ElectricFlow 8.4

20 minute read

ElectricFlow 8.4 is a feature release (FR). Feature releases make new features available more frequently than long-term support (LTS) releases (such as ElectricFlow 8.0). The features and enhancements introduced in feature releases are typically rolled into the subsequent LTS release.

Product Description

ElectricFlow® is an enterprise-grade DevOps Release Automation platform that simplifies provisioning, building, and releasing multi-tiered applications. Its model-driven approach to managing environments and applications lets teams coordinate multiple pipelines and releases across hybrid infrastructure in an efficient, predictable, and auditable way.

What’s New or Modified

New Features and Functionality

ElectricFlow 8.4 provides new functionality such as DevOps Insight predictive analytics, new tools for authoring DevOps Insight reports, a “pure” 64-bit Linux agent installer, non-root and non- sudo modes for Linux installers, pipeline and release improvements, and overall usability and navigation enhancements. This version provides the following updates to the Automation Platform and the ElectricFlow Deploy and Release modules.

DevOps Foresight

DevOps Foresight is a new predictive analytics capability for ElectricFlow. DevOps Foresight applies machine learning algorithms to historical data from key parts of the DevOps toolchain. DevOps Foresight performs deep statistical analysis on data coming from Build, Source Code Management, Static Code Analysis, and other tools to identify patterns of how various development teams and their code commits lead to success or failures. These correlated patterns also predict a “risk score” much like a FICO credit score for upcoming or in-progress builds and, eventually, releases.

DevOps Foresight has the following key functionality:

  • Developer- and code-related findings—Deep analytics on tool chain historical data that identifies patterns in activities such as code commits and developer contributions

  • Risk scores by CI—Uses patterns discovered by author, code base, and build level to determine a risk score

  • Risk provenance—Complete details of development team or code complexity influence on the overall risk score

DevOps Foresight leverages the DevOps Insight framework for data collection and storage.

DevOps Foresight requires an additional license. Contact Electric Cloud support to understand how you can take advantage of ElectricFlow DevOps Foresight.

DevOps Insight Dashboard and Reporting Enhancements

ElectricFlow introduced DevOps Insight dashboards in version 7.3 to give visibility and deep insight across your DevOps processes, from deployments to releases, with out-of-the-box and customizable dashboards. Version 8.4 improves the DevOps Insight dashboard framework.

Enhancements include new and improved UIs and support for custom report and widget creation to simplify the process required to create new custom dashboard widgets to track relevant metrics. Version 8.4 makes it easy to access and edit your dashboards with the new Dashboard menu and list views. This version also enhances widget visualizations with full screen views for widgets, new options for dashboard filters, and more.

  • The Widget Definition dialog box is simplified via a new Select Report menu to replace the inline report definition functionality. Also, the functionality in the Details section for selecting an icon via the icon library or a URL is replaced with a list of stock icons in the Visualization section. (CEV-18927, CEV-18923, and CEV-18785)

  • The colors map in the Widget Definition dialog box now appears only if the selected visualization supports it. (CEV-18924)

  • An on-demand refresh button is added to every dashboard toolbar and dashboard widget. (CEV-18896)

  • The DevOps Insight report editor is introduced. The report editor lets you define a report based on criteria such as filters (search criteria), aggregations, and sorting. You create the query definition for a report by using the report editor. This feature lets you create reports independently and means that you no longer create them inline when authoring dashboard widgets. (CEV-18894 and CEV-18829)

    The report editor includes a Tabular Preview tab, which lets you test that the reports are generating data properly during authoring. (CEV-18789)

  • The Time Reference checkbox can now be unchecked to let you remove the Time Reference filter from the dashboard. (CEV-18826)

  • A Projects checkbox is added to the filtering criteria in the Set Filters dialog box of the dashboard editor. (CEV-17928)

  • The Dashboards list page is introduced. (CEV-18825)

  • You can now expand any dashboard widget to full-screen mode for a better view of its data. (CEV-18783)

  • Top-level menu options for managing dashboards and reports are added to the “hamburger” menu in the upper left corner of the Deploy UI.

  • Elasticsearch and Logstash (which are installed with ElectricFlow) are upgraded to versions xxx and xxx respectively. ( CEV-18332 )

Non-Root Installation of ElectricFlow Agents on Linux Platforms

On Linux platforms, the existing agent-only installers are enhanced with the --nonRoot option, which allows installations as a non-root user or a user without sudo privileges.

(NMB-25381 and NMB-24972)

Pure 64-Bit ElectricFlow Agent on Linux Platforms

  • On Linux platforms, the installer for a “pure” 64-bit version of the ElectricFlow agent is introduced.

  • This installer includes a --nonRoot option, which allows installations as a non-root user or a user without sudo privileges.

(NMB-14240)

Property Picker Enhancements

The Property Picker was introduced in 8.3 to make it easy to access and use properties. The Property Picker is expanded in version 8.4 and is now available from application processes to make it easy to create custom deployments. It now includes properties set on the project.

  • The Property Picker is now available in application processes. This lets you select built-in or custom properties or parameters in process step conditions that you need to reference without remembering and writing out property names and paths. (CEV-18668)

  • A pull-down menu is added to the Property Picker to let you select project or related object properties. (CEV-18565)

Pipeline Enhancements

Among other enhancements, the Pipeline Portfolio view now shows more detail with duration information for each pipeline in the hierarchy and its stages visible at the top level.

  • When defining pipeline or release waiting dependencies, you can now specify whether skipping the wait is allowed and which users are allowed to skip. (CEV-18659)

  • An “Information” button is added to display a popover that provides the duration of the corresponding pipeline and stage in the Pipeline Portfolio view. (CEV-18623)

  • Context-relative shortcuts are added to pipelines to let you access the current run number and previous run properties. The following scenarios illustrate the usage of these shortcuts. (CEV-18622)

    To get the current run number:

    /myGateRuntime/currentRunNumber
    /myTaskRuntime/currentRunNumber
    /myGroupTaskRuntime/currentRunNumber
    /myDeployerTaskRuntime/currentRunNumber

    To access the property under the 2nd task run (set with /myTaskRuntime/prop1 ):

    /myTaskRuntime/runNumber/2/prop1

    To access the property under the 1st stage run (set with /myStageRuntime/prop1 ):

    /myStageRuntime/runNumbers/1/subFlowRuntime/prop1

    To access the property under the 1st gate run (set with /myGateRuntime/prop1 ):

    /myGateRuntime/runNumbers/1/subFlowRuntime/p
  • A Properties tab is added to the Pipeline Runs page to let you see the properties for previous stage runs on a tab instead of in a pop-up dialog. This also allows viewing of the properties of previous runs. (CEV-18170)

  • You can now view gate tasks from previous runs of a stage. This lets you switch between stage run numbers when a gate block is selected. You can also now provide comments when restarting a gate rule. (CEV-18157)

Release Enhancements

Among other enhancements, your release hierarchy is now more secure with the ability to skip release and pipeline wait dependencies now restricted to an assigned user or group.

  • The Release Portfolio view was introduced in version 8.3, with support for complex release hierarchies and real-time visibility into the hierarchy. With version 8.4 , the Release and Pipeline Portfolio views now show more detail, with duration information for each pipeline in the hierarchy and its stages visible at the top level.

  • When defining release waiting dependencies, you can now specify whether skipping the wait is allowed and which users are allowed to skip. (CEV-18659)

SmartMap Topology View Enhancements

Improvements displaying tiers are introduced:

  • The SmartMap Topology view now shows resources and tiers. (CEV-18913)

  • Microservices corresponding to the selected cluster are now highlighted. (CEV-18510)

  • SmartMap Topology View is now enabled for OpenShift (through the EC-OpenShift plugin, which is bundled with ElectricFlow). (ECPOPSHIFT-79)

Utility Resource Enhancements for Application and Environment Modeling

Utility resources for application and environment modeling are enhanced for greater usability. By using a utility resource, in addition to running deployment process steps against entire environment tiers, you can now specify a specific resource to run on. This helps you easily define and model your custom deployment processes with utility steps such as integrating with a third-party tool (for example, updating load balancer settings) and sending notifications. (CEV-18251)

Object List Usability Enhancements

Visibility and access are improved for easier navigation throughout the Deploy UI. This includes a new look and feel for all object list pages and an updated projects list that now shows detailed counts of the objects.

  • The Projects list page is enhanced to show the counts for child objects that belong to each project. This includes the number of applications, pipelines, environments, releases, and microservices. (CEV-18660)

  • Numerous layout, interaction, and navigation improvements are added to all object lists for applications, environments, microservices, and pipelines. These improvements include changes to headers, buttons, menus, and icons as well as changes to popover, hover, and object-selected states. (CEV-18174)

Improved Access to Plugin Configurations

Integrating plugins with your toolchain is simplified with plugin configurations that are now easily accessible from pipelines tasks and process steps. (CEV-18687 and CEV-18496)

  • A Configurations drop-down menu is added to the cluster definition editor, service catalog item page, and resource template editor. This lets you view the list of available plugin configurations as well as create or update a plugin configuration from within Deploy without navigating to the Automation Platform UI.

  • This capability is added for plugins for key third-party integrations (such as Kubernetes, Jenkins, JIRA, and Tomcat, and more).

Other Enhancements

  • To reduce the amount of scrolling needed to view a large number of objects in a list, pagination is introduced in the Releases list page, the Pipeline Runs page, and the Application Process Runs page. The number of objects displayed per page is configurable. (CEV-18665)

  • The property browser is enhanced to let you view and manage project properties. This enhancement saves time for users who otherwise need to browse, search for, and update project properties. (CEV-18662)

  • From the Projects list, you can now attach impersonation credentials to a project via a Credentials button that is added to the project details dialog box. (CEV-18661)

  • Usability is improved for setting a utility resource on a process step. (CEV-18658, CEV-18602 and CEV-18251)

  • The Import OpenShift Template catalog item is added to the Self-Service Catalog. This catalog item lets you create microservices in ElectricFlow by importing an OpenShift template file containing services and deployment configurations. (CEV-18656)

  • When run from a job step, the ectool getOutputParameter command now has locator support, so that the jobStepId argument is not required. (CEV-18416)

  • The Load options from property sheet option for a dropdown menu pipeline parameter now allows the ~ character in front of a property sheet name. (CEV-17730)

  • The KBEC-00396 - Configuring Kibana to Work With DevOps Insight KB article is introduced. (CEV-16524)

  • The example ZKConfigTool commands in the “Uploading Configuration Files to ZooKeeper” section of the ElectricFlow 8.4 Installation Guide are improved. Among these changes, the Linux-platform commands are now easier to copy and paste for publishing the files to Apache ZooKeeper, example Windows-platform commands are added where needed, and the -writeFolder /commander/conf/security option is included where needed. (NMB-26360 and NMB-26180)

  • A Release Automations pulldown menu is added to the Automation Platform UI. This menu provides easier navigation from the Automation Platform screens to the main functionality of the Deploy UI: applications, microservices, environments, pipelines, and releases. (NMB-26070 and NMB-21450)

  • logback-local.groovy files are now preserved during an upgrade. For details, see the “xxx” section in the “xxx” chapter of the ElectricFlow 8.4 Installation Guide in the Legacy documentation. ( NMB-25729 )

Platform Support

The following platforms are now supported:

  • Ubuntu Linux 18.04 (64-bit) (NMB-26144 and NMB-26038)

  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.3 (32- and 64-bit) (ElectricFlow agent machines only) (NMB-26108)

The following platforms are no longer supported:

  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.1 (32- and 64-bit) (NMB-26117)

  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10.4 (32- and 64-bit) and 10.3 (32- and 64-bit) (NMB-26116)

  • Ubuntu Linux 10.04 (64-bit) and 12.04 (64-bit) (NMB-26115)

  • Windows Server 2008 (64-bit) and Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit) (NMB-26114)

Database Support

  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is no longer supported. (NMB-26105)

  • Microsoft SQL Server 2017 is now supported. (NMB-26037)

Resolved Issues

  • PHP is upgraded to version 5.6.34. (NMB-26224)

  • OpenSSL is upgraded to version 1.0.2o. (NMB-26224)

Other Issues

  • The stacked vertical bar chart visualization no longer hangs the DeploymentsFrequency widget of the DevOps Insight Application Deployments dashboard when DATE or DATETIME are used on the x-axis. (CEV-18885)

  • In DevOps Insight dashboards, an issue where the percentage label representing the proportion of statuses in error was missing from the donut visualization in widgets is fixed. (CEV-18819)

  • Provisioning dynamic AWS EC2 instances no longer fails when an environment has 10 tiers or more. (CEV-18719)

  • The ReleaseEfficiency widget in the Releases dashboard now filters out flow runtimes without start dates. (CEV-18685)

  • The TopLongestTasks widget in the Releases dashboard now filters out tasks without start dates. (CEV-18684)

  • Changing an email configuration name no longer causes existing pipeline tasks that call the EC-SendEmail plugin to fail. (CEV-18682)

  • In DevOps Insight widgets, issues with black lines in the LINE_CHART visualization are fixed. (CEV-18669)

  • The property picker now displays output parameters for procedure tasks in pipeline gates. (CEV-18369)

  • You can now view properties for group tasks in pipeline runtimes. (CEV-18163)

  • A plugin procedure parameter is now conditionally rendered based on the defined condition. The parameter also declares the parameters the condition depends on. When you edit or update the other (dependent on) parameter values in the form, the conditions in the form are re-evaluated, and the parameter is rendered or not rendered based on the outcome of the condition. (CEV-17713)

  • In DevOps Insight widgets, tick marks on a vertical bar chart, stacked vertical bar chart, or grouped vertical bar chart that are closely spaced no longer cause dates to be unreadable. (CEV-17679)

  • An issue where “Retry on error” icons sometimes remained in the pipeline runtime UI even though the corresponding gate rules were executed to completion is fixed. (CEV-14706)

  • The description of the Pools column in the “Table View—Column Descriptions” table in the “Resources” section in the “Automation Platform” chapter of the ElectricFlow 8.4 User Guide is updated: The description now reflects the change from space-separated values to comma-separated values. For details, see the guide in the Legacy documentation. (NMB-26240)

  • The tooltip for the Pool(s) field for a resource selected from the Cloud > Resources tab in the Automation Platform no longer incorrectly says “A list of names separated by spaces, indicating the pools associated with this resource.” The list is comma-delimited as of ElectricFlow 7.1. (NMB-26239)

  • An ownership issue where the ecconfigure --serverProxyHost command did not let the ElectricFlow server restart is fixed. (NMB-26234)

  • An issue where the web server installer did not respect the --webTargetHostName parameter is fixed. (NMB-26229)

  • An issue where the agent failed to start and the following error appeared is fixed: /etc/init.d/commanderAgent: line 63: ulimit: core file size: cannot modify limit: Operation not permitted . (NMB-26177)

  • The table in the “Roadmap to Upgrade ElectricFlow” chapter now includes upgrades from 8. x versions to newer 8. x versions. (NMB-26173)

  • The description of the workspaceName argument of the createJobStep and modifyJobStep Perl API commands is corrected in the ElectricFlow 8.4 API Guide . For details, see the guide in the Legacy documentation. (NMB-26167)

  • Using the --ActualParameter argument with the createStep or modifyStep API commands to attach an actualParameter value to the ECSCM-Git plugin and then editing the Git step no longer causes the page to hang. (NMB-25920)

  • (Windows platforms only) A Windows ElectricFlow server issue where the alternateWorkspaceForDisplay property on a workspace for a remote agent on another machine is not used when using a step to fetch log files from that workspace is fixed. (NMB-25918)

  • An Upload file: mkdir <path>: Invalid argument error no longer occurs when you attempt to upload a file to publish an artifact using Internet Explorer 11. (NMB-25739)

  • The timeLimit argument of the createJobStep Perl API command now works properly. (NMB-25658)

  • The Change Details window no longer hangs when you click the Expand Details button in the Change History window. (NMB-25520)

  • An issue where running the ecconfigure command as the ElectricFlow server user changed ownership of the local agent properties and configuration files from the agent user to the server user is fixed. (NMB-23909)

Bundled Plugins

The following plugins are new or updated.

Name New Version Status Notes

EC-ALM

1.1.2

Updated

EC-AmazonECS

1.0.5

Updated

EC-Ansible

1.0.6

Updated

EC-Artifactory

1.1.3

Updated

EC-Azure

1.1.4

Updated

EC-AzureContainerService

1.0.4

Updated

EC-AzureContainerService-Docker

1.0.2

Updated

EC-Chef

1.2.1

Updated

EC-Docker

1.4.0

Updated

EC-EC2

2.4.2

Updated

EC-GoogleContainerEngine

1.1.0

Updated

EC-IIS

3.1.2

Updated

EC-JBoss

2.6.0

Updated

EC-Jenkins

1.10.0

Updated

EC-JIRA

1.1.4

Updated

EC-Kubernetes

1.1.1

Updated

EC-OpenShift

1.4.1

Updated

EC-Puppet

1.1.3

Updated

EC-ServiceNow

2.1.4

Updated

EC-SonarQube

1.1.0

Updated

EC-Tomcat

2.1.3

Updated

EC-WebSphere

2.4.1

Updated

ECSCM-Git

3.8.0

Updated

For a complete list of bundled plugins, see the “Plugins That are Bundled with ElectricFlow” appendix in the ElectricFlow 8.4 User Guide in the Legacy documentation.

Name New Version Status

xxxxxx

xxxxxx

New

xxxxxx

xxxxxx

Updated

Name New Version Status

xxxxxx

xxxxxx

New

xxxxxx

xxxxxx

Updated

Installation and Upgrade Notes

For complete installation and upgrade information, see the ElectricFlow 8.4 Installation Guide in the Legacy documentation.

Changing the Default Prefix for StatsD

In DATA_DIR/conf/wrapper.conf , change the default prefix for StatsD from

wrapper.java.additional.802=-DCOMMANDER_STATSD_PREFIX=commander

to

wrapper.java.additional.802=-DCOMMANDER_STATSD_PREFIX=flow

(NMB-22835)

Upgrading Your Existing ElectricFlow Environment

Before starting an upgrade, make sure to back up your existing ElectricFlow data.
  • Upgrades to ElectricFlow 8. x are supported only from ElectricCommander 4.2. x or any version before 8.0. Any ElectricCommander systems and servers that are pre-Commander 4.2 must be upgraded to an ElectricCommander 4.2. x release. For upgrade instructions, see the ElectricFlow 8.4 Installation Guide in the Legacy documentation.

  • Upgrading to ElectricFlow 8. x from ElectricCommander 4.2. x requires a database upgrade.

  • You cannot upgrade from a previous version running the built-in database to an ElectricFlow 8. x database. If you want to continue using the built-in database in ElectricFlow 8. x , follow the database upgrade procedures described in the ElectricFlow 8.4 Installation Guide in the Legacy documentation.

  • If your XML export file from ElectricFlow 8.0.1 or earlier versions has elements containing applicationServiceMapping , you must change all instances of that string in the file to serviceClusterMapping before importing the file into version 8.1. For example, change the following XML:

    <applicationServiceMapping>
      <applicationServiceMappingId>9efcda31-a85f-11e7-8500-0800279f198d</applicationServiceMappingId>
      <applicationServiceMappingName>9efcda31-a85f-11e7-8500-0800279f198d</applicationServiceMappingName>
      …
    </applicationServiceMapping>

    to

    <serviceClusterMapping>
      <serviceClusterMappingId>9efcda31-a85f-11e7-8500-0800279f198d</serviceClusterMappingId>
      <serviceClusterMappingName>9efcda31-a85f-11e7-8500-0800279f198d</serviceClusterMappingName>
      …
    </serviceClusterMapping>

    (CEV-16237 and CEV-16158)

  • The DevOps Insight installer overwrites the elasticsearch.yml configuration file with a new file. As of DevOps Insight version 8.3, the file includes a Custom Settings section, which lets you add Elasticsearch settings not managed by the DevOps Insight server without being lost during an upgrade. If you added settings to this file in version 8.2 or earlier that you want to preserve, you must back up the file to a separate location before upgrading to version 8.4 or newer versions and then add the settings to the Custom Settings section after the upgrade. During future upgrades, the installer will preserve the settings in the Custom Settings section. (NMB-25850)

Upgrading the DevOps Insight Server from Version 7.3 to Version 8. x

Re-Specifying Configuration Settings Not Preserved During the Upgrade

The installers (GUI, interactive console, and silent mode) for the DevOps Insight server do not preserve the configuration setting for the DevOps Insight server host name ( --hostName ) or the setting for the Elasticsearch number of shards ( --elasticsearchNumberOfShards ) during the upgrade from 7.3 to 8. x . If you specified nondefault values during the 7.3 Reporting server installation, you must re-specify these settings during the upgrade. (All other settings are preserved.)

Configuring DevOps Insight Server Security

The introduction of enhanced security for the DevOps Insight server in version 8.0 requires that you specify the security settings during DevOps Insight server installation. These settings are used to enable connectivity and authentication between the DevOps Insight server and the ElectricFlow server. For details about specifying these settings during DevOps Insight server installation, see the “Installing ElectricFlow” chapter of the ElectricFlow 8.4 Installation Guide in the Legacy documentation.

Running the DevOps Insight Server on a System with Other ElectricFlow Components

For a production environment, Electric Cloud recommends that you install the DevOps Insight server on a system other than systems running other ElectricFlow components (such as the ElectricFlow server, web server, repository server, or agent). If you must install it on the same system (such as for testing or other non-production or trial-basis situations) “Running the DevOps Insight Server on a System with Other ElectricFlow Components”.

for details.

Configuration Notes

Performing a Full Import

During a full import, the import operation might hang in the following scenarios. To import successfully into ElectricFlow 8.0 and newer versions, perform the appropriate workarounds (CEV-15447 and. (CEV-11873):

  • A manual process step in a process has formal parameters. The workaround is to remove the entry related to the property sheet for the job step that is associated with the manual process step.

  • In the exported XML file from the earlier release, two pipelines are in different projects, and both pipelines have no gate tasks. The flow associated with the pipeline is duplicated under both projects. The workaround is to remove the flow element under the projects.

Updating Application Component Plugin Versions in the Export File When Upgrading from 5. x to 8. x

Application components are based on plugins (EC-Artifact, EC-Maven and EC-FileSysRepo) with plugin details (such as name, procedure, and parameters) stored in properties on the component. Before version 5.4, the value for the pluginProjectName property included the plugin name and version (for example, EC-Artifact-1.0.3.4), which closely tied components to specific versions.

When you export your project data before upgrading from ElectricCommander 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, or 5.3 to ElectricFlow 8. x, you must update the application component plugin versions in the export file to the versions on the target ElectricFlow server before importing the data to ElectricFlow 8. x .

For example, if the promoted EC-Artifact plugin version is 1.0.4.1, then in the snippet below, you would change EC-Artifact-1.0.3.4 to EC-Artifact-1.0.4.1:

<property>
  <propertyId>3f509ffd-506b-11e6-9960-f01faf2c26a3</propertyId>
  <propertyName>pluginProjectName</propertyName>
  <counter>0</counter>
  <createTime>2016-07-23T00:20:20.829Z</createTime>
  <expandable>1</expandable>
  <lastModifiedBy>admin</lastModifiedBy>
  <modifyTime>2016-07-23T00:20:20.829Z</modifyTime>
  <owner>admin</owner>
  <tracked>1</tracked>
  <value>EC-Artifact-1.0.3.4</value>
  </property>
<property>

Starting with release 5.4, ElectricFlow uses the plugin key (which does not include the version) when defining a component. (CEV-6679)

Registering a Custom Plugin Procedure for the Step Creation Dialog

You must register a user-developed plugin so that it appears as an option:

  • When you use the plugin to configure a step in a component or application process.

  • In a procedure in the automation platform.

For details, see the “Register your procedure for the step creation dialog” section in the “Examples and Tutorials” chapter of the ElectricFlow Plugin Developer Guide in the Legacy documentation. (CEV-3649)

Diffie-Hellman Key Size Incompatibility

To enable the ElectricFlow server versions 7.0 or newer to configure Diffie-Hellman cipher suites properly, ElectricFlow uses OpenSSL-1.0.1T or newer versions with SSLv2 enabled. Because of OpenSSL and JRE changes, the minimum Diffie-Hellman key size requirement is increased to 1024 bits (from 768 bits) as of version 7.0.

Server versions 7.0 or newer use Jetty (a Java HTTP server), which listens on the 8000 (unsecure) and 8443 (secure) ports. Server versions 7.0 or newer use Java 1.8.0_66, in which the ephemeral DH key size defaults to 1024 bits during SSL/TLS handshaking in the SunJSSE provider.

Because their minimum key size is 1024 bits, agent versions 7.0 or newer can connect only to:

  • Server versions 5.4, 6.0.1, or 6.5 or higher via ectool

  • External applications that require SSL with a minimum key size of 1024 bits

However, ElectricCommander agents of versions 5.0.6, 5.3, or 5.4 and ElectricFlow agent versions 6.0.1 or 6.5 or newer can connect to all ElectricFlow server versions (including 7.0 or newer) via ectool and ec-perl.

ElectricCommander server versions 5.0.6 or 5.3 or newer can run jobs using all agent versions (including 7.0 or newer). ElectricFlow server versions 7.0 or newer can run jobs using ElectricCommander agent versions 5.0.6 or 5.3 or newer.

Limitations

  • When an application is cloned from one project (the original project) to another (the destination project), the tier maps for the application will point to the environments with the same names in the destination project. To deploy the application to the environments in the original project, you must create tier maps connecting the application to those environments.

  • When an assignee is added in a manual process step or stage task through the web interface, the Search field displays only the users who have actually logged into the system.

  • Session management limitations:

    • When a user logs out, they are logged out only on that node.

    • When a user is deleted from the system, their session is active until it expires.

    • When a job ends, the user’s session is active until it expires.

Known Issues

Performance and Scalability Issues

Performance Impact of Recursive Traversal of Group Hierarchy

Enabling Recursively Traverse Group Hierarchy might impact system performance when the LDAP group hierarchy is traversed. The amount of impact varies with the configurations of the ElectricFlow and LDAP servers, the depth of group hierarchy in the LDAP server, and the network latency between the servers. Make sure that your directory provider can handle the additional load for supporting nested group hierarchy traversal.

The following response times were recorded during Electric Cloud performance tests with nested LDAP groups support.

Test Environment Details
  • ElectricFlow server

    Intel® Core™ i5-3210M CPU @ 2.50GHz CPU

    3011MiB RAM

    80 GiB (85 GB) VBOX HARDDISK disk

  • Active Directory server

    Intel Core i5-3210M CPU @ 2.50GHz CPU

    2 GB RAM

    Windows Server 2012 R2 OS

  • Performance data set

    5040 users

    126 groups

    Average number of 40 users per group

    Average number of 2 immediate groups per parent group

    Maximum depth of 6 in group hierarchy

Response Times with Active Directory

Average of 1000 API calls with user and group at the fifth nested level in the Active Directory group hierarchy.

API command ElectricFlow 6.5 without recursive group hierarchy traversal ElectricFlow 6.5 with recursive group hierarchy traversal

login

1.066 seconds

1.195 seconds

getUser

1.086 seconds

1.213 seconds

getGroup

0.918 seconds

1.102 seconds

Response Times with OpenLDAP

Average of 1000 API calls with user and group at fifth nested level in the Active Directory group hierarchy.

API command ElectricFlow 6.5 without recursive group hierarchy traversal ElectricFlow 6.5 with recursive group hierarchy traversal

login

0.744 seconds

0.753 seconds

getUser

0.705 seconds

0.714 seconds

getGroup

0.657 seconds

1.011 seconds

  • Hundreds of parallel job steps might cause Job Scheduler performance issues at job startup. (NMB-16185)

  • The time needed to add a property to a job increases as the number of properties increases. (NMB-16120)

  • The time needed to add a step to a procedure increases as the number of steps increases. (NMB-16118)

Other Known Issues

  • The ability to search by assignee in a Deployment Report is not available in the DevOps Insight report editor. (CEV-19239 and CEV-19259)

  • All subreleases of a release must appear before the release in the DSL for the release-to-subrelease link to be created. (CEV-18531)

  • When you do a full import from version 8.0 to version 8.2 and two or more releases have the same name (under different projects) and are associated to the same pipeline, then after import, the runs for all releases might become associated to the first imported release.

    This is because ElectricFlow cannot differentiate runs between the releases since all runs are under the same pipeline project and have the same name. To work around this issue, rename releases in the export file so that all their occurrences (in deploymentHistoryItem , flowRuntime , and so on) are unique. (CEV-17164)

  • Jobs might not appear upon drill-down into the “Clusters With Most Deployments” widget in the DevOps Insight Microservices Dashboard if the service does not contain a deploy step in the process. (CEV-16930)

  • A project import might not include the path-to-production view. (CEV-16250)

  • Multiple mapped environments with the same name from different projects are not supported in email notifications. (CEV-16245)

  • During an upgrade from version 8.0 (and prior versions with service and container support) to 8.1, the installer adds a default process to the application scoped service if the service is referenced in an application process step. For all other services in the application that have no reference in the application process step, you must manually create the process using the Hierarchy Menu. (CEV-16212)

  • The Environments list page might not display the numbers of deployed services in individual environments. (CEV-16138)

  • Restarting of imported pipeline runs is not supported. (CEV-16121)

  • The retry count for group tasks or rules using “automated retry on error” is missing from the Pipeline runtime page. (CEV-15829)

  • If an application process step cannot expand to its child steps (because of an invalid run condition or an invalid formal parameter), then the step is not retried even if it uses “retry on error” error handling. The job eventually completes with an error. (CEV-15122)

  • No error message appears for failed tasks and retry tasks during a pipeline runtime. (CEV-14689)

  • The stage inclusion status in the Release Dashboard changes color after a stage is renamed. (CEV-12429)

  • Error messages for runtimes started by a schedule are not visible if the schedule was created with a missed configuration. (CEV-12363)

  • When an application with snapshots created in ElectricFlow 6.1 or earlier is cloned, and a project containing this application is imported to ElectricFlow 6.3 or higher, the import operation fails. (CEV-11106)

  • (Windows platforms only) When installing DevOps Insight, you cannot use parentheses (round brackets) in the installation directory or data directory paths. For example, the path C:\Program Files (x86)\ElectricCommander is not valid. (NMB-26406)

  • (Linux platforms only) Publishing the “pure” 64-bit agent installer via ElectricFlow Centralized Agent Management (CAM) might cause a version validation error such as the following:

    [ERROR] version '8.4.0.129606-new-with-64bit-perl' does not match the expected format 'major.minor.patch.build'. at /tmp/ecmdrAgent/agent.9O58ASA1Z47NBBO7.run-5e0e273f-7851-11e8-bf29-005056330d6a-5e2112e4-7851-11e8-9aac-005056330d6a.cmd line 8

    To work around this issue, in order to install the 64-bit Linux agent 8.4.0.<version>-new-with-64bit-perl using CAM, you must rename the binary to 8.4.0.<version> before publishing. Note that you can publish either binary 8.4.0.<version> or 8.4.0.<version>-new-with-64bit-perl . (NMB-26377)

  • Modifications of LDAP user data (such as email addresses) on an Active Directory server after registration in ElectricFlow do not appear properly in user details (in the Automation Platform UI or ectool) until the ElectricFlow server is restarted. (NMB-26021)

  • (Solaris and AIX platforms only) The artifact cache is not updated during artifact retrieval operations. (NMB-24955)

  • When you use the Automation Platform UI to upload and publish artifact files with non-English characters in their file names, the operation fails with the following error: Upload file: Exit code 1: ERROR: Publish failure: Unexpected retrieval exception for repository error . (NMB-24949)

  • You can revert changes only for high-level design objects such as applications, procedures, procedure steps, workflow definitions, and state definitions.

    Restarting the ElectricFlow server while new records are created for all tracked objects might take at least as long as an export or import of all projects (10 to 40 minutes for a large project).
  • System performance might decrease if you disable change tracking at the server level and then re-enable it at that level. (Change tracking is enabled by default.)

    For details about using change tracking, see the “Change Tracking” chapter in the ElectricFlow 8.4 User Guide in the Legacy documentation.

Documentation and Online Help

Product Documentation

ElectricFlow product documentation is available in the Legacy documentation as follows:

  • ElectricFlow Installation Guide

  • ElectricFlow User Guide

  • ElectricFlow API Guide

  • ElectricFlow Release Notes

  • ElectricFlow SDK Plugin Developer Guide (updated on its own release cycle)

  • ElectricFlow SDK Plugin Developer Release Notes_ (updated on its own release cycle)

Documentation on the website is updated periodically.

Automation Platform Online Help

The Automation Platform web UI has a complete, robust, context-sensitive online help system. To use it, click the Help button in any page of the web UI.

Troubleshooting and Getting Help

Technical Support

Contact Electric Cloud technical support:

Be prepared to provide your:

  • Name, title, company name, phone number, and email address

  • Operating system and version number

  • Product name and release version

  • Problem description

CloudBees Flow Knowledge Base

Go to https://support.cloudbees.com/hc/en-us/sections/360006415292-Flow-KB to find in-depth explanations of specific topics and solutions for specific problems.