What release management solutions are worth investigating?

Question

In organisations where you have large numbers of applications, written in a myriad of languages running on innumerable platforms and databases how do folks manage the release of builds and patches, particularly when some of the releases are 3rd party? I know there a whole bunch of "Release Management" applications out there, but I'd be interested to know what experiences people have had.

To clarify, this isn't a question on configuration management, although that might be a small part of it. I'm more interested in managing software releases and the interdependencies and prerequisites that stem from that.

Answer 1

You can use NDepend to know and control exactly what you use from tiers library. I wrote an article about this Controlling the usage of libraries

Answer 2

I have a similar problem. I have only ever seen a home grown solution to this problem (essentially a commandline program made up unix scripts).

In my investigations, the only package that I have seen so far, which specifically targets the problem is tableaux by incanica ((no affiliation). Their literature specifically talks about software components and integrating with Version Control and change management systems.

Answer 3

Hi Ninesided,

I am the owner of Incanica, the developer of the Tableaux software mentioned by Mike above.

You're absolutely not alone with this problem. The usual management solution is to throw manpower at it, which most people have figured out by now doesn't really scale well, and tends to cost a lot.

The other solution is to allow developers full access to all environments, including production. The fact that you posted the question here means that you recognise the world of hurt that can ensue.

This is pretty much the reason that we developed the Tableaux software. It's designed to release your software comprised of multiple components to multiple platforms. It sits on top of your existing tools to provide a release management framework, giving you control of your full release from development through to production. Among many other features it also provides some workflow around the release to control who can deploy and who can approve releases into various environments.

If you want more info then there's our website: www.incanica.com/tableaux.html or drop us an email at "info at (nospam) incanica.com"

Apologies to all for the commercial posting.

Damien Lederer

Incanica Pty Ltd