Deploying Component–Based Applications: Tools and Techniques

Software deployment comprises activities for placing an already developed application into its operational environment and making it ready for use. For complex component-based applications that constitute many heterogeneous components with various hardware and software requirements, this deployment process can become one of the most burning challenges. In this situation, it is difficult to manually identify a valid deployment configuration that satisfies all constraints. Thus, automated tools and techniques are required to do the complex process of software deployment. To address this requirement, a variety of tools and techniques that support different activities of the deployment process have been introduced in both industry and academia. This paper aims to provide an overview of these tools and techniques.