c i e n t m a i n t e n a n c e p r o c e s s e s since dependencies arent deeply understood, updates and patches often break running systems, adding to overhead costs and creating business and compliance risks. With no detailed understanding of which components are running where, forklift updates must be delivered en masse , creating a cascading series of conflicts and collisions to running systems. I n a b i l i t y t o r o l l b a c k c h a n g e s when these collisions occur, the absence of version control capabilities makes it difficult or impossible to roll back changes to restore the running system. I n a b i l i t y t o r e p r o d u c e s y s t e m s the ad hoc nature of system construction and the lack of a version history means that it is generally impossible to reproduce exact systems. This can lead to variation in computational results and compliance and audit risks. N o n c o m p l i a n t s y s t e m s a manual approach to creating systems creates the risk of noncompliance with Sarbanes Oxley, PCIA, ITIL, cryptography, licensing, and other IT and regulatory policies.

A Better Approach: Release Automation

This manual approach to system provisioning and maintenance adds delay, cost and risk to organizations today. Thats why many IT leaders are implementing automation solutions. But all release automation solutions are not equal; many simply apply basic scripts to existing processes, failing to address the fundamental inadequacy of the underlying processes themselves.

rPath for Release Automation

An enterprise-class release automation solution must include the following capabilities: A u t o m a t e d d e p e n d e n c y d i s c o v e r y deeply analyzing applications to understand the exact pieces of softwareoperating system, middleware and toolingthe application requires to run. P o l i c y - b a s e d c o n s t r u c t i o n automatically executing IT policies at build time to ensure consistent system construction; for example, these policies may dictate the inclusion of specific middleware components, agents, utilities and various metadata, licensing and/or software export information. S t r o n g v e r s i o n c o n t r o l providing fine-grained version histories and control of complete systems and system components. This fundamental capability provides a basis for automated updates, rollbacks, staged or staggered rollouts and system reproducibility. I n c r e m e n t a l u p d a t e s strong version control also enables updates and patches to be delivered incrementally, not to all systems, but to only those that contain the software relevant to the specific update. This dramatically reduces the number of updates that need to be delivered, reducing costs and the opportunity for system conflicts and collisions that lead to application outages.

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rPath: The Solution for Enterprise Release Automation
Gartner has cited* software system complexity as an immediate problem in need of an effective solution. "A difficult economic environment continues to challenge IT organizations to come up with ways to reduce costs and deal with complexity." "IT organizations will need to automate existing scripts to ensure reliable and efficient application updates for complex applications." "IT organizations will need to look at tools to improve the efficiency of deploying and configuring applications and databases in physical and virtual environments." *Gartner Group, March 2009
T h e r P a t h R e l e a s e A u t o m a t i o n P l a t f o r m provides the most advanced solution for release automation available today. rPath fully automates system provisioning and system maintenance across any physical, virtual or cloud-based environment.

rPath capabilities include: The industrys only strong version control management platform Automated dependency discovery Policy-based system construction Automated update and rollback of deployed systems Deep understanding of system inventories and change impact for intelligent patching Lifecycle tools for control across dev-test-QA-prod stages (access control, workflow) Reporting UI for system inventories, lifecycle stages, process patterns and bottlenecks On-demand provisioning of output formats for any physical, hypervisor or cloud target Role-based UI, command line interface, and RESTful APIs

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Taken together, these capabilities provide an enterprise release automation platform for rapid, low-overhead provisioning and maintenance of complex software systems. Automated System Provisioning Delays in system provisioning mean missed business opportunities. Today, many IT groups must manually package and provision software systems, which forces business lines to wait, negatively impacting responsiveness and agility. rPath provides a complete automation solution for flexibly defining and provisioning complete software stacksor any individual layer of the stack. OS, platform, and release management groups can easily define and produce fully dependency-resolved, consistent software stacks that are ready to run in any physical, virtual or cloud environment. This dramatically accelerates the release management lifecycle by: Provisioning and de-provisioning stacks to any phase of the lifecycle on demand Ensuring development, test and production teams are working with a consistent build Controlling handoff between lifecycle phases with access control and workflow Key rPath capabilities for automated system provision include: Automated import of OS and application componentspackages, binaries or source code Automated dependency discovery and resolution Definitive software library for consistency in system construction Hierarchical system definition for software reuse and highly leveraged maintenance activity Automated enforcement of IT policies for system consistency Complete lifecycle tools for controlled handoffs between dev, QA and production Automated output of deployment formats for physical, virtual and cloud targets

rPath for Release Automation

System Version Control Organizations without a strong version control platform for managing their deployed systems are flying blindthey simply have little or no ongoing control and visibility into their deployed systems. This creates a fragile and tenuous environment that is becoming only more costly and risky to manage with the growing complexity of software systems and the pressure to reduce IT operating costs. rPath provides the industrys only commercial version control platform for managing deployed software systems. rPath is not a source code management system. Rather, it is a management solution for IT operations groups that applies the principles and disciplines of source code control to the management of deployable software systemsspecifically, system manifests, packages, binaries, policies and configurations. This is a fundamental capability for release automation. Strong version control ensures systems can be quickly reproduced, provides deep control for automated delivery of updates, patches and rollbacks and enables comprehensive reporting for compliance and management purposes. This reporting capability allows IT to ask important questions about deployed systems that, traditionally, have been virtually unanswerable for most organizations. For example: What deployed systems contain software relevant to this update? What would happen if we upgraded this system to a later build? What version of our validated stack is running on this system? How has this system changed from our original specification? How old is this system compared to newer installs?

The reality is that organizations without a system version control platform are flying blindthey simply have little or no ongoing control and visibility into their deployed systems. This creates a fragile and tenuous environment that is becoming only more costly and risky to manage with the growing complexity of software systems and the pressure to reduce IT operating costs.

rPath for Release Automation

Automated System Maintenance Patching and updating deployed software systems is among the most challenging and tenuous processes in enterprise IT. This is because deployed systems are typically opaqueits difficult or impossible to know specifically what software is running and what the impact of changes will be. As a consequence, most IT organizations either avoid updates altogether or put each and every software change through a labyrinth of costly and time consuming process of testing and certification. rPath builds a complete system manifest that acts as a blueprint for seamless, automated change. This manifest allows for deep understanding of what software is deployed, which patches and updates apply and what the impact of changes will be. Additionally, since all systems are managed under version control, rolling back changes is fast and easy. rPath automates system maintenance by: 1. Consuming upstream software updates and patches from ALM systems and other update channels 2. Matching updates to system manifests of deployed systems to discover where the updates apply 3. Analyzing system dependencies and providing a basis for deeply understanding the impact of changes 4. Enabling updates to be implemented incrementallydown to the file levelto selected target systems 5. Allowing systems to be rolled back to any previous version for system restoration or reproduction

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The Enterprise Solution for Release Automation

Todays IT operations groups are under intense pressure to deal with the exploding complexity of software systems while finding ways to reduce costs and do more with less. The reality is that todays manual and inefficient approaches to system provisioning and system maintenance no longer work. Today, IT organizations are looking for ways to apply automation and control to a process that, in its current form, is far too manual and chaotic. rPath provides an enterprise solution for release automation that dramatically reduces the time, cost and risk associated with system provisioning and maintenance across physical, virtual and cloud environments. With rPath, IT organizations can: Reduce deployment cycles from months to minutes Slash maintenance costs by reducing the volume of software updates by up to 90% Increase the productivity of deployment and maintenance personnel by 36X Reduce update conflicts, outages, compliance issues and troubleshooting costs Ensure lifecycle efficiency by ensuring consistent system definitions across all phases

rPath for Release Automation

About rPath
rPath is widely know as an innovator in solutions that automate system provisioning and maintenance across physical, virtual and cloud environments. Our innovative release automation platform is based on the industrys only commercial version control repository for managing deployed software systems. The result is a complete automation solution for low-overhead and compliant system deployment and maintenance. rPath customers include leading enterprises and ISVs who rely on rBuilder and the rPath Release Automation Platform for rapid deployment and low-overhead maintenance of complex software systems.

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