7 Not-So-Obvious Challenges of

Release Management

@rodanz ; @mattnollman

Demand for Services is High

The core function of IT is to serve and support the business, so the services that IT is providing must be customer focused. Alignment between IT and line of business is required throughout all the processes.

1

IT is Complicated!

Face it – today’s IT environments are heterogeneous. They are comprised of many different environments that often are not fully integrated. DevOps tools need to address this complexity head-on.

2

The ability to easily assess and make changes to your IT infrastructure is necessary, but often is hard to establish. IT is always battling with compliance issues, reporting, and monitoring at all levels.

IT Drives You Mad!3

Large modifications and updates to applications are risky. Therefore, small iterative batches of incremental changes should be preferred. When you deploy an application with small incremental changes, you create a more stable application deployment regime.

Small Steps or a Big Jump4

Strive for the same environments at all stages of deployment. Use the same process across all teams and target environments. This helps with alignment throughout deployment.

Similarity is a Good Thing!5

Use the sandbox, fail fast, and recover faster. Rollbacks are essential for reverting to a stable state. But be sure to maintain dependencies between your builds/versions.

6 There Shall be Errors!

Automation is your friend. There is no need to have your hands in every aspect of the deployment process. Use automation to your advantage and make deployment easier, faster and less prone to human errors.

Befriend Automation7

To fight these challenges:

1. Check out these best practices for application

release automation.

2. Try taking the DevOps Bull by the Horns.

3. Or read the DevOps Best Practices White Paper!