To deploy Spotfire software, the administrator places software packages in a deployment area and assigns the deployment area to particular groups. This way, different groups can have access to different versions or custom packages.

If a new deployment is available when a user logs in to a Spotfire client, the software packages are downloaded from the server to the client.

A group of software packages (.spk files) can be bundled together into a distribution (.sdn file). A distribution can be copied to create a new deployment area, or downloaded for deployment to another Spotfire Server.

Every user is associated with at least one deployment area; by default, this is the Production area that is created when you install Spotfire Server, but you can designate any area as the default.

Some users have access to more than one deployment area because they belong to several groups that are associated with different deployment areas. In this case, users are prompted to choose a deployment area when they log in to the Spotfire client.

Whether a user has access to a particular feature contained in a distribution depends on the licenses that are assigned to that user's groups. For more information, see Groups and licenses introduction.

Administrators usually create a Test deployment area to use as a staging server; when the new software has been thoroughly tested in their Spotfire environment, the distribution is copied to a production area.

You can also use different deployment areas to determine which functionality on the server should be available for certain user groups. For example, you can provide or remove access to download the installed Spotfire client on the My account page; see Removing the downloads tab for a deployment area or group.