What's New in ControlTier 2.2

Patterns facilate handoffs and save time

Patterns are a powerful new feature that enable collaboration between teams allowing each team to manage the details of their own environment yet be consistent in how they manage the release process in each environment. Patterns ensure the same process to setup, configure and bring up applications will be the same since the same specification and code will be used to manage the process. This reuse of setup knowledge avoids the cost of manual setups and rethinking of the process for each new release of the application.

Patterns let you manage a set of related objects as a named set. Patterns enable you to migrate that set of objects to different projects as one logical unit. Patterns can be defined to describe whole application stacks or a subset of deployments or even to describe a single component along with its configuration and management information. ControlTier makes these patterns adaptable to different projects and when it installs a pattern, Workbench uses a built in dependency matcher to link objects in the pattern to the physical resources managed in the project where that pattern is being installed.

A graphical shell to execute your procedures

Commander Console was completely redesigned for 2.2 with an easier to use and more powerful user interface. The commands and procedures that you plug in and define in Module Builder are now even simpler to use by less experienced users.

New User Interface

The Commander Console's user interface was redesigned to be more consistent with the Workbench layout and expose a great deal of the underlying Commander client's functionality.

Tabbed Views

The three primary functional areas of the Console are organized into three tabs.

Object View Tab

The Object View tab displays the information about the selected object. By default Commander retrieves a view from Workbench as a set of properties. These properties can be displayed in two ways. The Resource View displays them in a hierarchy similar to how Workbench displays dependencies. The Properties View displays data in a table of key value pairs.

Commands Tab

The Commands Tab displays all the commands that a user can run for the selected object. A user then selects one of those commands and a new window opens where that command can be executed. All output of the command is displayed in a messages window below. Users can select subsequent commands and each command gets its own tab letting them switch back and forth.

Graph Tab

Sometimes it is useful to get a picture of the selected object to see upstream and downstream dependencies. Switching to the Graph Tab allows users to graph objects using the same controls available in Workbench.

Tools

Commander Console provides a number of new tools. Users can view and search log information, view and edit command modules, or explore and manage files in the objects workspace.

The Module Browser tool shown below allows users to view and edit files inside the module for the selected object. Changes can be published back to Module Builder within Workbench thus enabling an efficient development environment for module developers.

Links to Workbench

In various parts of the Commander Console, links to Workbench are provided allowing users to go directly to the right part of Workbench to view or edit information.

Collaborate on and manage your patterns

2.2 brings a number of Workbench enhancents including improved security, searching, and change tracking.

Enhanced Security

ControlTier 2.2 adds a number of features to make your work more secure.

Edit User Roles

Workbench now provides direct access to manage user security levels via a role editor. Also, new in 2.2, is the ability to assign users access to specified projects. This means more fine grained control over who can do what where.

Encrypt Setting Object Data

Sometimes sensitive data, such as password information, must be stored in a Workbench model. A new constraint has been introduced that allows you to encrypt setting value data. The data is stored encrypted in the database and is only decrypted for the owner of the object (or a user in arch role).

Secure Workbench/Commander Communication

For users that operate ControlTier over networks that are not secure it is now possible to configure Workbench and Commander to communicate over HTTPS. Also, for extra protection against tampering of modules that have been distributed and installed to Commander client machines, Workbench now digitally signs modules. Users can run a verification operation to determine if anything has been changed outside of ControlTier.

Form login

Basic authentication has been replaced with form-based login. This means logins are session based and expire after a configurable idle time. The new form-based login also supports a logout action.

Cross project searching

Workbench makes it easy to maintain information about your environments in separate projects. Workbench's search functionality has been extended to search for objects across all projects maintained in a Workbench server.

Cross project history

A new Workbench version history action allows you track changes across all the projects in a Workbench server. You can choose to see the last changes across all projects or you can see a per-project change history.

Build reusable and adaptable automation

Module Builder helps you plug in and define your procedures to manage the application release and adminstration tasks within your environment. Several new features were added to Module Builder in 2.2.

Module Version history

Just like any other object in Workbench, Modules now have the same powerful version history management capabilities allowing you to audit, compare and revert to any module revision. Modules can also be locked to prevent further changes.

Commands

Commands now support a couple of new options. For users that are launching long running processes, a new "spawn" option has been added which forks the process into the background. For users that need to run Windows batch scripts, Module Builder now generates the appropriate code using the cmd.exe as the interpreter.

Simplified UI

The attributes and controls of a Module have been re-organized into a clearer and easier to use layout.

Ant Tasks

• Parallel-Addmacro: Define a macro as a step in a parallel task.
• DeploymentController: Register a module as an object's controller.
• PropertiesQuery: Looks up property information using a SQL like syntax.
• PropertyResults: Call specified target depending on matches to property data.
• VerifyJar: Verify jar integrity by checking its contents against its digital signatures.
• Setting-Get: Query Workbench about the specified setting object.
• Setting-Info: Access data from a setting object query.
• Add-Tag:Associate a tag with the specified object.

Commands

• Purge: Removes the specified object from the project depot