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- Getting started
- XL Release
- Overview
- Installation
- Get started with XL Release
- Manage your installation
- Model your releases
- Release your software
- Release overview
- Create and start releases
- Configure release properties
- Scheduling releases
- Start a release from an archived release
- Start a release from a template
- Start a release from another release
- Create a release from a Git repository
- Add a phase to a release or template
- Add a task to a phase in a release or template
- Import a release template
- Trigger releases
- Work with running releases
- Work with plugins
- Using reports
- Customize XL Release
- API and scripting overview
- Create custom task types
- Create custom configuration types
- Create custom trigger types
- Extend the XL Release GUI
- Declare custom REST endpoints
- Create custom tiles
- Create custom task types
- Create custom configuration types
- Using scheduling in scripts to connect to long running jobs
- Implement a custom failure handler
- Listen to XL Release events
- Configuration settings
- Release manuals
- XL Deploy
- Connect to your infrastructure
- Set up applications and environments
- Prepare your application for XL Deploy
- Create a deployment package
- Define application dependencies
- Configure an environment
- Using placeholders and dictionaries
- Working with deployment packages
- Preparing your application for XL Deploy
- Understanding deployables and deployeds
- XL Deploy manifest format
- Deprecated XL Deploy manifest format
- Using the XL Deploy Manifest Editor
- Understanding archives and folders in XL Deploy
- Add an externally stored artifact to a package
- Extend the external artifact storage feature
- Add a package to XL Deploy
- Export a deployment package
- XL Deploy for developers
- Tips and tricks for deployment packages
- Deploy an application
- Deployment overview
- Understanding the XL Deploy planning phase
- Steps and step lists in XL Deploy
- Understanding tasks in XL Deploy
- Deploy an application
- Use tags to configure deployments
- Preview the deployment plan
- Use orchestration
- Working with deployments
- Stopping, aborting, or canceling a deployment
- Schedule a deployment
- Update a deployed application
- Staging artifacts in XL Deploy
- Monitor and reassign deployment tasks
- Make previously deployed property values available in a PowerShell script
- Undeploy an application or deprovision an environment
- Perform canary deployments
- Perform dark launch deployments
- Perform hot deployments
- Deploying an externally stored artifact using the XL Deploy CLI
- Schedule or reschedule a task
- Using the deployment pipeline view
- Deploy to remote datacenters
- Get started with provisioning
- Use control tasks
- Work with the CLI
- Work with plugins
- Create an XL Deploy plugin
- Base plugins and the deployed object
- Implement custom XL Deploy plugpoints
- Add a checkpoint to a custom plugin
- Step options for the Generic, PowerShell, and Python plugins
- Sample Java-based XL Deploy plugin
- XL Deploy plugin tutorial
- Standard plugins
- Middleware plugins
- Apache Tomcat
- BizTalk
- F5 BIG-IP
- GlassFish
- IBM WebSphere Application Server
- IBM WebSphere Process Server
- IBM WebSphere Liberty Profile Server
- IBM WebSphere MQ
- JBoss Application Server 5 and 6
- JBoss Application Server 7 and up
- Microsoft Internet Information Services
- Microsoft Windows
- NetScaler
- Oracle Service Bus
- Oracle Service-Oriented Architecture
- Oracle WebLogic Application Server
- Provisioning plugins
- Container platform plugins
- Tools
- Community plugins
- Using the Explorer
- Introduction to the release dashboard
- Using XL Deploy reports
- Manage your installation
- Logging in XL Deploy
- Start XL Deploy
- Shut down XL Deploy
- Back up XL Deploy
- Upgrade XL Deploy
- The XL Deploy Repository
- Configure the repository
- Configure XL Deploy to fetch artifacts from a Maven repository
- Manage security
- Manage system settings
- Configure failover for XL Deploy
- Configure active/hot-standby mode
- Configure the task execution engine
- Troubleshoot the Jackrabbit JCR repository
- Configure XL Deploy client settings
- Enable XL Deploy maintenance mode
- Update the XL Deploy digital certificate
- The XL Deploy work directory
- Reclaim disk space on an XL Deploy server
- Hide internal XL Deploy server errors
- Automatically purge packages according to a user-defined policy
- Automatically purge the task archive according to a user-defined policy
- Specify file encoding on the XL Deploy server
- Automatically archive tasks according to a user-defined policy
- Best practices for maintaining XebiaLabs tools
- Customize XL Deploy
- XL Release plugins
- XL Deploy plugins
- Standard plugins
- Middleware plugins
- Apache Tomcat
- BizTalk
- F5 BIG-IP
- GlassFish
- IBM WebSphere Application Server
- IBM WebSphere Process Server
- IBM WebSphere Liberty Profile Server
- IBM WebSphere MQ
- JBoss Application Server 5 and 6
- JBoss Application Server 7 and up
- Microsoft Internet Information Services
- Microsoft Windows
- NetScaler
- Oracle Service Bus
- Oracle Service-Oriented Architecture
- Oracle WebLogic Application Server
- Provisioning plugins
- Container platform plugins
- Tools
- Community plugins
Introduction to the release dashboard
Most organizations have a process around releasing software to their environments. Typically, application versions are promoted to a number of environments before being released to production. In each environment, the application version is integrated or tested before being allowed to progress to the next stage. XL Deploy includes a release dashboard to help you get insight into this process.
Set up the release dashboard
Before using the release dashboard, you need to define a deployment pipeline, deployment checklists, and checklist items.
Note: The release dashboard view is available only in the legacy UI. For more information about the deployment pipeline, refer to Using the deployment pipeline view.
Define a deployment pipeline
A deployment pipeline is the sequence of environments to which an application is deployed during its lifecycle. Each application can be configured with its own deployment pipeline. An application version starts in the first environment and is promoted to each of the following environments in turn. It is also possible for a particular version to be deployed to multiple environments at once.
A common example of such a pipeline is: Development, Testing, Acceptance and Production. If this deployment pipeline was associated with the PetClinic application, then version 1.0 of PetClinic would be deployed to the Development environment first, then to the Testing environment, and so on.
You need to define a deployment pipeline for every application that you want to see in the release dashboard. For information about defining a deployment pipeline, refer to Create a deployment pipeline.
Define deployment checklists and checklist items
To ensure the quality of a deployment pipeline, you can optionally associate environments in the pipeline with a checklist that each deployment package must satisfy before being deployed to the environment. Some examples of checklist items are:
- Have release notes been included in the deployment package?
- Has the application version been performance tested?
- Is there a change ticket number associated with the deployment?
- Has the business owner signed off on the deployment?
XL Deploy supports checkboxes and text fields as checklist items. A checkbox condition is met if it is checked. A text field condition is met if it is not empty.
For information about defining checklists, refer to Create a deployment checklist.
Use the release dashboard
On the release dashboard, you can:
- Click an application to view its deployment pipeline and the version that is installed in each environment
- Click an application version (that is, a deployment package) to view its position in the deployment pipeline
- Click an environment in an application version’s pipeline to:
- Check off items in the deployment checklist (if the environment has a checklist)
- Deploy the selected version to the environment
Release dashboard security
A user’s permissions determine what they can do with the release dashboard:
- The values for deployment checklist items are stored on the deployment package (
udm.Version
) configuration item. Therefore, users withrepo#edit
permission on the deployment package can check off items on the checklist. - When viewing a deployment pipeline, the user can only see the environments that he or she can access. For example, if a user has access to the DEV and TEST environments, he or she will only see those environments in a pipeline that includes the DEV, TEST, ACC, and PROD environments.
- Normal deployment permissions (
deploy#initial
,deploy#upgrade
) apply when a deployment is initiated from the release dashboard.
You can also specify roles for specific checks in a deployment checklist; refer to Create a deployment checklist for more information.