Release management is an essential part of the software development lifecycle. Successful release management requires developers and project managers to work together. It also requires good workflows and tools for testing and deployment.
What Is DevOps Release Management?
To implement release management as a DevOps process, you must first have a clear plan for your software releases. The definition of a “release” can vary significantly, from a minor version upgrade up to a brand new software version. If you’re making changes to a product and releasing those changes into production or making them available for customers to download, that’s a release.
As part of your software deployment practices, your engineers will test the software before deploying it. However, economies and efficiencies at scale can be achieved using DevOps release management that includes, among other processes, application testing. .
Understanding the Link Between DevOps and Release Management
Release management aims to reduce the risks faced at each stage of the development process, while enabling the process of application deployment in the most efficient manner possible. It’s a broad practice that encompasses every step of the process, from planning and development to testing, deployment, and delivery.
Release management best practices ensure developers have a framework to follow from the moment they’re asked to create an application or develop a new feature. Using release management, organizations can feel confident that the products they develop are fit for purpose, that both the technical and usability aspects of the application have been tested and that the deployment will go smoothly.
The Role of a Release Manager in DevOps
The practice of release management has existed for many years, even before DevOps was a common practice. However, through DevOps automation many aspects of the release management process can be made more efficient and with increased release velocity, without sacrificing quality.
DevOps teams use automated pipelines to streamline the build, testing and deployment parts of the process. Release managers can work with DevOps teams and utilize release planning tools to improve communication between departments and keep the development process on track. The tools can be adapted to execute within a devops toolchain in accordance with the processes specified by each organization.
Key Stages of the DevOps Release Process
The process includes:
- Planning. Using the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) approach to create a workflow that includes timelines, requirements and the scope of the project. This plan should be reviewed carefully to ensure all requirements for the project are met.
- Develop. The development process involves writing code and using version control systems to manage an evolving codebase. In most organizations, agile development practices are favored. However, DevOps can be implemented with other development methodologies as well.
- Build. Once the code (and applicable unit tests) is ready, it is built into packages for deployment. CI tools and automation help remove the risk of human error during the build process..
- Testing. During this phase, the product is tested by both the QA team and real users. User-Acceptance Testing (UAT) highlights functional issues from the development process. Testers provide feedback and developers make iterative changes until they produce a build that passes the testing stage.
- Deployment. The final build is released to the live environment. Depending on the type of application and its complexity, this could be a simple upload, or a carefully timed multi-stage rollout to minimize downtime and errors. As part of the release, provide a change log so users can see what’s new in the latest version.
- Review. Every release should be followed by a review to identify bottlenecks, errors and challenges during the development process. It’s also important to collect feedback from users in the days following the release. This feedback can be used to identify opportunities for improvement within the organization.
- Operate and Monitor. Finally, monitor the performance of the application and respond to errors or issues to keep the system operating at peak performance.
Planning and Coordinating Releases in DevOps
DevOps teams can use release management planning tools to organize, schedule and coordinate new releases. This reduces the risk of errors, bottlenecks and delays. As part of the process, DevOps teams and release managers will:
- Create a release schedule and liaise with relevant teams and stakeholders.
- Identify and allocate the necessary resources – both human and technical to build automation into the release process.
- Identify potential risks associated with the release and develop plans to mitigate those risks – with or without human intervention.
- Communicate with all internal teams to ensure a smooth release.
- Inform relevant stakeholders about the release schedule. This can also be automated using event-triggered notifications to the different user groups from the automated release process
- Carry out thorough, automated testing to confirm the reliability, security and performance of the release.
- Develop a detailed deployment plan, including plans for downtime, recovery and rollback in the event of unexpected issues.
- Build the criteria to activate and execute the release plan.
- Monitor and maintain the release and collect feedback from users and internal stakeholders
DevOps release management is a multi-disciplinary effort. In larger organizations, a dedicated release manager may be required to communicate with the relevant teams.
Managing Environments for DevOps Release Management
Successful software projects, especially ones that are quite large or complex in scale, may require multiple environments for development, staging and production.
Each of these environments must be configured the same way, with the same software dependencies, to ensure that the release process operates as intended up to the final deployment. Using automated deployment processes offers several advantages:
- Changes in development won’t cause unexpected issues in the live environment
- Testers can work freely without the risk of causing performance issues or “breaking” production
- It’s possible to perform more thorough testing and quality assurance before pushing to production
DevOps tools simplify the process of managing multiple environments, and can save resources too. For example, CI tools can spin up a cloud instance to build and test code, then shut down the instance once the tests have run. A containerized staging environment can be loaded as required for UAT, and once the code has passed the final stages of testing, it can be deployed to production with just a few clicks (or automation triggers) and some automated checks.
In some environments, minor releases may use continuous deployment systems. Any changes that clear automated checks are deployed to the production environment automatically, supporting rapid iteration and empowering organizations to respond quickly to user feedback.
Best Practices for DevOps Release Management
DevOps and Agile philosophies naturally lend themselves towards effective release management. Some key best practices to follow include:
- Set clear criteria for each release. During the planning phase, set key metrics and criteria to ensure a successful release. What features should the release include? Which bugs must be fixed? What level of performance is required? Setting clear release criteria helps increase the likelihood of users accepting the release.
- Make full use of your staging environment. Rather than simply relying on unit tests as a measure of “good code”, utilize your staging environment to the full. Have QA, beta testers and developers testing the application in staging to catch bugs and edge cases that simple coded tests might miss as a means of continuous improvement of the automated release process
- Aim for minimal downtime and disruption. The primary goal of any release should be to have as little negative impact on end users as possible. Aim to schedule the release to occur when server load is minimal. If possible, test the rollout to confirm how long it takes and identify any potential issues that might hamper the user experience.
- Use automation where possible. Human error is one of the biggest risk factors in the build and deploy process. Automation reduces the chances of human error and also creates shorter feedback loops, making it easier to pick up on challenges. Use continuous monitoring tools to alert you to outages and other issues in your production environment.
- Track relevant metrics. Consider how you’ll know you’re on track with your release process. Look at metrics such as load times, outages, and long-term active user statistics. Also pay attention to internal metrics such as velocity and burnout rate so you can support your team members appropriately.
Challenges in DevOps Release Management
Modern systems are complex, often using microservices, third-party APIs and distributed servers. In many cases, there are multiple teams working to maintain an application and those teams might be spread across time zones. Implementing a successful release is not an easy task.
Some common challenges include:
- Third-party tools. If you’re relying on a third-party service or an API, and something changes unexpectedly, this can derail your entire project.
- Distributed teams. Communicating with an infrastructure or development team in a different time zone could cause significant delays in remedying an outage or figuring out what’s causing a bug.
- Process fragmentation. If different parts of your organization are using different processes, tools, or default configurations, this can increase the risk of unexpected (and difficult to diagnose) errors.
- Poor communication. A lack of communication between teams, or poor visibility into each other’s processes, can cause unnecessary delays.
- Confusing multi-cloud environments. The tools, processes and default settings used by different cloud providers can be challenging to keep track of if your organization isn’t using a multi-cloud management system.
Overcoming Release Management Issues in DevOps
Fortunately, most of the issues mentioned above can be overcome with proper planning and the right tools.
Using automation within your organization can help to reduce process fragmentation, and go a long way towards standardizing the way developers, engineers and technicians work. Cloud management tools can simplify the challenge of managing a hybrid or multi-cloud environment, removing many of the unknowns developers face when trying to work with such systems.
CI/CD tools can automate the testing and deployment part of the process. Integrating CI/CD with the QA process can not only reduce issues caused by human error, it also helps identify errors more quickly, creating a faster feedback look and keeping the production process moving forward.
Distributed teams will always be a challenge to deal with. However, if every team is working using the same processes and standards, the number of issues that people run into during any given build should be reduced. Where possible, if you’re outsourcing development or working with third parties, look for teams that’re as close to your time zone as possible. This is a critical reason why Tangonet recommends nearshore or time-zone aligned teams, versus offshore teams.
Building a Release Management Maturity Model
If you’re new to the world of release management, or DevOps in general, it’s important to consider your existing practices carefully before making sweeping changes to them.
A release management maturity model should consider:
- Your current automation, testing and monitoring practices
- How well (or poorly) your teams are currently collaborating
- The performance of your existing processes based on KPIs such as:
- Deployment frequency
- Lead time for changes
- Change failure rates
- Recovery times
- CSAT scores
- Cycle times
- Any legacy systems you rely on for your development, build and deployment processes
- Which areas of your current workflows would be easiest to change
The Role of Microservices in DevOps Release Management
Microservices are an important part of the development process today. Breaking down a monolithic application into microservices facilitates faster application development, and makes it easier to change, upgrade and maintain individual aspects of a program.
Microservices can be beneficial for release management because they enable more frequent deployments. Instead of having to worry about the risk of updating an entire application to change one or two small things, a new release focuses on one or two services that can be updated quickly (or even automatically for minor changes).
Depending on the role of the service being updated, microservice architecture also improves fault tolerance. If an update breaks a microservice, it’s likely that the application will be able to keep running, with only some features being negatively impacted. This is particularly true if your application was designed from the ground up to be microservice-based, and has proper error handling.
Managing Releases in a Microservices Architecture
Microservice-based architectures tend to have higher code quality because they’re made up of small, well-designed modules. Compared to a monolithic system, a microservices system is less likely to be full of “spaghetti code” and, therefore, may be a good candidate for continuous deployment.
Microservice architectures are designed to be updated often, with small, incremental releases in response to user feedback. Using a combination of CD and end-to-end testing can provide the kind of feedback loop and reliability that’s seen as a core benefit of microservices.
However, there are some challenges to release management in a microservice-focused environment.
- It’s harder to define a version flow when making changes to microservices
- Often, several microservices are being updated at once, requiring an aggregated release
- Testing microservices used by more than one application can be a challenge
- Changes to microservices can sometimes cause unforeseen issues with upstream or downstream microservices (especially if they lack error handling for certain events)
Fortunately, release management tools can help simplify this process.
How Automated Release Management Supports Microservices
Automated release management includes several components that can be helpful for managing microservice architectures:
- CI/CD tools. Automate the build, test and deploy processes on a per-microservice basis.
- Containers. Package microservices into containers for easy deployment and rollback.
- Automated testing. Carry out unit and integration tests automatically, and if desired, trigger the next stage in the pipeline.
- Canary deployments. Release microservices to a small portion of the user base for testing purposes before doing a complete rollout.
Building such practices into your workflows helps you manage microservices deployments more effectively.
Why Choose Tangonet for Your DevOps Needs
Tangonet Solutions is a nearshoring provider with skilled DevOps engineering teams who can help companies improve their efficiency. Our experts can assist with CI/CD pipelines, automating release processes, and ensuring efficient, secure deployments.
Delivering Customized DevOps Solutions
At Tangonet, we offer the perfect blend of Argentine technology and US oversight. Our experienced engineers can accelerate your time-to-market, improve your software quality, and banish silos in your organization.
We deliver solutions tailored to the needs of your team, addressing common pain points and creating systems that integrate smoothly with your existing workflows. Our Argentina location ensures the ideal balance between competitive pricing and convenient time zones, facilitating smooth communication without the delays associated with conventional offshoring.
To learn more about how we can help you with your DevOps release management, contact us today to schedule a consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions About DevOps Release Management
How Can Automated Release Management Improve DevOps?
Automated release management solutions free developers to focus on innovation. They reduce time wasted performing manual tasks and support better cross-team collaboration.
Why is release management important?
Release management helps maintain software quality and ensure consistent performance across all environments. It also reduces the risk of deloyments by streamlining testing, by facilitating staged rollouts and, if necessary, simple and efficient rollbacks.
How Does Release Management Support Continuous Delivery?
One component of release management is the automation the CI/CD pipeline, providing a more reliable and predictable workflow. It improves efficiency and helps developers uphold best practices at all times.
What is the difference between release management and continuous delivery?
Continuous delivery focuses on automating the software delivery process. Meanwhile, release management focuses on the process of releasing software into production using a variety of methods, including continuous delivery.
What are the benefits of automating DevOps processes?
Automating DevOps processes ensures increased consistency and quality control. It can also help bring a faster time to market, by reducing the time it takes to test and deploy code.
