Nolio Release Automation Reviews

CA RA supports most of the OSs (unix, Linux, Windows) out there used in corporate environments. So one of the most valuable features is flexibility, as you can deploy virtually any app on any OS using this platform.

It has reduced deployment times from nearly a couple of hours to around a couple of minutes, especially on production environments.

Tags are virtual snapshots of different deployment processes. Over time, if you often update your processes, it gets hard to track what exact changes were made between the different tags of the same process. This functionality is not working. Therefore, it would be great if the vendor could improve the processes tag comparison feature for better process version control.

I have been using CA Release Automation since 2014.

I have not encountered any particular issues, as all I had to do is the agent software installation and configuration. The vendor and a supporting team installed the system servers.

Unfortunately, all we used for deployments previously was custom scripts, so I can’t compare here anything.

When it comes to agent install, it’s pretty straightforward. I can’t comment on the server installs.

A vendor team installed the server-side software.

It is a really great and flexible tool for corporate-grade deployments, but I would strongly recommend investing in training sessions from the vendor. It's a steep learning curve if you will have to learn the tool on your own.

1. Manifest driven
2. Multi-tier release automation
3. Comprehensive set of action packs and plug-ins to achieve business requirements

1. The number of errors have been reduced
2. A higher quality process has been achieved for application releases
3. Release Automation's significance and capability led to the formation of a new vertical team called DevOps in my organization
4. DevOps is being implemented on all the projects in my organization, to enhance customer experience

Zero down time during production deployment. Currently we use the 'Bank' concept for scalability.

I've used it for four years.

Yes, but that was later fixed by the CA team in the later versions of the product.

If more than 150 nodes are connected to the execution/NAC server, then we observe slowness in the execution of the processes. This then leads to time-outs, and the deployment fails on some of the nodes.

No issues encountered.

7/10.

7/10.

We used to do the deployment manually, which lasted for hours, and it didn't usually work in one go. So to automate the deployments we started using Release Automation.

With the help of a CA team, the initial setup was simple.

We implemented it through a CA team.

We also looked at IBM u Deploy.

It is a very good product and can help the organizations in the long run, which will lead to higher customer satisfaction.

I really appreciate how easy and fast it is develop a flow that can deploy artifacts and applications.

As a simple example, we had a manual process to publish static files on a web server. Due to the large number of files and the need to do manual work using another tool, it used to take us six hours to complete it. With this tool, it now it takes us around five minutes.

CA Release Automation has a large number of actions and it fits the needs in 99% of the cases. However, sometimes a specific function/behavior is needed and we are forced to call an external command to solve the problem. For example, in regards to the SVN actions, I had a problem where I needed to check for lock and unlock, if needed. However, I could only achieve this by using an external script.

I have used this solution for one year.

The product is pretty stable.

It is possible to have a lot of execution servers, but you can’t put them in a balanced pool of servers. In the majority of cases, agents will be used to reach one specific machine.

When executing a remote command, such as JDBC, it is ineffective to use only one specific server. This will be a single point of failure.

I would give technical support the highest possible rating.

We previously used a different solution.

CA Release Automation really makes life easier as follows:

• Has a large number of available actions.
• Has deployment pipeline and approval gateway features that increase security to the deployment flow.
• Integrates with service desk tools.

It is really straightforward to install and configure. However, it takes some days to fully understand how to properly use the tool due to the large number of features.

There are cheaper, or even free tools, but I guarantee that getting this solution is worth the price.

We evaluated Bamboo, HP Codar, and Serena Deployment Automation.

Try to study every single feature. This will make it possible to develop really professional deployment flows.

We were using an in-house developed release tool, but we wanted to achieve better orchestration in our workflow. We wanted to be able to release more frequently and have greater visibility for our team. CA Release Automation gave us the flexibility to deploy multiple components in multiple environments. We do data warehousing so we have Java and WebLogic components, as well as web services, and everything can be deployed with a single tool. I really value that. As one who designed our release workflow, with the help of my team, I think that CA Release Automation is a very, very good product. We can now deploy whenever we want. We have more visibility with more logins. Our users are very happy too.

Right now, our developers are very, very excited to use it. We can release multiple code features at one time. That is the biggest benefit. In large projects, there are often code dependencies between applications. Now, we have set up a list of dependencies, with the help of expert's at CA technical support. If we have for example, one application that is dependent on two more applications, we can deploy all three together. None of the applications will be down. They are always current with the latest features. That's what I love about it.

As of now, we are looking into continuous development. This will be taken into consideration as management makes the final decision. We are evaluating quite a few options. We are going to implement that very soon.

We also have implemented rules for compliance and governance. We have created multiple environments and every user group has access to the different environments. We restrict users from accessing higher environments without approval.

I know that continuous delivery's already coming, but I still need to see how it will work out. What I personally want to see is more features for data warehousing deployment. Right now, I prefer Informatica. We want an action pack to deploy completely on Informatica. All actions for DB2 and its SQL servers are implemented and almost all the actions for WebLogic. I would love to see something coming out for Informatica.

I believe it's pretty stable. Of course, there are chances of improvement in any tool or any application. But CA Release Automation is a pretty stable application where one core piece can communicate to multiple sources and targets, which I love personally.

It can be scaled up to more than 2,000 action items. We are using about 400 actions as of now. However, due to the complex flow we use for internal company needs, we are actually doing more than a thousand.

Technical support is very good. They have always been available.

We were using an in-house developed release tool, but wanted better orchestration for our releases.

The initial setup was straightforward. We did encounter a few issues, such infrastructure configuration, but I didn't think there was any major problems.

First, when you adapt your solution of Release Automation, you need to know what you actually want. What do you need, why you are doing what you're doing? Second, if the product satisfies your needs today, you need to look five years into the future. For the next five years, what are you going to achieve; then make the decision. I think Release Automation would help a lot.

CA Release Automation has a GUI which is easy to use and develop the solutions.
Most of the day-to-day tasks which need automation have been already covered by built-in actions. So you just have to drag and drop to start using it.

It has various plugins, which make integration with other tools like ServiceNow, Jenkins, and JIRA, etc. easy and helps in implementing CI and CD, following an agile approach.

The ROC provides features that help in release management and ServiceNow authentication when enabled, and can make production deployments safe and error free.

Deployments have been automated fully and now all the teams follow a single, error-free approach of deployment, which is time saving and seldom faults. It helps to implement standardization.

I would suggest that, rather than just concentrating on release automation and management, this tool could provide for more automation in different areas, such as database automation (we already have this but still can be improved further).

I have used CA Release Automation for over three years.

No particular issue from CA Release Automation side. if we had any deployment failures it was mostly due to the environment.

The tool is very stable and any issues we have encountered have been due to infrastructure-related issues (servers/VMs) or human error.

We have not faced any issues which scalability till now, but we do not have implementations which are very large.

CA technical support is good. You also have a community where the experts will help you with issues.

I had used IBM RAF for deployments. It does not have the same flexibility as CA Release Automation for automation in it.

Initial setup is pretty straightforward and we did not face any issues.

We had previous knowledge about this tool, so selection was not difficult.

I would definitely recommend it to whosoever wants a good solution for their automation, deployment and release management.

Usability – it’s good for developers who are both technical and non-technical. This has been particularly helpful for us.

Helps with a faster ramp-up time. This is the best way in which it has helped us for sure. Otherwise, it's got the standard features for an automation tool.

• More stability and customizations
• Better integration with new open source tools
• Even more stability for the new version

We use two versions – the older version (4.4) is very unstable, while the newer one (5.5) is much better. So we went from many issues to far less.

We are not able to scale it beyond what was initially defined on the infra-bases, so I can't fully answer.

They're helpful for lots of things. Never had issues with them.

We had always used an in-house tool.

It was already setup when I joined.

We also looked at Atlassian, but CA has been there for a long time and we've just kept with them, especially since they integrate with everything and other CA tools. We also look at the integration focus of new tools.

Their products are near the market. They cover everything that we need on the customers’ side. Their products also get frequently upgraded, so they keep apace with new technology and new stacks.

Everyone is trying to go into continuous delivery using a continuous integration model. We need to connect all our tools together to see which products are helping us orchestrate all our tools to speed up delivery.

We need to see how they're going to harness Big Data in terms of Java.net, distributed stack, and going into the mainframe.

Whenever we pick a new solution and we try to install it, there are some hiccups in the initial stage. Once that is done, I think the issues are small.

As far as I know, the new products are scalable. I think that all of their products are scalable. CA takes care of scalability. They build their products so they can be scaled up.

Recently I used support for CA Rally, and I think it was really good. We got good support. They were able to resolve our issues and queries.

Originally, there was no solution. Then there was a solution, but it was in small cell buckets. Now the solutions are getting integrated together.

I've been part of certain POCs and the pilot. I think it was straightforward, not complex. But in some scenarios, it is complex. The level of complexity actually depends on which tool we are picking. On average, it is actually moderately complex.

I think everything is good with CA.

The most important criteria in selecting a vendor is whether it is satisfying in terms of your needs. The second factor is the cost.

The dashboard is the most valuable feature as it allows you to monitor all agents installed on all app servers.

We did a pilot - a POC – during which were able to make some progress with the product; it was a previous client, and they were trying to use this product but we couldn’t get it to work properly in the development environment.

It could use more plug-ins – at least in v2. Mostly it would have been nice to see it integrated with Jenkins and JIRA to create the tickets, and to be a plug-in for Quality Center.

I've used it for six months.

We wanted to set up the automation continuous integration build process, and then we wanted to create a failure mode so it would automatically create a ticket in some defect management system. We couldn’t get the support, and we weren’t able to achieve our goals, and there were no other plug-ins available for JIRA or Jenkins.

It was in the development environment, but we didn't see anything.

We didn’t use it.

We couldn’t reach out to support because the product didn’t have the appropriate plug-ins.

We used a home-grown product on the IBM side. We wanted to enable faster continuous integration dev-ops methodology.

The initial setup was easy and straightforward.

It was a combination of our team and CA engineers.

It was expensive. In the latest version they have a lot of plug-ins so it would be worth it to invest in that version rather than what we used.

We didn't evaluate other options.

I would suggest v3.0 with all the plug-ins, which provides a lot more depth in using the product. There’s also a lot of technical support, customer service, and other online support options with that release.