(Raleigh, N.C.) rPath, an innovator in automating system deployment and maintenance, today announced that it will support the Microsoft Windows operating system with a new solution for automated deployment of applications built using the Microsoft .NET Framework. This announcement extends the reach of rPath’s next-generation system automation solutions beyond the enterprise Linux market.

“Managing .NET application deployment and configuration is often a wholly manual process, and due to increasing change activity it’s likely going to get worse,” said Ronni Colville, VP, distinguished analyst at Gartner, Inc. “Tools that help automate provisioning and configuration of .NET applications can improve efficiency and effectiveness significantly.”

Jake Sorofman, chief marketing officer for rPath, said, “Our success with Linux is driving demand for a solution that automates deployment and maintenance of Windows-based software systems. Today, the absence of automation solutions for Windows and the complexity of .NET application deployments make this one of the thorniest challenges in enterprise IT.”

IT operations staff charged with deploying, configuring, maintaining and troubleshooting .NET applications have few tools to choose from and very little automation. Real-world .NET production environments are diverse assemblies of scripts and manual processes cobbled together by harried operations engineers trying to cope with unstable, rapidly changing applications and exploding scale. This is why 47 percent of enterprise IT operating expense is related to deployment management and incident management activities, according to Microsoft.

Today, IT organizations are under heightened pressure to reduce costs, while improving agility and responsiveness. This is driving a need for automation solutions.

rPath is recognized as a leader and innovator in next-generation system automation technologies. Some of the world’s largest enterprises and ISVs use rPath to take the time, cost and risk out of packaging, deployment and maintenance of complex software systems across physical, virtual and cloud-based environments. Now, rPath is extending its release automation platform to the Windows environment.

For Windows customers, rPath enables:

•Automated packaging and deployment of .NET and Windows applications: Dependencies are automatically discovered and resolved, and policies define how applications should be packaged. The result is a complete, self-contained system that’s ready to deploy to any physical, virtual or cloud environment.
•Scalable, predictable, conflict-free update: rPath’s deep system modeling can be used to control the flow of change into deployed systems. Updates can be applied incrementally, to only the components that require change, eliminating unnecessary changes that often lead to downtime. Also, deep version control provides a solid foundation for easy reproducibility, rollback and troubleshooting.
•Unified automation of software and configuration: rPath is the first vendor to bring CIM-based configuration management under system version control. By storing CIM data under the same version control umbrella as software, rPath makes it easy to deploy and update consistent systems by simultaneously deploying applications and their supporting configurations over WMI (the Windows management API). rPath is delivering the first complete system model, and the first real configuration management system, for Windows.
•Release lifecycle management: rPath dramatically accelerates and improves the quality of release processes and is delivering the industry’s first version controlled system for managing the complete lifecycle of .NET and Windows applications. This includes a shared repository of version-controlled system artifacts to drive consistent reuse across the release lifecycle, consistent handoffs across the release lifecycle to eliminate the risk of configuration drift, and automated dependency discovery and resolution to minimize the risk of deployment failures and outages.
rPath support for automated deployment and configuration of applications built using the Microsoft .NET Framework will be commercially available in Q3 2010.

Learn more about the rPath solution for automating .NET deployment and configuration:

•Watch short video: http://www.rpath.com/corp/windows
•Read whitepaper: http://www.rpath.com/corp/images/stories/white_papers/rPath_WP_Windows.pdf
•Attend webinar: http://www.rpath.com/corp/windows/642-05192010-webinar

For more information on rPath, please visit http://www.rpath.com. For additional perspectives, please visit and subscribe to rPath RSS blog feeds at http://blogs.rpath.com/wpmu/. Follow rPath on Twitter at @rpath.

rPath automates system deployment and maintenance across physical, virtual and cloud environments. rPath’s innovative release automation platform is based on the industry’s only commercial version control repository for managing deployed software systems. The result is an easy-to-deploy and cost-effective automation solution for rapid, low-risk and low-overhead deployment and maintenance of complex software systems. rPath dramatically improves responsiveness to business lines, reduces compliance risks, and allows resource-constrained IT organizations to significantly reduce operating costs and “do more with less.” Headquartered in Raleigh, NC, rPath has 80+ customers including some of the world’s largest enterprises and ISVs. Visit www.rpath.com.