AnthillPro3

Continuous Integration

Support for commit triggers, quiet periods, integrations with testing and issue tracking, and flexible notification schemes make AnthillPro3 a great Continuous Integration Server. AnthillPro3 works with existing build scripts, whether they be Ant, NAnt, make, Maven, or some other script type. AnthillPro3 will even launch the IDE in headless mode. Integrations with testing and test coverage tools mean custom reports for e-mail, IM, or RSS notifications can be created.

Distributed Build Farm

The Central Server and distributed Agent architecture is ideal for running distributed and multi-platform builds. And each Agent can concurrently run multiple builds. A single build may be split among several tasks, each of which running on a separate Agent.

Dependency Management

Configures dependencies between projects. A project may depend on the latest build of a dependency or be locked to a specific version or a status of a dependency. The Bill of Materials (BOM) for each build details the exact artifacts of each dependency that were used. The intelligent AnthillPro job scheduler creates a dependency graph for each build, guaranteeing each project in the graph is built only once.

Configurable Workflows

This is a huge feature that separates AnthillPro from every other tool on the market. AnthillPro3 contains an embedded workflow engine, allowing the configuration of a set of processes that can be applied to Living Builds.

With AnthillPro3, it is also possible to concurrently run build verification tests across any number of machines, allowing the automation of sophisticated testing. It is also possible to deploy the server piece of a three-tiered application to a cluster of servers while, at the same time, deploying a client piece to any number of client machines, and then letting the clients run tests on the cluster of servers.

AnthillPro 3 supports an automated, customizable promotion processes, in some cases, this is accomplished by simply creating a new baseline in the SCM. The process can be configured to include repackaging of the build artifacts, or to include deployment to a particular environment.

Living Builds

No more having to configure multiple build "types" to support Continuous Integration builds, nightly builds, and release builds. The Living Build concept changes all of that. One Living Build can now be taken through various stages, such as Continuous Integration, Nightly Build, Deployment, and Release.

AnthillPro3 also introduces the BuildLife, allowing multiple workflows to be applied to a single build.

Automated Deployments

Supports automated deployment of a build to a user-configured environment (for example: DEV, QA, STAGE, PROD). Gates can be set up between each environment, requiring manual user intervention and providing an audit trail. Role-based security can be set up to control what roles (and thus what users) can deploy to which environment.

Support for Multiple Deployment Environments

Support user-specified environments such as DEV, QA, STAGE, PROD, etc. These environments may be used to partition work (for example BUILD_FARM_1 and BUILD_FARM_2), for deployment, or for any other purpose. Each environment may be secured using role-based security.

Configurable Build Statuses

Supports a user-specified list of statuses for BuildLives. The user-configured statuses comprise the "states" for a BuildLife (think: state diagram). Different statuses can be applied to a BuildLife as it is promoted or deployed into an environment.

Configurable Build Stamps

Support for multiple stamps (versions). It is possible to apply multiple different stamps for a BuildLife depending on its current stage. There can be one stamp for development (DEV-1, DEV-2, etc.), and when the BuildLife is promoted to QA, a new stamp can be applied (QA-1, QA-2, etc.) so that the QA team sees consecutive build identifiers.

Configurable Build Jobs

Customizable Build Steps. In addition to a Build Job Configuration, which makes assumptions about the steps that are going to be run and their order (check out code, run builders, run publishers, etc), the user can configure a job allowing any combination of steps in any order.

Role Based Security

Role based security ensures that users are able to only access the projects and environments they have been assigned to. The authentication system can be configured to authenticate against LDAP or Active Directory. The authorization system roles can be obtained from LDAP or Active Directory as well.

Compliance Out-of-the-box

Traceability, auditability, and role-based security. All deployed artifacts are guaranteed to be traceable to the exact source code used to produce them. Every build, promotion, deployment, and release is audited. Reports detailing the exact user that kicked off a build, or deployed a set of artifacts are included. Role based security means that some users can deploy a project to the DEV environment, other users may deploy the same project artifacts to the QA environment, and another set of users may deploy the artifacts to Production.

Scheduled Builds

AnthillPro includes an embedded scheduler that can be configured with cron-like expressions or based on an interval. Single use schedule are also easily configurable to kick off a build at midnight, or when everyone is long gone from the office.