Importance Of Release Management Process In Software Projects

IT Release management plays a very crucial role in every software assignment/ project as it is concerned with the delivery of a high quality product to the end users and IT organizations. Release management is also a significant part of quality management as it is concerned with the provision of high-quality software to the users. Free and open source software is known by its highly iterative development model in which the new development releases are generally made accessible very frequently. Owing to its frequency of the development process in certain projects, there are certain issues with consistent releases for the end users.

Researches have indicated that in general the term “release management” have been used to refer to three separate kinds of releases. These kinds differ in nature with regards to the audience they reach and cater to and the initiatives needed to offer the release. The three kinds are as follows: 

• Development releases are aimed at developers who are interested in working on the projects or a set of experienced users who require innovative technology 
• Most user releases are based on a stabilized development tree. These releases offer relevant new functionalities and features along with bug fixes to the end users and are mostly well experimented 
• There are minor releases as updates for present user releases, for instance addressing security concerns or critical IT defects 

In an IT enterprise with multiple software and hardware assets, the changes take place in the release of improved and enhanced versions of software and hardware. Today leading solution providers specializing in Agile methodology have introduced advanced release management process solutions keeping in mind the following objectives: 

• Planning hardware and software implementation
• Designing and deploying processes for installation and distribution of changes in the IT systems
• Security of production platforms from any kind of disruption
• Allowing the holding of the requirement management tool and test management tool concerns together in respect to each release
• Establishing a publish quality release note to highlight all the new improvements, such as requirements, issues and bug fixes

Advanced release management processes help to supervise testing, development, implementation and assistance of software releases. The process also puts together detailed technical know-how of the software development life cycle and the IT infrastructure library deployment initiatives with conventional project management.

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Application Lifecycle

Traceability matrix

Track Organizational Needs with Requirement Traceability Matrix

The business world today is dependent on the information technology to meet the ever changing demands of the techno savvy customer and to withstand the competitive environment. Enterprises look forward to upgrading of infrastructure along with development of various software applications.  However, the applications thus developed goes through various phases and includes analysis of requirements, specification, design, coding & testing, integration and deployment.

Each phase  in a software development life cycle has its own importance with requirement analysis being a critical factor to the success of a software project . Since requirements form the basis of software development process, during the stage of requirement gathering and analysis, the software development team works together with the stakeholders to understand the various need levels. However, the complexity of the requirements along the various stages in the lifecycle of the software project makes it a difficult situation. Requirement traceability matrix helps the development teams out of such difficult situation.

Requirements traceability is the ability to trace and describe the life of a requirement, in both a forward and backward direction through its development and specification, to its actual deployment. A traceability matrix is then created by associating the requirements with the work products that satisfy them. It maps relationship between any two base lined documents such as user requirements and test cases and is represented in the form of a table with identifier for each of the items and documents. Higher the value of relationship total, the more complex is the relationships and needs to be simplified. Further, various test management tools are also used to conduct tests on the products and the requirements on which based.

Requirements traceability matrixcan be achieved either by Cross referencing, creation of specialized templates and integration of documents or by restructuring to track requirements changes. The matrix thus gives a complete visual representation of the entity items that are linked to one another by means of the relationships. Requirements traceability matrix which is developed at the beginning of a software project incorporates the project's scope, requirements, and deliverable.

Being a bidirectional, the requirement traceability matrixtracks both forward and backward requirement. Forward tracking helps locate the output of the deliverable while the backward tracking courses the business requirement for any product features.  Analysis of requirements traceability is an important part of the software development lifecycleprocess. The analysis ensures that all the requirements have been considered during the development of each phase of the project, with no loopholes due to missed requirements. The activity also ensures that all of the requirements are in accordance with each other and support the goals and objectives of the enterprises.

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Change Management

ALM

Importance of Subversion Integration

SVN integration also known as sub-version integration helps you to perform troubleshooting, performance tuning, quick fixes and prototyping without any external devices. Simultaneously, it also helps to maintain the source code control. In a project that is driven by a single developer or in small, agile teams where an entire project set up is too expensive or possible, but there is a need to maintain the code changes under version control, there subversion integration tools offers easier options to source the code control utilizing external devices and intermediate, working copy that are manually managed in the file system.

Key Benefits of Subversion Integration

The main advantages of subversion integration are as follows:

* Enables in tracking code units with respect to other artifacts such as Defects and Change Requests

* Helps to avail certain versions or the upgraded versions of code units from other devices

* Results in cross-tool visibility, traceability and process automation

Multiple Uses of SVN Integration

Today leading service providers in Application Lifecycle Management tools have come up with SVN integration tools that help a developer to check out existing content application from SVN into content in his personal development repository. The developer can also carry out basic development agendas and then assess the changes locally. Furthermore, the developer checks the altered content back to the SVN repository.

The focus on easier usage has led to selected design decisions that are essential to have a clear understanding prior to using SVN integration:

The single/local user content repository

The integration has been clearly designed to function with a local content repository that in turn is used by a single developer. Various users that connect to the same content repository instance and are using the SVN integration on that very content is not assisted.

Inherent SVN operations

Selected SVN operations are conducted implicitly, for instance the nodes that are added to the content tree under a source control is added automatically as well as committed to SVN when checking in.

The SVN status on nodes

The SVN integration is dependent on “many-to-one” mapping between node. This in-between representation, is further dependent on the files and folders and are then synchronized on a one-to-one basis using Subversion. The SVN status is also displayed for individual repository nodes, and are mapped from "real" SVN status for instance the content.xml that represents many potential nodes.

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Application Lifecycle

Importance of Subversion Integration

SVN integration also known as sub-version integration helps you to perform troubleshooting, performance tuning, quick fixes and prototyping without any external devices. Simultaneously, it also helps to maintain the source code control. In a project that is driven by a single developer or in small, agile teams where an entire project set up is too expensive or possible, but there is a need to maintain the code changes under version control, there subversion integration tools offers easier options to source the code control utilizing external devices and intermediate, working copy that are manually managed in the file system.

Key Benefits of Subversion Integration

The main advantages of subversion integration are as follows:

* Enables in tracking code units with respect to other artifacts such as Defects and Change Requests

* Helps to avail certain versions or the upgraded versions of code units from other devices

* Results in cross-tool visibility, traceability and process automation

Multiple Uses of SVN Integration

Today leading service providers in Application Lifecycle Management tools have come up with SVN integration tools that help a developer to check out existing content application from SVN into content in his personal development repository. The developer can also carry out basic development agendas and then assess the changes locally. Furthermore, the developer checks the altered content back to the SVN repository.

The focus on easier usage has led to selected design decisions that are essential to have a clear understanding prior to using SVN integration:

The single/local user content repository

The integration has been clearly designed to function with a local content repository that in turn is used by a single developer. Various users that connect to the same content repository instance and are using the SVN integration on that very content is not assisted.

Inherent SVN operations

Selected SVN operations are conducted implicitly, for instance the nodes that are added to the content tree under a source control is added automatically as well as committed to SVN when checking in.

The SVN status on nodes

The SVN integration is dependent on “many-to-one” mapping between node. This in-between representation, is further dependent on the files and folders and are then synchronized on a one-to-one basis using Subversion. The SVN status is also displayed for individual repository nodes, and are mapped from "real" SVN status for instance the content.xml that represents many potential nodes.

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