Copyright The Art of Service

Frequency of releases acceptable to the business Policy on how to issue emergency releases Policy on testing then release into production Scope of Release Management process Naming conventions for releases Design, Build and Configure Releases Test and Sign-Off New Releases Plann Rollout of Releases Communication, Preparation and Training Release, Distribution and Installation Plan and describe Release Policy Definitive Software Library (DSL) Contains all the versions of software configuration items A physical secure storage of definitive hardware spares A software CI introduced into test environment then production environment CIs that can be released together components of release unit built, tested, distributed & implemented together only CI's in Release Unit changed since release combination of full releases and delta releases

Activities

Definitive Hardware Store (DHS) Release

Terminology

Release Unit Full Release Delta Release

Performance of some minor changes Release notification Training on new release Report of incidents introduced by release Release notification Report of problems introduced by release Release notification Control Release notification CI information Release notification Security Policy Release notification SLAs, OLAs, UCs Release notification Recommended distribution strategy Release notification Release timing considerations to minimise impact on availability Release notification Confimation that a continuity measure is in place for the new release Release notification Actual Release Costs Release notification Estimated Release costs

In Out In Out In Out In Out In Out In Out In Out In Out In Availability Management Out In IT Service Continuity Management Out In Out Financial Management Capacity Management Service Level Management Security Management Configuration Management Change Management Problem Management Incident Management Service Desk

Package Release

Objectives

Protection of the live environment and its services through formal procedures and checks

More successful releases Stable live and test environments Reduced likelihood of illegal software/viruses Minimised requirement for regression testing Error reduction Proper control of hardware and software

Benefits

Release Management

Releases built and implemented on schedule, and within budgeted resources Number of Releases that result in a back out due to unacceptable errors

Relationships

KPIs

Number of Incidents caused by the release Outcome of audits of the DSL and the DHS Number of unlicensed installations No of inaccurate release-related CMDB entries Release costs

Roles

Release Manager Release Managment Staff

defining and maintaining release policy controlling the activities within the process

Lack of End-User Commitment Urgent fixes

Problems

Lack of proper test environments Bypassing of the process Reluctance to rollback a release