Easy to Install

BuildBeat features an easy-to-use installation program that makes it easy to install the necessary components.

Configuration Wizard

After installation, the configuration wizard allows you to quickly create your BuildBeat database, set up your first project, and configure users. Setting up BuildBeat the first time takes only a few minutes.

Visual Administrator

The BuildBeat Administrator allows you to easily add new projects, configure them for integration with version control systems, enable them for continuous integration and/or scheduled building, and configure the project's build tasks.

Web-Based Reporting

BuildBeat's web-based reporting information allows you to review past builds, and in the case of build failures, quickly determine the source of the failure. All task logging information is displayed, along with unit test results.

Distributed Building

For teams with complex projects that require high-performance builds, BuildBeat accelerates the build process by distributing the project among many computers. BuildBeat's distributed build capabilities also works in conjunction with its unit testing and cross-platform support, allow you to simultaneously test your software in multiple environments.

Cross-Platform Building

If you are building or testing your software for multiple operating systems, BuildBeat provides cross-platform building support. The BuildBeat server and agents run on Windows-based operating systems, and nearly all Unix/Linux systems, including Mac OS/X.

Integrated Support for Unit Testing

Unit testing is an integral part of the agile software development process. BuildBeat makes it easy to incorporate unit testing into your builds. The unit testing feature is tightly integrated with BuildBeat's data warehousing and web-reporting capabilities.

Continuous Integration Support

BuildBeat makes continuous integration easy with built-in support for numerous open-source and commercial version control systems. BuildBeat currently supports Microsoft SourceSafe and Team Foundation Server, Serena PVCS Version Manager, Perforce, Subversion, and CVS. We are constantly adding support for other version control systems. Contact us for details on upcoming integrations.

Live Build Monitoring

Sometimes it's nice to know what the build server is actually doing. This is particularly useful if a build is prone to hangs or deadlocks. For example, thread-sensitive unit tests could cause the build process to freeze if a race condition or deadlock occurs. Without live build monitoring, you're never quite sure if your build is still building. The result is you must abort the build or wait for the build to timeout, which is wasteful of the team's time. Live build monitoring allows you to immediately see a problem with the build without waiting and wondering.

Automated Task Logging

BuildBeat automatically captures all output generated by build tasks, stores them in the database, and makes the output available from the web-reporting interface. Because BuildBeat does this automatically, you don't need to clutter your build scripts with complex logic, making your build scripts easier to read and maintain.

Error Handling Support

If a build task fails, BuildBeat makes it easy to capture the failure information and optionally abort the build. The error information is prominently displayed in the web-reporting interface. If a build fails, you can quickly and easily determine the source of the failure.

Integrated Data Warehouse

All task information, including unit test results are automatically captured and stored in the BuildBeat database, providing a complete audit trail of passed builds.

Integration with Eclipse IDE

BuildBeat's Eclipse plug-in can be run on any platform that supports the Eclipse IDE, enabling live build monitoring and status updates from any operating system platform.

Flexible Task Configuration Settings

To avoid entering duplicate task configuration information repeatedly in many different places, BuildBeat allows you to specify default task configuration settings. The default settings may then be overloaded on a case-by-case basis, as needed.

MySQL Database Support

BuildBeat's back-end database and data warehouse can be stored on either a Microsoft SQL Server (including SQL Server Express Edition and MSDE), as well as MySQL. MySQL support is particular useful for teams needing cross-platform builds, as the MySQL database runs on standard Unix/Linux platforms.

Command Line Interface

The BuildBeat command line tool, bb can be used as an alternative to the graphical administrator. It runs on all platforms and is useful when scriptable administrative actions are required.

Build Aborts and Task Timeouts

BuildBeat features powerful and elegant abort, timeout, and process termination capabilities. Each build task can be configured with its own time out value. If the task does not complete in the alloted time, the build is automatically aborted. Users can also manually kill a build in process with the push of a button. These features are tied in tightly with BuildBeat's distributed build capabilities, so tasks running on remote build agents will also be aborted appropriately.

Version Numbering Persistence

BuildBeat's database provides a convenient, centralized place to persist values that change frequently, such a version numbers. The properties architecture can be used to store any sort of value or variable, and BuildBeat provides bookkeeping tasks for manipulating properties. Each project will typically have a major version, minor version, build, and revision property, and the build number will be incremented at the beginning of each build.