- Process Design
- Logic Design
Release Automation Specialist with 10,001+ employees
Users can easily deploy without actually knowing what is happening in the background.
What is most valuable?
How has it helped my organization?
One example would be that we don't need to worry about whether the user who is using it has expertise in certain technologies like Shell Scripting or PowerShell etc. If the end user has basic knowledge of process execution in the product, he can easily deploy without actually knowing what is happening in the background.
What needs improvement?
We are using an old version and a new version is now on the market. As the latest version has lots of new features, I am not certain what improvements are required until we use it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used it for about three and a half years.
Buyer's Guide
Nolio Release Automation
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Nolio Release Automation. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
Regarding the deployment we haven't has any issues. However, with Release Deployments we have had issues because the release had some issues with packaging/code issues or the release package structure has changed.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Yes, we have had some issue because we migrated a product database from a normal Oracle environment to an Oracle RAC cluster environment. This has affected the performance for some time.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
None so far.
How are customer service and support?
Customer Service:
Over the years customer service has improved, and I am happy with the current service. It's really good.
Technical Support:It's good, no problems so far. One of the good things is that I don't have to explain a lot if I raise a case with the Tech Support team and their responses are also quick (surely it is based on case priority).
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I am not 100% certain because I wasn't involved in the beginning. I think as I mentioned earlier, we were using Shell Scripting for deployment and we needed a level of expertise in scripting to understand those scripts and make changes in it. The other reason was that the support team can focus on operational support rather than live deployments.
How was the initial setup?
It was complex in the beginning, and now its quite straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
I wasn't involved in the initial setup, but I am sure we had a recommendation for the vendor and they were in-house for the initial setup. I did meet the expert team at a conference for user groups, and they were very good.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Yes, we evaluated other products as well, but I am not sure what the other options were.
What other advice do I have?
Go for a higher version and you should probably take the training before using it. Please note that in the latest version of CA Release Automation, almost all the Automation Studio features are going to be browser based, so all the process designing can be performed using browser based systems.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Engineer III at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees
We use it for automated deployment of both Windows and AIX applications. Action creation and installation is complex.
What is most valuable?
We use it for data deployment. Before implementing this tool, we used to do deployment manually and it used to take us close to two months at a time. Once we got this tool, it initially took close to 6 months to create a complete framework and work flow. But once everything was done, everything was set up and could be performed with the click of a button. It now takes around two hours for us to deploy any product. It used to take close to two months, including preparation.
How has it helped my organization?
We are saving a lot of manual hours with this tool. That is the most important thing. And it's very flexible. We can implement changes fast with this tool. We learned about this deployment tool from CA. It's really effective in the department in different moments for different applications, be it of Windows or AIX. We can deploy whatever we want with this tool.
What needs improvement?
The most important thing is the release automation. There are a few things which we already raised at a recent conference, such as the release XML. In order to replace that, we needed to go in the server, delete it, and then recreate the pre-plan. This is time consuming. It should be straightforward from the web application server. There are too many steps, and we already raised this issue in the forum and I don't know whether the RA people are taking care of that or not.
I think the action creation could be much easier. During the process of transition from RA guys to actual CA people, they should have given us some kind of training on that process. There wasn't enough training from CA.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's stable but there are few updates we need to do because of the new changes. We need to add more actions items, because we were using one tool, and we were deploying the application, so we needed to make sure that that the configuration tool can be used with the help of RA.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is definitely scalable and it is as big as we need it to be. Because of the actions that we create, we can use them throughout all the applications with the minor changes.
How is customer service and technical support?
Technical support is good. We still have a few concerns from CA. They have worked with us for a long time, approximately 6-8 months.
How was the initial setup?
It was complex initially. The back end part was the main thing. Creating the action was done completely by CA guys. We just needed to know about the flow and the action. We wanted to learn about the action creation and development at the same time. But we took our time to learn those things.
What other advice do I have?
I would suggest to take the solution and first try to check on how it's helping out the deployment. Just check the trial version, and if it works, then go ahead and get it. It's a pretty good product and it's working for us.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Nolio Release Automation
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Nolio Release Automation. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Senior Manager Engineering at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It's helped us with a faster ramp-up time, although it needs better integrations with new open source tools.
What is most valuable?
Usability – it’s good for developers who are both technical and non-technical. This has been particularly helpful for us.
How has it helped my organization?
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.
What needs improvement?
- More stability and customizations
- Better integration with new open source tools
- Even more stability for the new version
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
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.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We are not able to scale it beyond what was initially defined on the infra-bases, so I can't fully answer.
How are customer service and technical support?
They're helpful for lots of things. Never had issues with them.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We had always used an in-house tool.
How was the initial setup?
It was already setup when I joined.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
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.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Hi, Thanks a lot for the inputs. A lot has been improved since 5.5 as well so you are more than invited to upgrade to 6.2 and you will experience better performance. Happy to have a discussion with you to talk about your journey with the product.
Thanks,
Uri
CA Release Automation product manager
Software Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It's a good product. Helps with deployment in many ways.
What is most valuable?
The wide range of actions and flexibility in creating the workflows.
How has it helped my organization?
Our requirement was to deploy to 300 servers which used to take two to three days before CA RA, now it takes only two to four hours.
What needs improvement?
The performance.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used it for one year and eight months.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
The performance degrades as the size of the workflow and the number of target servers increases.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No issues with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have some issues but we're not really sure of the reason why.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
It's good.
Technical Support:It's good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
No previous solution used.
How was the initial setup?
It's easy to setup and maintain afterwards.
What about the implementation team?
It was implemented with the help of a vendor team but I cannot rate them because I wasn't involved with the implementation.
What was our ROI?
It's the time saved.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We also looked at Visual Build Pro.
What other advice do I have?
It's a good product that has a huge set of actions which can help with deployment.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Technical Consultant with 1,001-5,000 employees
Ops teams who used to work in silos are now more coordinated.
What is most valuable?
- No scripting
- GUI based
- Roll back feature
- No need of specialized skills for deployment, as the intention is that a tester should be able to do a deployment using CA RA
How has it helped my organization?
The benefits achieved for the clients are:
- Reduction in downtime
- Less time to market
- Shorter turn around times in case of failure
- Earlier development
- Ops teams who used to work in silos are now more coordinated
What needs improvement?
It is being improved regularly, there are new versions of 5.5, 5.6 and so on. Stability is an area for improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used it for one and a half years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
No issues so far, the major task is integrating CA RA with existing infrastructure, which takes time.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Yes, every version had some bugs, which are reported back to CA and are accepted and fixed.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
Excellent.
Technical Support:Excellent.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I haven't used a different solution.
How was the initial setup?
It's moderately complex.
What about the implementation team?
It was done by an in-house team.
What was our ROI?
It varies from customer to customer, I don't have figures.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
No other options were evaluated.
What other advice do I have?
You need to have good expertise and flexible, and a conducive environment.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Specialist at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
With the shared components feature, I created a common flow for applications.
What is most valuable?
I like the shared components and version control.
Shared components:
In my work, we have about 30 Java standalone applications, although every application is different and has specific behaviors. Nonetheless, I realized that all of them can be installed in the same way. I had to design only one flow for all of them. I found that the "Shared components" feature helps me.
I had to create my common flow like a "shared component". For every application, I only had to "import" that shared component. Another amazing thing was that if I had to change something in my shared component, I could easily reflect my changes to all of the applications.
Version Control:
The version control is important because the changes that I make in my shared component can be controlled. I can decide which version will work with which Java application.
How has it helped my organization?
Now we have automatic installations and it is very easy to promote the installation between environments.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see a better way to re-use a task. If you are not aware of how to use and re-use the task, you can mix their content or lose data.
When you are creating a new flow, you should reuse a previously created task. My advice is to create a new task, even if it is similar to the one you already created. Every task has specific information. When you try to reuse it, you can overwrite the specific data from another flow that is using the same task.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have used this solution for six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There are some stability issues. Sometimes, the server crashes or throws out of memory. And the import/export function sometimes doesn’t work.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
There have been no scalability issues.
How is customer service and technical support?
The technical support is excellent.
How was the initial setup?
The installation was straightforward. Although we faced some problems, we realize that our flow could be improved.
What other advice do I have?
Don't reuse actions. It is better to create a new one. Otherwise, you could lose data.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Middleware and Automation Engineer with 1,001-5,000 employees
It includes plug-ins to integrate with different ITSM and Source Control tools to automate deployments with REST API.
Valuable Features:
- Continuous Integration is easy to automate.
- It can be integrated and used for handling releases for many different platforms and tools such as .Net, Java based Application Servers, load balancers, and many others using Standard Action Packs.
- It's easy to build flows using Standard Action Packs without writing any scripts.
- It includes plug-ins to integrate with different ITSM and Source Control tools to automate deployments with REST API.
Improvements to My Organization:
- We've integrated it with our ticketing system to automatically trigger deployments and update tickets accordingly, saving a lot of manual effort.
- Our number of successful deployments have also increased exponentially.
Room for Improvement:
- Error message descriptions need to be more accurate and specific.
- Error handling needs to be improved in some of the action packs.
- UI is a little complicated to understand for the new user and needs some improvements.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Build and Release Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
It has helped us to move from traditional manual deployments to zero-touch deployments, but it lacks illustrated documentation.
Valuable Features:
The product provides readily-available actions to use in the deployment process. The external connectors are made available to integrate the tool with other SCM applications.
Improvements to My Organization:
This is purely an automation tool which has helped us to move from traditional manual deployments to zero-touch deployments.
Room for Improvement:
This product lacks proper documentation with illustrated examples.
Use of Solution:
I've used it for three years.
Customer Service:
5/10 - CA has bought this product recently from Nolio and does not have much expertise available to answer our queries.
Other Advice:
Be ready to struggle for documentations and tutorials. You have to do this based on your previous knowledge.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Nolio Release Automation Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2024
Product Categories
Release AutomationPopular Comparisons
Microsoft Azure DevOps
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
UrbanCode Deploy
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Nolio Release Automation Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Quick Links
Learn More: Questions:
- When evaluating Release Automation, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?
- What is the best suitable solution to deploy in Websphere 8.0?
- What are the must-have tools for CI/CD?
- What tips do you have for improving software release management processes?
- How to estimate whether using the AWS services is worthwhile for saving time and money for manufacturing at a retailer company?
- What are the main challenges of implementing a deployment pipeline?
I've been using Nolio for the last 2 years and it has very good features.