Key highlights:
- Automation has become a necessity for most IT companies
- The automated release management process offers several benefits that expand over time
- Improved ROI, minimum bugs and errors, brand positioning, a robust development environment for teams, and enhanced data security are some of the ways automation helps.
Almost every organisation using DevOps and performing software releases rely on release management to ensure successful releases and minimise quality issues. Release management involves activities to oversee everything from the initial preparation stages, designing, and development to testing, deployment, and continuous and controlled software releases.
But over the last few years, release management has become automated, thanks to the automation technology. Automating the release management process makes it much easier for DevOps teams to leverage an enterprise-class process and accelerate their efforts—from defining requirements to deploying code.
Here is a list of ten benefits that automation release management brings. Let’s check them out:
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It improves release velocity: Release velocity is at what speed a DevOps team builds software and updates. A higher release velocity means more releases per year, which means more opportunities to reinforce your offerings and software environment. However, manual release processes are slow and subject to error and correction, which slows down the release velocity.
Automating your release management process can help your DevOps team to get more software to the finish line in a year. It dramatically increases their ability to produce and release software and updates without straining.
Minimises bugs and errors: It’s no secret that bugs and errors deter successful software development. And manual processes are susceptible to errors, which can delay the development process and be costly. Automating the testing process is the best way to keep errors and costs to a minimum.
Test automation can help catch unavoidable flaws that may otherwise fall through the cracks. The result is bug-free software, stronger updates and satisfied end-users.
Enhances data security: As cyber-attacks continue to rise worldwide, data security is one of the top priorities for businesses. Added to cyber threats to your DevOps data are accidental data deletion and data loss, and outages by natural disasters. As a successful business that always remains on its toes, you can’t afford to leave such vulnerabilities unaddressed, mainly when they can ruin your entire software releases. This is where automation comes to the rescue, strengthening software testing processes and finding loopholes that could be a potential gateway to data theft or destruction.
Establishes you as a leader: When you deliver high-quality software releases consistently, you position your organisation as a leader in your industry. Other organisations look up to you for inspiration. Customers and competitors also like to keep up with organisations that are known for their ability to innovate consistently.
Automated release management can help DevOps teams ensure secure releases and functions. This will further help organisations increase their visibility in the industry, keeping them on the top of the prospects’ minds.
Ensures consistent releases: Thriving and reputable software companies ensure their end users can count on them for high-quality releases each year. The hardest part of achieving this is consistency. One failed software or update can put your software offerings in a negative light.
To ensure that your organisation continues to deliver high-quality releases, you must catch all the mistakes before they can potentially affect your applications and updates. Turning to automated processes can help you keep these mistakes at bay, ensuring you and your customers the reliability of high-quality releases.
Boosts ROI: All businesses want to reduce costs and boost returns to thrive in the industry. For software companies, the best way to ensure this is to keep the number of bugs and errors to a minimum from the beginning. This is because bugs and errors are more complex, time-taking, and more expensive to fix when found in the later stages of development. Again, test automation will play a crucial role in eliminating bugs and errors in the initial stages.
Gives stronger insights: There’s no denying that informed decisions bring more reliable results. With an automated release management system, DevOps teams get dashboards and reports that provide insight into the pipeline’s bottlenecks and potential weak points. These insights can further help them find new ways to approach their development strategy and improve their efforts for a successful release every time.
Creates a reliable environment: Your DevOps team relies on specific metadata relationships, configurations, and plugins available in your DevOps environment. Moving these elements into a new environment can hamper your team’s performance. But with a data loader, which is an essential part of automated release management, you can make an easy transition of data and provide your team with a comfortable environment without disrupting the flow of their performance.
Grows your devOps: As your organisation grows over time, you will need resources to handle the increased workload. Automated release management includes tools such as CI/CD, data loader, version control, sandbox management, and more. These tools can be added to your DevOps pipelines later as your needs increase along your journey.
Offers a smooth experience for team members: Your team is your most important asset, and you should take the best care of it. Providing your team members with automated DevOps tools such as CD/CI, data loader, and others can ease their work and offer a smooth work environment.
Automation is now a non-negotiable aspect for businesses. And for those involved in software releases and updates, it gets all the more important to automate their release management process and reap its benefits.
References:
- Top 10 Benefits of Automated Release Management | Meredith Bell CEO, AutoRABIT | June 21, 2022
- What is Release Management? | Plutora
- What are DevOps Release Management & 4 Best Practices? | Eze Onukwube | May 19, 2022
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