rPath Delivers “Pushbutton Deployment” for Windows Applications, Aims to End “Deployment Dysfunction”

rBuilder 5.8 Brings First-of-its-Kind Release Automation for Windows; Enables Speed and Agility in Windows App Deployment across Physical, Virtual and Cloud

• rPath extends its Linux release automation strength to Windows applications
• Deploying .NET and other Windows Applications is complex, time-consuming and error-prone; deployment tasks consume 47 percent of IT op ex
• rPath turns weeks into minutes with pushbutton deployment and update for Windows- and Linux-based applications, enabling agile IT operations
• rPath joins System Center Alliance; extends Microsoft development and operating environments

RALEIGH, N.C.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--rPath, the service factory for on-demand IT, today announced general availability of rBuilder 5.8, which brings automated deployment to the world of Windows server applications. Drawing on rPath’s leadership in release automation for Linux-based software systems, rBuilder 5.8 represents the first commercial solution for automated deployment of Windows applications.

“Support for Windows and .NET applications also helps to bring devops to more Windows environments, which in many cases are catching up in terms of automation and devops.”

“Windows shops will see rPath’s solution for automating deployment of Windows applications as a satisfying answer to a longstanding problem,” said Bernd Harzog, principal analyst at The Virtualization Practice.

For most IT organizations, releasing Windows applications into production is complex, cumbersome and time-consuming. An absence of automation tools for deploying and configuring Windows applications results in long delays that negatively impact service levels and business agility. With rBuilder 5.8, rPath provides a solution for true “pushbutton deployment” of Windows applications. Key rBuilder capabilities include:

• Automated dependency resolution – automatically resolves dependencies to virtually eliminate deployment-time failures
• Deep modeling and automated software packaging – from a blueprint and bill of materials, automatically generates standard MSI packages that are ready to deploy
• Version and release lifecycle controls – applies version control to all packaged elements and eliminates drift between dev, test and production release stages
• Automated image generation – generates image output on demand for rapid deployment or retargeting between physical, virtual and cloud environments
• Automated updates – enables surgically-targeted changes for low-overhead, conflict-free maintenance
• Cross-platform automation – provides a single enterprise solution for automated deployment of any application, running any platform, deployed to any execution environment—physical, virtual or cloud

Harzog continues, “Maintaining code consistency is critical to the operational integrity of business critical applications in agile, dynamic, IT-as-a-service environments that are increasingly scaled out and distributed across private and public clouds. This is a particularly difficult problem with Windows applications as they are notoriously difficult to deploy, configure and maintain because of complex dependencies that are typically discovered, resolved and tracked manually. The rPath Windows automation solution is a first-of-its-kind answer to these sorts of challenges.”

rPath Joins Microsoft System Center Alliance

In conjunction with this news, rPath today announced it has joined the Microsoft System Center Alliance, a partner community in support of the System Center ecosystem.

“The rise of public cloud services such as Amazon EC2 has further motivated IT to become more responsive to business lines,” said Jake Sorofman, chief marketing officer for rPath. “IT must automate release and deployment processes to meet these new expectations for speed and responsiveness. We’re very pleased to bring our enterprise release automation capabilities to the Windows operating environment and to become an active participant in the System Center Alliance and the broader Microsoft ecosystem.

Microsoft System Center is an industry-leading suite of management products and solutions designed to help customers manage the physical and virtual IT environments across data centers, client computers and edge devices. The System Center Alliance provides an online community to help partners more easily collaborate on the creation of solutions for the System Center and deliver an information resource about these new solutions for customers and sales channel partners.

IT Dollars and Business Agility Lost to “Deployment Dysfunction”

Industry analysts say that 70-80 percent of IT spending is operating expense, nearly half of which is attributable to deployment-related tasks. This is particularly true for Microsoft Windows environments which constitute 74 percent of the data center server market.

According to Dana Gardner, principal analyst of Interarbor Solutions, “The rise of DevOps, IT-as-a-service and cloud is driven in large part by the need for speed in deploying applications into production.” Deployment dysfunction is a primary source of delay in delivering IT services in response to business demand. The rPath solution was designed to address this challenge by making application deployment pushbutton-simple.

Extending Microsoft Development and Operating Environments

Available to rPath customers today, this first-of-its-kind Windows automation solution is designed to complement Microsoft development and operating environments, including:

• Team Foundation Server (TFS) – rPath extends TFS and other .NET automation capabilities into the operational context, providing seamless and automated packaging, deployment and update across physical, virtual and cloud environments.
• System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) – rPath extends the operational control provided by SCCM with an integrated toolset for automating the application release lifecycle; rPath-generated packages are easily deployable via SCCM.

Gardner continues, “By focusing on this deployment challenge, rPath has found itself at the intersection of some of the most important trends in IT today. And by adding support for Windows, which constitute the majority of data center applications, rPath has emerged as an important enterprise automation provider.”

Learn more about the rPath solution for automating Windows and .NET deployment and configuration at www.rpath.com/pushbutton.

Attend a live webinar discussing best practices for Windows deployment automation: “Pushbutton Deployment: Automation for Speed and Control in the Windows Data Center,” Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2:00 p.m. Eastern time (11:00 a.m. Pacific time). Register at http://bit.ly/ahywP6.

Additional commentary in support of today’s rPath announcement:

“rBuilder 5.8 is an example of technology that facilitates devops—the confluence of enterprise application development and deployment of applications, typically in cloud computing environments—highlighted by more frequent, regular iteration and automation that can deliver benefits such as flexibility, efficiency, quality and uptime,” said Jay Lyman, enterprise software analyst for The 451 Group. “Support for Windows and .NET applications also helps to bring devops to more Windows environments, which in many cases are catching up in terms of automation and devops.”

“Application deployment tasks are a vortex for time and expense in modern enterprise IT organizations,” said Dan Olds, principal analyst for Gabriel Consulting Group. “As IT is forced to become lean and responsive, automation is the clear answer. With Windows constituting the majority of data center applications—and arguably the majority of the deployment complexity—automation tools in this area are badly needed. We expect the rPath solution to be a relief to pent-up demand.”

Watch short video: http://www.rpath.com/corp/windows

Read whitepaper: http://www.rpath.com/corp/images/stories/white_papers/rPath_WP_Windows.pdf

Listen to recorded webinar: http://www.rpath.com/corp/windows/642-05192010-webinar

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rPath Cloud Computing Adoption Model: http://www.rpath.com/corp/cloud-adoption-model

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About rPath

rPath automates system deployment and maintenance across physical, virtual and cloud environments. rPath’s innovative release automation platform is based on the industry’s only commercial version control repository for managing deployed software systems. The result is an easy-to-deploy and cost-effective automation solution for rapid, low-risk and low-overhead deployment and maintenance of complex software systems. rPath dramatically improves responsiveness to business lines, reduces compliance risks, and allows resource-constrained IT organizations to significantly reduce operating costs and “do more with less.” Headquartered in Raleigh, NC, rPath has 80+ customers including some of the world’s largest enterprises and ISVs. Visit www.rpath.com.

rPath is a registered trademark of rPath. All other brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Tags: rPath, release automation, release automation platform, virtualization, self-service IT, cloud, data center automation, application deployment, rBuilder, Windows, Microsoft, System Center Alliance, unified automation and control, system version control, deep system modeling