Application releases help organize the work needed for applications included in a release train. Work items that define the work to be done, such as business requirements and development tasks, are associated with an application release. Turnovers that include all the information needed to deploy the components of the application are associated with the application release. Once the work is done for the application release, all of the turnovers for the release are deployed to the environments defined in a deployment path.
Application examples include a software product, a set of application components, or shared services. Application release examples might be a specific version, such as 5.0 or 2014.
Product owners own and typically create application releases. They can do so from the release train or separately, and then associate the application release with a train. Application releases require an associated application.
Typically, application releases must get approval to join a release train. Product owners and release managers can remove or reject an application release from a train. The product owner can request that rejected application releases join the train at a later date.
At each stage, release managers, product owners, and stakeholders can view the status of each application release.
Planning
Once created, the application release enters planning.
- Product owner
During this stage, the product owner defines the schedule for the application release and records any dependencies on other application releases.
Milestones, which represent work that needs to be done for the application release, are added or inherited from the release train. Each milestone has an owner who is responsible for ensuring the work is completed.
- SBM
Process Apps
Use the Sample Dev Task and Sample BR process apps as models of how to integrate your own SBM process apps with Release Manager.
- External Tools
Release Manager is configured to work with existing implementations of ServiceNow and JIRA. You can also configure other external tools for this purpose.
For details, refer to Requirements and Development Integration.
Once planning is complete, the product owner sends the application release to the execution stage.
Executing
Work on business requests, development tasks, and other work items occurs during this stage.
- Product owner
The product owner monitors work during this stage.
In planning and executing stages, release engineers can set up turnovers and deployment paths. They deploy the turnovers to environments along the deployment path, subject to approvals and schedules, and the turnovers are verified by Developers, QA Engineers, or other users, as required for the specific environment.
Once all the turnovers for an application release are successfully deployed and verified to the final environment in the deployment path, the application release is closed.
Related Topics