CTM Important Terminology

The key terminology in the CTM is as follows:

• Environment

  It designates individual stages in a project. The 'Stage' term is synonymous with the 'Environment' term. Usually there are the following stages available: The Development stage, Master stage, Test environment, Integration environment and the Production stage. The number of stages corresponds to the number of different databases.

• Commit

  Denotes the import to the Master stage. The user is asked to select an appropriate package and describe the content of the customization. CTM creates a Customization Object and generates a sequence number. Now the customization is registered and ready to be transferred to the consecutive environments.

• Database ID

  A unique, universal ID (UID) which is used to identify the database of an environment. It is stored in the Mainparameters. The UID is generated when you log in the system for the first time. The same database identifier is also used to generate/verify Run Links for an environment.

• Customization Object

  It is an object wrapper for the XML or SQL files containing the actual customization.

• Package

  The Package can be viewed as a container for Customization Objects. The individual Packages help to organize the customization process.

• Sequence

  The property of Customization Objects which is used to control the correct order of imports.

• Transfer Order

  CTM creates Transfer Orders for each environment which the Customization Object has to be imported/transferred to.

• Setup Object

  These are objects holding certain settings. They can be used for the environment preconfiguration if necessary. For example, you can initialize the mainparameters or load some test data for individual environments.