# The Essential Deployment Metamodel: A Systematic Review of Deployment Automation Technologies

## TL;DR

This paper systematically reviews declarative deployment technologies, introduces the Essential Deployment Metamodel (EDMM) to unify understanding, and aids in comparison, selection, and migration of deployment tools.

## Contribution

It presents the EDMM as a common, technology-independent framework derived from existing deployment technologies, facilitating better comparison and migration.

## Key findings

- EDMM captures essential features of deployment technologies
- Enables comparison and migration between deployment tools
- Provides a baseline for future deployment automation research

## Abstract

In recent years, a plethora of deployment technologies evolved, many following a declarative approach to automate the delivery of software components. Even if such technologies share the same purpose, they differ in features and supported mechanisms. Thus, it is difficult to compare and select deployment automation technologies as well as to migrate from one technology to another. Hence, we present a systematic review of declarative deployment technologies and introduce the Essential Deployment Metamodel (EDMM) by extracting the essential parts that are supported by all these technologies. Thereby, the EDMM enables a common understanding of declarative deployment models by facilitating the comparison, selection, and migration of technologies. Moreover, it provides a technology-independent baseline for further deployment automation research.