a. You must have the Build System Toolkit installed on any machines you want to deploy to, with a Rational Build Agent running.
b. The zip file is the package that will be deployed. The members shown in the package results are inside the zip file that is transferred. Those contents will be deployed to the destination PDS on a deploy.
c. The Load operation performs copying/ftping the package to the deployment machine. The deploy operation takes the loaded package and deploys it to the target PDS's.

Remote Deploy - when deploying zOS executables to a remote zOS host a few questions:

a. Does the remote zOS host require any RTC code be resident on that remote host?
b. After a zip file is FTP'ed to a remote host - what on that host does the actual unzip and copy to the destination PDS?
c. In regards to deploying to a remote host what specifically is done in the "Load" operation versus the "deploy" operation

That is correct about the requirements for Host B except I forgot to mention also having the ISPF Gateway setup. Let me go into a bit more detail about remote hosts and deployment. Host A is your packaging and build machine. Which means in your package definition and build definition you will specify the same build engine. If we want to deploy to Host B we need to have the Build System Toolkit, Build Agent, and ISPF Gateway setup to handle deployments. You need to create a build engine in RTC to point to the build agent running on Host B. In your deployment definition you will then select that build engine that is connecting to Host B. If using the FTP load option the hostname you will specify is the hostname of Host A and the user id and password file for Host A. The password file must be a path that exists on Host B, but the password contains the pass to Host A. This password file should be created using the BLZBPASS JCL.

We don't delete any of the packages that are copied/ftped to the deployment machine at this time. You will see under your local package root directory/App Name/Version/ a bunch of folders starting with C then a timestamp. Those are your complete packages that have been loaded. Below those if you have any are the non-complete or update packages that start with a U. Inside these folders are all the parts of the package and some deployed information for that package. Files include package.zip, packageManifest.xml, and shiplist.xml. If the package has already been deployed there will also be a deltaDeployed.xml. It is not advisable to just go and delete all of these folders. The last complete package and last update package deployed must exist, I believe. You can determine what the last deployed update/complete package are by looking at local_package_root_dir/.status/App Name/Version/deployStatus.properties.

All pre/post commands are running on Host B through the ISPF Gateway.

a. You must have the Build System Toolkit installed on any machines you want to deploy to, with a Rational Build Agent running.
b. The zip file is the package that will be deployed. The members shown in the package results are inside the zip file that is transferred. Those contents will be deployed to the destination PDS on a deploy.
c. The Load operation performs copying/ftping the package to the deployment machine. The deploy operation takes the loaded package and deploys it to the target PDS's.

Remote Deploy - when deploying zOS executables to a remote zOS host a few questions:

a. Does the remote zOS host require any RTC code be resident on that remote host?
b. After a zip file is FTP'ed to a remote host - what on that host does the actual unzip and copy to the destination PDS?
c. In regards to deploying to a remote host what specifically is done in the "Load" operation versus the "deploy" operation

So just to be clear if I wanted to deploy a package to host B and I am on host A - I need the bfagent running on host B along with the buildtoolkit installed? My main host for builds is host A so of course I have the buildtoolkit and bfagent running on host A.

Also on the remote host when I do the "deploy" step the "zip" file needs to be unzipped and the members copied to the final PDS destination. After completion what "artifacts" remain on the remote host that may need to be "cleaned up" later - the "zip" file, the "unzipped" file?

Just for extra information Don. We use PAX to zip and unzip the package. PAX is included with z/OS so no additional software is required.

As Kevin said we do not delete the package. Any work files, such as the unzipped XMIT files are cleaned up however, plus a lot of the work is done in temporary data sets.

a. You must have the Build System Toolkit installed on any machines you want to deploy to, with a Rational Build Agent running.
b. The zip file is the package that will be deployed. The members shown in the package results are inside the zip file that is transferred. Those contents will be deployed to the destination PDS on a deploy.
c. The Load operation performs copying/ftping the package to the deployment machine. The deploy operation takes the loaded package and deploys it to the target PDS's.

Remote Deploy - when deploying zOS executables to a remote zOS host a few questions:

a. Does the remote zOS host require any RTC code be resident on that remote host?
b. After a zip file is FTP'ed to a remote host - what on that host does the actual unzip and copy to the destination PDS?
c. In regards to deploying to a remote host what specifically is done in the "Load" operation versus the "deploy" operation

Wow! Looks like there is a lot more to know about package and deploy than the help system provides. I'm trying to do this for the first time with a build machine that is Windows and a target machine that is Linux. Is there a thread or reference someone can point me to that provides the kind of detail that this discussion has provided. I would never have known that the build agent needs to run on the target machine if you guys hadn't discussed this. Thanks!

You can find Tutorials for Linux/UNIX, IBM i, and z/OS on the Deployment Wiki page: https://jazz.net/wiki/bin/view/Main/DeploymentMain

We will look into the docs to see what is missing.

Wow! Looks like there is a lot more to know about package and deploy than the help system provides. I'm trying to do this for the first time with a build machine that is Windows and a target machine that is Linux. Is there a thread or reference someone can point me to that provides the kind of detail that this discussion has provided. I would never have known that the build agent needs to run on the target machine if you guys hadn't discussed this. Thanks!

Thanks Kevin.