Alternative build manager to Hudson

I work at a software company where our primary development language is Java. Naturally, we use Hudson for continuous builds, which it works brilliantly for. However, Hudson is not so good at some of the other things we ask it to do. We also use Hudson 开发者_Python百科jobs to deploy binaries, refresh databases, run load testing, run regressions, etc. We really run into trouble when there are build dependencies (i.e. load testings requires DB refresh).

Here's the one thing that Hudson doesn't do that we really need:

Build dependency: It supports build dependencies for Ant builds, but not for Hudson jobs. We're using the URL invocation feature to cause a Hudson job to invoke another Hudson job. The problem is that Hudson always returns a 200 and does not block until the job is done. This means that the calling job doesn't know a) if the build failed and b) if it didn't fail, how long it took.

It would be nice to not have to use shell scripting to specify the behavior of a build, but that's not totally necessary.

Any direction would be nice. Perhaps we're not using Hudson the right way (i.e. should all builds be Ant builds?) or perhaps we need another product for our one-click deployment, load testing, migration, DB refresh, etc.

Edit:

To clarify, we have parameters in our builds that can cause different dependencies depending on the parameters. I.e. sometimes we want load testing with a DB refresh, sometimes without a DB refresh. Unfortunately, creating a Hudson job for each combination of parameters (as the Join plugin requires) won't work because sometimes the different combinations could lead to dozens of jobs.

I don't think I understand your "build dependency" requirements. Any Hudson job can be configured to trigger another (downstream) job, or be triggered by another (upstream) job.

The Downstream-Ext plugin and Join plugin allow for more complex definition of build dependencies.

There is a CLI for Hudson which allows you to issue commands to a Hudson instance. Use "help" to get precise details. I believe there is one which allows you to invoke a build and await its finish.

http://wiki.hudson-ci.org/display/HUDSON/Hudson+CLI

Do you need an extra job for your 'dependencies'?

Your dependencies sound for me like an extra build step. The script that refreshes the DB can be stored in your scm and every build that needs this step will check it out. You can invoke that script if your parameter "db refresh" is true. This can be done with more than just one of your modules. What is the advantage? Your script logic is in your scm (It's always good to have a history of the changes). You still have the ability to update the script once for all your test jobs (since hey all check out the same script). In addition you don't need to look at several scripts to find out whether your test ran successful or not. Especially if you have one job that is part of several execution lines, it becomes difficult to find out what job triggered which run. Another advantage is that you have less jobs on your Hudson and therefore it is easier to maintain.

I think what you are looking for is http://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Parameterized+Trigger+Plugin This plugin lets you execute other jobs based on the status of previous jobs. You can even call a shell script from the downstream project to determine any additional conditions. which can in turn call the API for more info.

For example we have a post-build step to notify us, this calls back the JSON API to build a nice topic in our IRC channel that says "All builds ok" or "X,Y failed" , etc.