RapidDeploy™ Enterprise Edition

RapidDeploy ™ is an Application Release Automation tool that enables organisations to automate the deployment of web applications enabling the rapid provision of new environments or integration with virtual and cloud infrastructures

At the heart of RapidDeploy™ is the ability to install, patch and configure application server and middleware products. Whether you are creating Clusters, AppServers or Virtual Hosts in WebSphere, WebLogic, JBoss or TomCat creating Queue Managers or Queues in MQ, brokers in Message Broker or deploying Oracle or DB2 databases, RapidDeploy™ has a module to create and maintain configuration over time. Application deployments are the most common activity in release automation. As such RapidDeploy™ provides the ability for admin teams to carry out deployments via a web based UI – and also provides application developers, release managers or non-technical staff the ability to deploy to environments in a controlled manner. This self-service approach speeds up the development lifecycle and reduces reliance & bottlenecks on level 3 resources.

A powerful discovery service gathers information about your middleware estate including versions and patch levels of installed products, together with taking snapshots of the installed product configuration. Configuration Snapshots of components like WebSphere, WebLogic or MQ allow differences between environments to be identified – as well as identifying change over time.

RapidDeploy™ has an embedded reporting capability, RapidReports, which not only reports on physical assets, such as the products installed on servers, but more importantly provides this data from a logical perspective. This allows you to view which product platform (e.g WAS, MQ, Oracle) and which version of application code is installed in each environment the whole way through the software development lifecycle. Furthermore, it links installed products, configuration and application code to specific business applications.

All activities initiated through RapidDeploy™ are recorded providing a full audit capability with built-in integration into your corporate directory service. Fine- grained access control and workflow allow you to not only put in controls around who can perform configuration and deployments – but also extend to include authorizer steps.

Business Benefits of Application Release Automation:

Eliminate configuration-related errors and minimize downtime

Release additional scalability and accelerate growth

Reduce effort and make productivity gains

Release highly skilled resources

Expedite the “time to value” for applications from weeks to hours

Eliminate unaudited manual and script-based processes

Enable compliance management reducing business risk

Provide rapid installation and configuration of applications in all of your environments; physical, virtual and cloud

New in V3.0:
• A new User Interface based on the latest web design technology
• The ability to create deployment plans and store these as templates
• Wizards to assist with common tasks
• Additional audit and security features
• Simplified installation

In addition, these release notes include an update on MidVision’s Environment Manager module providing a new graphical representation of environments and snapshot and compare capability.