Having a single server building and testing your software every time you check in is a great first step into continuous integration. However there are several reasons why you'd need to grow your build cloud. As your tests get bigger, you will want to split them into suites and run them in parallel on multiple machines to speed them up. You'll need to run your tests on multiple environments so you can verify your software works on a variety of real world systems. And you'll want to use Cruise's pipelines to do push-button deployments to your testing, staging and production environments.
Adding a new server to Cruise's build cloud is a snap. Go to the "Agents" tab and follow the link to install an agent in the top right. Grab the installer and run it on the machine you want Cruise to add to its cloud. You only need to tell the installer the hostname of Cruise Server. It will then appear on the "Agents" tab waiting for you to approve it. Once approved, the agent will pick up any available work. At this point it will start picking up jobs off the queue, checking out any required source code, and building.
You can describe the resources an agent has using text tags - as many as you like. Then you can specify the resources a job requires to run, and Cruise will ensure that job only runs on an agent with the required resources. This simple, flexible system allows you to partition up your agents any way you like, so that you have jobs that run on any agent, and other jobs that will only run on one specific server (useful when performing deployments), and anything in between. Scheduled jobs will be automatically picked up by the first free agent that can service them.
Cruise's build cloud scales like no other solution on the market. Our Premium edition comes with 35 agents, and that's not even our most powerful edition! No other vendor offers this level of scalability out of the box. In fact we haven't yet managed to find a limit to the number of agents we can attach to our cloud while still maintaining lightning-fast responsiveness. Our ThoughtWorks internal build clouds handle literally thousands of jobs a day across more than 50 agents, day after day, with unparalleled reliability and uptime, on standard low-end white box hardware.
If an Agent dies or loses contact with the server for more than a couple of minutes, Cruise transparently reassigns whatever work it was doing to another agent. You can spin up and power down Agents without Cruise blinking an eye.
Agents automatically check out any source code required -- the only thing you need to do is install your version control client and any software your application needs to complete its work successfully.
If you upgrade Cruise Server, Cruise Agents will automatically upgrade to the correct version - you don't need to do anything. You can even upgrade Cruise Server while Cruise Agents are building - whatever work they are doing will restart following the upgrade. If you have to downgrade again, Cruise Agents will automatically downgrade too.
| Cruise takes care of... | |
| Release Management | Remove the uncertainty and unwanted surprises when releasing software. |
| Multi-platform Testing | Manage your testing platforms with Cruise Agents that require zero configuration. |
| Continuous Integration | Integrate your team's work frequently and use automated builds to detect integration errors in time. |
