Dhanoa, Harpreet wrote:
> Thank you very much for your help! I really appreciate it !
>  
> Some specific requirements that SmartFrog needs to satisfy for my use 
> cases include:
> 
>     * Assertion/test/validation.  For example, assert jvm.version >=
>       1.6.0.5.

yes

>     * Install Application Server (JBoss/Tomcat)

If it is a matter of unzip/untar its fairly straightforward; if you have 
to use installers with GUIs, things are tricky.

>     * Install ear/war/jar file (Maven Repo artifact)

-we have components to pull in repo stuff, and check the signatures 
before giving you access, this makes things secure even if the repos are 
the public ones.

>     * Configure/Tweak XML/Prop configuration files
>     * Supply configuration files (e.g. Data Sources)
>           o Likely filter (passwords) to make them environment
>             (dev/qa/prod/dr) specific

This is dynamic generation of files. We have some text file stuff where 
you can place in resolved values, and we also have a velocity component 
to run velocity over things. Velocity is like a chainsaw: powerful ,but 
you can cut yourself up if you are not careful.

>     * Parameterized install.  For example:  install qa

you can deploy different configurations, and you can drive them via 
property files or values you can extract from the machine at runtime.

>     * Multi-OS support
>           o Windows -> C:\Program Files\JBoss\... ; *NIX -> /opt/jboss/...
>     * Launch Setup.exe (and Uninstall.exe)

yes

>     * Version the setup script/components.

what exactly do do you mean  here?

>     * Repeated runs...  (If x is installed already, skip to next step...)
>     * Dependency Management (Y depends on X, so if X is not installed,
>       install X, then continue).
> 
>  
> Q. 1) If you think any of these are not covered with SmartFrog please 
> point it out.

The dependency management is the tricky one if you want to go in at the 
OS level, see what bits of windows apps are registered, etc. If it is 
just looking at the presence/absence of things its jsut about workable, 
but versioning is bad. Primarily because windows is atrocious at 
versioning.

>  
> Q .2) I needs a really good answer for  "Why should I use SmartFrog 
> instead of Ant?"  to convince all my  IT Teams.

As an ant committer, I have conflict of interest here.
  Ant is very developer centric, things either work or the build halts 
with an error message, you get to fix it.
  SmartFrog is more focused on getting a set of machines into a specific 
state, and keeping it there. You can not only deploy stuff, you can ping 
it to make sure it is still alive, and then undeploy it afterwards. Ant 
doesnt do cleanup

That means SF is not so much an "installer" as a deployer -it likes to 
be in charge of starting/stopping the database and app server, and 
configuring it to your needs. Normally it does this just by running the 
java command, though for Jetty we have some more intimate control, as it 
is an embedded servlet engine.

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