We have now opened up the Beta program for Continua CI.
What is Continua CI
Continua CI is our next generation Continuous Integration server product. This product will replace FinalBuilder Server once it's released.
Continua CI is a far more advanced CI server than FinalBuilder Server, it's not tied to FinalBuilder (although it works very nicely with it), Continua CI supports FinalBuilder, MSBuild, ANT, NANT & Visual Studio as build engines (more will come in updates). The builds are performed by Agents, either on the same machine or on other machines as the Continua CI Server.
Version Control Support
In the initial release these version control systems will be supported :
Bazaar, Git, Mercurial, Perforce, Subversion, SurroundSCM, TFS & Vault
Note that we have absolutely no plans to add support for Source Safe(it's long overdue for retirement). We will add support for others in the future where there is demand.
System Requirements
Server :
Windows Server 2003 or higher (no windows XP), .NET 4.0, SQLServer 2008 or higher, or PostgreSQL 9.1.3 or higher (this is the default db an installed with the server)
Agent : Windows XP SP3 or higher, .NET 4.0 - other platform support is currently being investigated.
Browser : HTML5 capable browser - IE9, Google Chrome 21 or higher, Firefox 14 or higher.
Licensing
Out of the box, Free of charge, Continua supports :
- Unlimited Users
- Unlimited Projects
- Unlimited Configurations
- 1 Local Agent(on the same machine as the server)
- 1 Concurrent Build.
After that you can purchase concurrent build licenses. Once you have at least 1 license installed, you can use as many remote agents as you like, agents do not take up licenses, concurrent builds do.
We explored many different licensing schemes and we believe this scheme will work out better for most people. The most common complaint about FinalBuilder Server was the per user licensing. Managing user licenses is easy when you have a small local team, but for larger distributed teams it becomes problematic. Most build servers have lots of projects but they are typically only running a few projects concurrently. Also, by not licensing agents, it allows you to have agents with specific capabilities. Agents report their capabilities to the server and are chosen for a build based the requirments of the project and the agent's capabilities. Say for example you have a project that is rarely built and it uses a specific tool and only installed on one machine, installing an agent on that machine will not tie up a license, it will only use a license when that project is being built.
Moving from FinalBuilder Server
There is unfortunately no direct migration from FinalBuilder Server. The two products are very different, so unfortunately the only option at this time is to start from scratch. We do have someone working on migration scripts, but those scripts will not get you fully up and running in Continua CI. The main issue has to do with where the FinalBuilder project files live in FB Server (on the server) vs Continua CI (in your version control system).
I recommend reading this page to help understand the different concepts between the two products.
How much will I have to pay when it's released?
If you have a current FinalBuilder Server Users Software Assurance Subscription at the time of release, we will convert your FinalBuilder Server User licenses into Continua Concurrent Build licenses (2 users = 1 concurrent build license).
New Concurrent Build licenses will be priced at US$199.
How do I get it?
The beta download links are pinned at the top of the Continua CI General Discussion forum
Can I see some Documentation?
Yes, the product documentation is here. The documentation is still being written however there is fair bit there already.
What if I find a bug?
Please post as much information as you can about your environment, the build of Continua CI you are using and the bug in the Continua CI Bug Reports forum.