Deploy and rollback rules

Follow these guidelines when you use the Deploy and Rollback operations to deploy files to, or remove files from, a deployment area.

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Deploy and rollback commands and rules

To put files in a deployment area, use the Deploy command. To remove files from a deployment area, use the Rollback command.

When you run the Deploy and Rollback commands, Dimensions CM fetches new copies from the repository to the target area. Files are not physically copied from one area to another, therefore, if a file is corrupted in an area it is not propagated across other areas. This also aids auditability.

Rules and guidelines:

• You can deploy files to, or roll back files from, a deployment area only if the files are at the stage that owns the area or at any stage above it.

  For example, to deploy foo.c to a deployment area assigned to the SIT stage, foo.c must be at SIT or above. During failure recovery, Dimensions CM may override this rule.

• The Rollback command removes an item revision from an area and automatically redeploys the item revision that was there previously.

  For example, if you have revision 1.0 in an area, deploy revision 3.0, and then roll back revision 3.0, Dimensions CM redeploys revision 1.0, not revision 2.0.

  If no previous revision of the rolled back item was deployed to an area, the item revision is deleted. For example, if you deploy the first revision of an item and then roll it back, the revision is deleted from the area and not replaced with another revision.

• You can roll back only a complete deployment operation, which means all items, requests, and baselines that were part of the original deployment to an area. To perform a rollback, you must roll back all the objects that were part of the operation. You cannot break up a group and roll back individual objects.

• If you have a privilege for a deployment area, you can select or clear the area before you run the Deploy or Rollback commands.

• If a Deploy command fails, it backs out everything from the failed area and stops any further deployments.

• If you deploy to multiple areas in parallel, not in sequence, and the deployment to one of these areas fails, the other deployments are not affected.

• If a Rollback command fails, it puts back into the area everything that it had tried to roll back.

• If you share a deployment area with another project or stream, and you deploy a request (R1) to the area, and the other project then deploys a different request (R2), you cannot roll back the first request (R1) until the second request (R2) has been rolled back by the other project.

• You can roll back only in the reverse deployment order.

  For example, you deploy requests in the following order: R1, R2, and R3. To roll back R1, first roll back R3, then R2, and finally R1.

• Item revisions, requests, and baselines in an off-normal lifecycle state cannot be deployed or rolled back.

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Deployment area versions

All of the items in a deployment operation belong to a deployment change set. A deployment change set is then applied to a deployment area to create a new area version. An area version is therefore a delta of an area.

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Deployment area filters

You can use filters to deploy specific files to a deployment area, for example, to deploy only executables to a live environment.

You define filters in the Administration Console > Area Definitions > Filters. For details, see Set up the process model.

Each area can have only one filter. There is also a default Audit filter that is specified when the area is assigned to a project at a given stage. This is the default filter used when performing an audit, but you can choose a different one.

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Deployment area scripts

You can specify the following types of scripts that run during a deployment or rollback to an area:

• Pre deploy

• Post deploy

• Deploy failure

You specify area scripts in the Area Definitions section of the Dimensions CM administration console.

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See also:

• Deploy objects
• Roll back deployments