Application Release Automation: Release Management Automation "Goes to the Cloud"
The growing popularity of agile-methods and DevOps-culture, as well as the desire to maintain continuous delivery , encourages companies to introduce release automation tools.
In this article, we’ll explain what release management is and how ServiceNow's Cloud Management Release Management solution helps IT companies cope with a number of challenges.
/ Flickr / Virginia State Parks / CC
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Release Management (RM) is a process that solves the tasks of designing, planning, building, and testing releases. The main goal of RM is to ensure the provision of services with a given level of quality and integrity (integration) of these services.
As believed in Gartner, release management automation tools (ARA) also allow you to simulate the development environment, manage artifacts and configuration throughout the entire life cycle of the application; and perform the DevOps task — ensuring the fast and uninterrupted delivery of many small releases.
Voke interviewed representatives of 368 large and small IT companies that are engaged in software development. The survey showed that the slow speed of the release of new software versions and their poor quality are the main problems for 60% of companies. Only 14% of respondents reported that they do not face the mentioned difficulties.
The survey also considered the phases of the assembly and deployment of projects. It turned out that only in 29% of cases continuous integration was provided with automatic verification of each assembly stage. As for deployment, automation of work using scripts was used in only 32% of organizations.
Teresa Lanowitz (Theresa Lanowitz), an analyst at Gartner and the founder of the analytical company Voke, called the lack of automation a “surprising fact” that is detrimental to business. She believes that the percentage of implementation of automation is “shockingly low” and emphasizes: “It is impossible to achieve continuity of the delivery process of new software versions without introducing basic automation tools.”
The results of the research from Forrester revealed similar problems: 64% of Dev-Ops developers are dissatisfied with the speed of release. Most of them (32%) release new software to the market once a month, and only 8% of respondents do it daily.
According to Charles Betz (Charles Betz), a Forrester analyst, the survey results show that companies and their clients will no longer wait for releases quarterly or once a year. IT companies will seek to release new versions of their products as often as possible.
In TechTarget believe that the desire of organizations for continuous integration and delivery of software will contribute to the introduction of RM-tools, including those operating in the cloud.
Moving applications to the cloud can simplify the release management process. According to Theresa Lanovits, such a step can be carried out using ready-made RM solutions. The “cloud” format of such solutions allows you to monitor all stages of the process and manage them using a single platform. However, Lanowitz believes that before introducing an ARA product, it is worth testing trial versions from several providers in order to select the appropriate tool depending on the company's strategic plans.
Larry Salomon, a DevOps specialist at CA Automic, believes that enterprises should first pay attention to the capabilities of the cloud-based ARA tools to support applications that run in development environments where different release life cycles occur simultaneously. In addition, he advises avoiding products that require too much implementation time.
ServiceNow's RM solution manages releases using a task recording system. The development of each (planned) function is presented in the form of a specific task, information about which is indicated in the respective fields. These tasks are assigned to developers who are responsible for individual stages of release. The work process can be tracked in the RM application.
This guide describes the process of working with ServiceNow RM on the example of a Harvard University case. On page 3 you will find a detailed diagram of the interaction of different tasks: from the stage of approval of a separate “feature” (for example, improving or correcting bugs) to the production stage. And page 4 shows what the whole release management process in the ServiceNow application looks like. Boston University offers a similar guide .
The RM solution is also used in conjunction with other ITSM products at Informa. This international organization works in four directions: publishes scientific materials, organizes exhibitions and events, provides analytical services and conducts trainings.
According to Paul Hardy (Paul Hardy), the head of the ITSM-division of the enterprise, Informa consists of many branches, each of which has its own vision of business processes and how to implement them. The main problem of Informa was the lack of uniform tools for managing IT tasks. The solution to this problem was an integrated approach to service management and automation. He made it possible to achieve a coordinated work of 9 thousand employees in 150 offices of the enterprise.
/ Flickr / james mann / cc
Release management is closely related to change management. As we have said, one of the goals of Release Management is to maintain the integrity of the company's services during the implementation of changes. Change Management - serves to reduce the negative effects of changes. Together, they help minimize the risks of change and increase customer satisfaction.
In order to implement Change and Release Management, you can use tips that are based on our experience. To summarize the essence, for the basic functioning of these processes in the company you need:
We also recommend that you read the ServiceNow Release Management overview and see how ServiceNow Change Management works.
Additional materials from the IT Guild corporate blog:
In this article, we’ll explain what release management is and how ServiceNow's Cloud Management Release Management solution helps IT companies cope with a number of challenges.
/ Flickr / Virginia State Parks / CC
')
A bit about Release Management
Release Management (RM) is a process that solves the tasks of designing, planning, building, and testing releases. The main goal of RM is to ensure the provision of services with a given level of quality and integrity (integration) of these services.
As believed in Gartner, release management automation tools (ARA) also allow you to simulate the development environment, manage artifacts and configuration throughout the entire life cycle of the application; and perform the DevOps task — ensuring the fast and uninterrupted delivery of many small releases.
According to Gartner, by 2020 half of IT organizations will implement at least one ARA solution. As of September 2017, the share of companies that use release automation tools is 15%.
In 2016, the market for ARA solutions reached $ 228 million, a 31% increase compared with 2015 figures ($ 174 million). It is expected that the average annual growth rate (CAGR) of the market will be 20% (the growth rate is calculated until 2020).
Release Issues
Voke interviewed representatives of 368 large and small IT companies that are engaged in software development. The survey showed that the slow speed of the release of new software versions and their poor quality are the main problems for 60% of companies. Only 14% of respondents reported that they do not face the mentioned difficulties.
The survey also considered the phases of the assembly and deployment of projects. It turned out that only in 29% of cases continuous integration was provided with automatic verification of each assembly stage. As for deployment, automation of work using scripts was used in only 32% of organizations.
Teresa Lanowitz (Theresa Lanowitz), an analyst at Gartner and the founder of the analytical company Voke, called the lack of automation a “surprising fact” that is detrimental to business. She believes that the percentage of implementation of automation is “shockingly low” and emphasizes: “It is impossible to achieve continuity of the delivery process of new software versions without introducing basic automation tools.”
The results of the research from Forrester revealed similar problems: 64% of Dev-Ops developers are dissatisfied with the speed of release. Most of them (32%) release new software to the market once a month, and only 8% of respondents do it daily.
According to Charles Betz (Charles Betz), a Forrester analyst, the survey results show that companies and their clients will no longer wait for releases quarterly or once a year. IT companies will seek to release new versions of their products as often as possible.
In TechTarget believe that the desire of organizations for continuous integration and delivery of software will contribute to the introduction of RM-tools, including those operating in the cloud.
Why move RM to cloud
Moving applications to the cloud can simplify the release management process. According to Theresa Lanovits, such a step can be carried out using ready-made RM solutions. The “cloud” format of such solutions allows you to monitor all stages of the process and manage them using a single platform. However, Lanowitz believes that before introducing an ARA product, it is worth testing trial versions from several providers in order to select the appropriate tool depending on the company's strategic plans.
Larry Salomon, a DevOps specialist at CA Automic, believes that enterprises should first pay attention to the capabilities of the cloud-based ARA tools to support applications that run in development environments where different release life cycles occur simultaneously. In addition, he advises avoiding products that require too much implementation time.
RM features from ServiceNow and its use
ServiceNow's RM solution manages releases using a task recording system. The development of each (planned) function is presented in the form of a specific task, information about which is indicated in the respective fields. These tasks are assigned to developers who are responsible for individual stages of release. The work process can be tracked in the RM application.
This guide describes the process of working with ServiceNow RM on the example of a Harvard University case. On page 3 you will find a detailed diagram of the interaction of different tasks: from the stage of approval of a separate “feature” (for example, improving or correcting bugs) to the production stage. And page 4 shows what the whole release management process in the ServiceNow application looks like. Boston University offers a similar guide .
The RM solution is also used in conjunction with other ITSM products at Informa. This international organization works in four directions: publishes scientific materials, organizes exhibitions and events, provides analytical services and conducts trainings.
According to Paul Hardy (Paul Hardy), the head of the ITSM-division of the enterprise, Informa consists of many branches, each of which has its own vision of business processes and how to implement them. The main problem of Informa was the lack of uniform tools for managing IT tasks. The solution to this problem was an integrated approach to service management and automation. He made it possible to achieve a coordinated work of 9 thousand employees in 150 offices of the enterprise.
/ Flickr / james mann / cc
How to start getting to know this topic in practice
Release management is closely related to change management. As we have said, one of the goals of Release Management is to maintain the integrity of the company's services during the implementation of changes. Change Management - serves to reduce the negative effects of changes. Together, they help minimize the risks of change and increase customer satisfaction.
In order to implement Change and Release Management, you can use tips that are based on our experience. To summarize the essence, for the basic functioning of these processes in the company you need:
- develop an implementation plan and get familiar with the topic (for example, here and here );
- appoint a person who will be responsible for managing changes and releases;
- determine KPIs for evaluating the performance of processes;
- observe the operation of CM and RM and optimize it.
We also recommend that you read the ServiceNow Release Management overview and see how ServiceNow Change Management works.
Additional materials from the IT Guild corporate blog:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/349862/
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