What is Release Management?

In today's fast-paced digital economy, the ability to deliver high-quality software quickly and reliably is what sets you apart. Release management has evolved from a siloed, process-heavy function to a critical, integrated discipline within modern DevOps practices. It's the lynchpin that ensures the smooth, efficient, and controlled flow of software from development to end-users, directly impacting business value and customer satisfaction.

Effective release management in a DevOps world is not about rigid gates and lengthy approval cycles. Instead, it's about orchestrating a streamlined and automated software delivery pipeline that balances speed with stability. This involves the strategic planning, scheduling, and governance of software releases, ensuring that every new feature and update enhances the user experience and meets business objectives without disrupting the production environment. By embracing automation and fostering collaboration, organizations can transform their release processes from a bottleneck into a competitive advantage, enabling a culture of continuous improvement and innovation—one release at a time.

What is release management in DevOps?

In a DevOps context, release and deployment management is a core practice that has adapted to agile and collaborative principles. The focus is on integrating governance and control directly into an automated and continuous delivery pipeline. It's less about a separate, rigid process and more about embedding quality and control into every stage of the software lifecycle—from planning and development to testing and deployment—to deliver services that are customer-centric and cost-effective.

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The evolving release management process in a DevOps world

The traditional, linear release process is no longer sufficient for the demands of modern software delivery. In a DevOps paradigm, the process is more fluid, iterative, and collaborative, with a strong emphasis on automation and feedback loops.

• From request to value delivery: The journey begins with a business need—a new feature, a fix, or a response to market changes. These requests are translated into a prioritized backlog, forming the basis for upcoming release cycles.
• Integrated planning and design: This is a continuous and collaborative effort. Product managers, developers, and operations teams work together to define the scope of a release, breaking it down into manageable user stories and tasks. The focus is on creating a clear roadmap that aligns with business goals and can be executed in short, iterative cycles.
• Continuous integration and build: The development phase is characterized by frequent code commits to a central repository. Each commit triggers an automated build and a series of unit and integration tests, ensuring that new code integrates seamlessly and doesn't introduce regressions.
• Continuous testing and quality assurance: Testing is no longer a separate phase but an integral part of the development process. Automated tests are run continuously, providing rapid feedback to developers. This includes functional, performance, and security testing, ensuring that the software is not only functional but also robust, scalable, and secure. User acceptance testing (UAT) is often conducted with a select group of users to gather early feedback.
• Automated deployment and release: Deployment is a highly automated and controlled process. Modern release strategies, such as blue-green deployments, canary releases, and feature flagging, are employed to minimize risk and ensure a seamless user experience. These techniques allow for a gradual rollout of new features and provide the ability to quickly roll back in case of any issues.
• Continuous monitoring and feedback: Post-deployment, the focus shifts to monitoring the application's performance and gathering user feedback. This data is fed back into the development process, creating a continuous loop of improvement and informing future release cycles.

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Key indicators of successful release management

The success of a release is measured by its ability to deliver value to the business and its customers. Key performance indicators (KPIs) for successful release management include:

• Deployment frequency: The ability to release new features and updates to production on a frequent and predictable basis.
• Lead time for changes: The time it takes for a change to go from code commit to production deployment.
• Change failure rate: The percentage of releases that result in a degradation of service and require remediation.
• Mean time to recover (MTTR): The time it takes to restore service after a release-related failure.
• Customer satisfaction: The impact of the release on the end-user experience, measured through surveys, feedback channels, and usage metrics.

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Leveraging the right tools for modern release management

Achieving the goals of modern release management requires a new generation of tools that can support the entire software delivery lifecycle in an integrated and automated fashion. Organizations need a DevOps platform that provides end-to-end visibility, facilitates collaboration, and enables the orchestration of complex release pipelines.

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Accelerate and govern your releases with OpenText Core Software Delivery

The OpenText™ Core Software Delivery Platform is a comprehensive, AI-powered solution designed to meet the challenges of modern release management. It provides a unified platform for planning, tracking, and releasing high-quality software, enabling organizations to improve release visibility, increase release velocity, reduce production downtime, and simplify compliance.

By replacing disparate, single-point solutions with an integrated platform, OpenText empowers organizations to break down silos and create a seamless flow of value from idea to production. The platform's Release module is specifically designed to orchestrate and govern the entire release process, providing the control and visibility needed to deliver software with confidence.

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