Release management is the process of managing, planning, scheduling and controlling a software build through different stages and environments; it includes testing and deploying software releases. [1] [2]
Release management is the process of managing, planning, scheduling and controlling a software build through different stages and environments; it includes testing and deploying software releases. [1] [2]
Organizations that have adopted agile software development are seeing much higher quantities of releases[ citation needed ]. With the increasing popularity of agile development a new approach to software releases known as continuous delivery is starting to influence how software transitions from development to a release. [3] One goal of continuous delivery and DevOps is to release more reliable applications faster and more frequently. The movement of the application from a "build" through different environments to production as a "release" is part of the continuous delivery pipeline. [4] Release managers are beginning to utilize tools such as application release automation and continuous integration tools to help advance the process of continuous delivery and incorporate a culture of DevOps by automating a task so that it can be done more quickly, reliably, and is repeatable. More software releases have led to increased reliance on release management and automation tools to execute these complex application release processes. [5]
In organizations that manage IT operations using the IT service management paradigm, specifically the ITIL framework, release management will be guided by ITIL concepts and principles. There are several formal ITIL processes that are related to release management, primarily the release and deployment management process, which "aims to plan, schedule and control the movement of releases to test and live environments", [6] and the change enablement process. [7] In ITIL organizations, releases tend to be less frequent than in an agile development environment. Release processes are managed by IT operations teams using IT service management ticketing systems, with less focus on automation of release processes. [8]
Software development is the process used to create software. Programming and maintaining the source code is the central step of this process, but it also includes conceiving the project, evaluating its feasibility, analyzing the business requirements, software design, testing, to release. Software engineering, in addition to development, also includes project management, employee management, and other overhead functions. Software development may be sequential, in which each step is complete before the next begins, but iterative development methods where multiple steps can be executed at once and earlier steps can be revisited have also been devised to improve flexibility, efficiency, and scheduling.
Software deployment is all of the activities that make a software system available for use.
Continuous integration (CI) is the practice of integrating source code changes frequently and ensuring that the integrated codebase is in a workable state.
Release engineering, frequently abbreviated as RE or as the clipped compound Releng, is a sub-discipline in software engineering concerned with the compilation, assembly, and delivery of source code into finished products or other software components. Associated with the software release life cycle, it was said by Boris Debic of Google Inc. that release engineering is to software engineering as manufacturing is to an industrial process:
Release engineering is the difference between manufacturing software in small teams or startups and manufacturing software in an industrial way that is repeatable, gives predictable results, and scales well. These industrial style practices not only contribute to the growth of a company but also are key factors in enabling growth.
Build automation is the practice of building software systems in a relatively unattended fashion. The build is configured to run with minimized or no software developer interaction and without using a developer's personal computer. Build automation encompasses the act of configuring the build system as well the resulting system itself.
Azure DevOps Server, formerly known as Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Visual Studio Team System (VSTS), is a Microsoft product that provides version control, reporting, requirements management, project management, automated builds, testing and release management capabilities. It covers the entire application lifecycle and enables DevOps capabilities. Azure DevOps can be used as a back-end to numerous integrated development environments (IDEs) but is tailored for Microsoft Visual Studio and Eclipse on all platforms.
Electric Cloud, Inc. was a privately held, DevOps software company based in San Jose, California, United States. Founded in 2002, Electric Cloud was a provider of application release orchestration (ARO) tools, automating release pipelines and managing application life cycles. Electric Cloud's products included ElectricFlow and ElectricAccelerator.
AnthillPro is a software tool originally developed and released as one of the first continuous integration servers. AnthillPro automates the process of building code into software projects and testing it to verify that project quality has been maintained. Software developers are able to identify bugs and errors earlier by using AnthillPro to track, collate, and test changes in real time to a collectively maintained body of computer code.
DevOps is a methodology in the software development and IT industry. Used as a set of practices and tools, DevOps integrates and automates the work of software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) as a means for improving and shortening the systems development life cycle. DevOps is complementary to agile software development; several DevOps aspects came from the agile way of working.
Continuous testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release candidate. Continuous testing was originally proposed as a way of reducing waiting time for feedback to developers by introducing development environment-triggered tests as well as more traditional developer/tester-triggered tests.
Continuous delivery (CD) is a software engineering approach in which teams produce software in short cycles, ensuring that the software can be reliably released at any time. It aims at building, testing, and releasing software with greater speed and frequency. The approach helps reduce the cost, time, and risk of delivering changes by allowing for more incremental updates to applications in production. A straightforward and repeatable deployment process is important for continuous delivery.
Application-release automation (ARA) refers to the process of packaging and deploying an application or update of an application from development, across various environments, and ultimately to production. ARA solutions must combine the capabilities of deployment automation, environment management and modeling, and release coordination.
BuildMaster is an application release automation tool, designed by the software development team Inedo. It combines build management and ARA capabilities to manage and automate processes primarily related to continuous integration, database change scripts, and production deployments, overall releasing applications reliably. The tool is browser-based and able to be used "out-of-the-box". Its feature set and scope puts it in line with the DevOps movement, and is marketed as "more than a release automatigs together the people, processes, and practices that allow teams to deliver software rapidly, reliably, and responsibly.” It's a tool that embodies incremental DevOps adoption.
Infrastructure as code (IaC) is the process of managing and provisioning computer data center resources through machine-readable definition files, rather than physical hardware configuration or interactive configuration tools. The IT infrastructure managed by this process comprises both physical equipment, such as bare-metal servers, as well as virtual machines, and associated configuration resources. The definitions may be in a version control system, rather than maintaining the code through manual processes. The code in the definition files may use either scripts or declarative definitions, but IaC more often employs declarative approaches.
A DevOps toolchain is a set or combination of tools that aid in the delivery, development, and management of software applications throughout the systems development life cycle, as coordinated by an organisation that uses DevOps practices.
Continuous configuration automation (CCA) is the methodology or process of automating the deployment and configuration of settings and software for both physical and virtual data center equipment.
DataOps is a set of practices, processes and technologies that combines an integrated and process-oriented perspective on data with automation and methods from agile software engineering to improve quality, speed, and collaboration and promote a culture of continuous improvement in the area of data analytics. While DataOps began as a set of best practices, it has now matured to become a new and independent approach to data analytics. DataOps applies to the entire data lifecycle from data preparation to reporting, and recognizes the interconnected nature of the data analytics team and information technology operations.
In software engineering, blue–green deployment is a method of installing changes to a web, app, or database server by swapping alternating production and staging servers.
TestOps refers to the discipline of managing the operational aspects of testing within the software delivery lifecycle.
DevOps Research and Assessment is a team that is part of Google Cloud that engages in opinion polling of software engineers to conduct research for the DevOps movement.
