ElectricFlow® v5.2 Feature Release is now Available

Original Creation Date: 2014-10-02 00:07:26 UTC

Summary

Electric Cloud is pleased to announce the general availability of ElectricFlow 5.2, which also includes ElectricCommander 5.2.  This release is of the type ‘Feature Release’. For more information about types of release, please see: Release Strategy Update.

This release is focused on extending capabilities of ElectricCommander Platform as well as ElectricFlow Deploy application. Some of the highlights are

ElectricCommander Platform

Easier integrations through RESTful API

ElectricCommander platform’s programmatic interfaces are now extended to include RESTful API. This provides an easier option to integrate with the product without requiring customers to install ec-perl or ec-tool clients. Users can use any programming languages of their choice such as Phython or Ruby which support invoking RESTful services. This RESTful API support is available for the entire platform including APIs for the ElectricFlow Deploy application.

Define complex business rules using Javascript API

With this release there is access to the complete API via Javascript. Users can now use a simple, consistent JavaScript interface to interact with the full API set of the product.

Visibility into server activity though System Health Monitoring

With this release, monitoring some of the key statistics about the server like API usage, API response times, internal queue lengths is feasible. The product is integrated with StatsD and Graphite to collate statistics, summarize them and then create charts and graphs to visualize server activity.

Additional platforms supported

With this release we are announcing support for

• Ubuntu 14.04
• Windows 8.1

ElectricFlow Deploy

Lowered risk and faster deployments through Smart Deploy

This capability is all about reducing risk and time taken during deployments. With Smart Deploy the product automatically detects the delta between what is about to be deployed and what is already deployed to an environment. And with this automatic delta analysis the system deploys only what has changed. This significantly reduces the risk associated with deployments as well as improves deployment time.

Partial Deployments for additional flexibility

Nature of deployments varies through the application lifecycle and users need control over what is being deployed. With partial deploy, user has the flexibility to choose specific components to be deployed instead of the whole application. This capability is useful early on in the lifecycle where certain components may iterate very frequently.

Improved user experience to trigger deploy with Last Run

With this release user can kick off new deployments by leveraging one of the prior runs instead of specifying all the parameters all over again. This allows users to repeat what was done in past.

Kick off unattended deployment using Scheduled Deployment

With the ability to schedule deployments users can control when a particular deployment would be triggered. Schedules could be one time or recurring.

Deployment Notifications over email

With multiple applications being deployed across various environments by multiple teams, it is critical to notify appropriate owners about success or failures of these deployments. With this release it is possible to easily setup notifications for various processes so that visibility can be delivered to relevant users. These proactive notifications ensure that follow-up actions can be taken quickly. These email notifications allow users to get the most relevant summary quickly and jump to the right screens in the product for more details, if needed.  

Download Instructions

Download ElectricFlow 5.2 from the Electric Cloud Sharefile site.

• Login using your personalized account to the Electric Cloud Sharefile at https://electric-cloud.sharefile.com
• Navigate to the /products/commander/release_5.2/5.2.78007 directory.
• Server and agent installers are located in the directory corresponding to the operating system (for example, windows)
• IDE plug-in installers are located in the /products/commander/integrations directory
• Release notes and product documentation are available online: Electric Cloud documentation

Supported Configurations

See the “System Requirements and Supported Platforms” section in the ElectricCommander Installation Guide for a complete list of supported platforms and configurations.

Upgrade

Please note that ElectricFlow 5.2 is a ‘Feature Release’. This release is of production quality and while customers can upgrade to 5.2, please note that there will not be any maintenance release on 5.2. Customers upgrading to a feature release like 5.2 would be expected to upgrade in next 60-80 days to the next feature release or LTS release. Unless a rapid upgrade cycle is acceptable, we recommend that customer try out the new features of 5.2 in test environments instead of upgrading production environments to 5.2. This will help with faster adoption of the next LTS when it is available which will include all the above capabilities.

Customers with 4.2 or older version can directly upgrade to the 5.2 version.

Support

Contact Customer Support with questions related to this release at support@electric-cloud.com. 

Feedback

Contact the product management team at Electric Cloud for this or any ElectricFlow/ElectricCommander release at productmanagement@electric-cloud.com