Release management

Release management is the process of managing, planning, scheduling and controlling a software build
through different stages and environments; including testing and deploying software releases.[1]

Contents
Background
Relationship with Continuous Delivery, DevOps, and Agile software development
Relationship with Enterprise Release Management
Relationship with ITIL/ITSM
See also
References
External links

Background
Release management is a relatively new but rapidly growing discipline within software engineering. As
software systems, software development processes, and resources become more distributed, they invariably
become more specialized and complex. Furthermore, software products (especially web applications) are
typically in an ongoing cycle of development, testing, and release, often running on evolving platforms with
growing complexity. Such systems require dedicated resources to oversee the integration and flow of
development, testing, deployment, and support.

Relationship with Continuous Delivery, DevOps, and Agile software

development
Organizations that have adopted agile software development are seeing much higher quantities of releases.
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.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4]

Relationship with Enterprise Release Management

While Release Management focuses on the transitions from development to testing and release for a single
project or a collection of related projects, Enterprise Release Management (ERM) is focused on the
coordination of individual releases within a larger organization. An organization with multiple application
development groups may require a highly orchestrated series of releases over multiple months or years to
implement a large-scale system. ERM involves the coordinated effort of multiple release managers to
synchronize releases in the context of an IT portfolio.

Relationship with ITIL/ITSM

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.",[5]
and the Change Management process[6] 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.[7]

See also
Application release automation
Build automation
Change management
Configuration management
DevOps
Software testing
Continuous testing
Test plan
DevOps toolchain
WinOps

References
1. Humble, Jez; Farley, David (2011). Continuous Delivery: reliable software releases through
build, test, and deployment automation. Pearson Education Inc. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-321-
60191-9.
2. Ambler, Scott W. (12 February 2014). "We need more Agile IT Now!" (http://www.drdobbs.com/a
rchitecture-and-design/we-need-more-agile-it-now/240169361?queryText=Release%2Bmanag
ement). Dr. Dobb's the World of Software Development. San Francisco: UBM.
3. Humble, Jez; Farley, David (2011). Continuous Delivery: reliable software releases through
build, test, and deployment automation. Pearson Education Inc. pp. 255–257. ISBN 978-0-321-
60191-9.
4. Best Practices in Change, Configuration and Release Management (Report). Gartner. 14 July
2010.
5. "ITIL Release and Deployment Management" (http://wiki.en.it-processmaps.com/index.php/Rel
ease_and_Deployment_Management). IT Process Maps. Germany: Stefan and Andrea
Kempter. 15 May 2016.
6. Murphy, Vawns (2 Feb 2016). "Change vs Release Management" (http://www.theitsmreview.co
m/2016/02/change-release-management/). The ITSM Review. UK: Enterprise Opinions
Limited.
 7. "ITIL/ITSM Release Management Practices" (http://electric-cloud.com/wiki/pages/viewpage.acti
on?pageId=2293943). Release Management Wiki. USA: Electric Cloud.

External links
Project Management: Best Practices for IT Professionals (https://books.google.com/books?id=
BR9ppkdnIrQC&pg=PA193&dq=%22release+manager%22), p. 193, at Google Books
Release Management - Where to Start? (http://www.itsmwatch.com/itil/article.php/3680776)
Release and Deployment Management in the ITIL Framework (http://wiki.en.it-processmaps.co
m/index.php/Release_and_Deployment_Management)
Release Management Wiki - Compilation of Current Resources about All Aspects of Release
Management (http://electric-cloud.com/wiki/display/releasemanagement/Release+Managemen
t)
Managing Software Projects (https://books.google.com/books?id=zUTiHzyyDLwC&pg=PT273
&dq=%22release+manager%22) at Google Books
"Current Trends in Release Engineering 2016" - Academic Course by Software Construction
Research Group, RWTH Aachen, Germany (https://www.swc.rwth-aachen.de/course/current-tre
nds-in-release-engineering-2016/)

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