A good structure and two pieces of teamwork. A little bit more automation, and then you mix it.

At some point in your career, you’re bound to be involved in a huge software release. This software release can be riddled with stubborn bugs and complex dependencies, and it requires an entire team to work around the clock. Not to mention, once it goes into production, it will need to be patched all the time.

“CODING enterprise edition”As an enterprise-level software research and development management system, to help the team agile development transformation and upgrading.

Code release is a powerful barometer of software developer agility. Every effort of planning, programming, and testing is futile if the release process is not smooth. To make the release process agile, deployment automation is key. Bring programmers and operations together early in the development phase for continuous integration and quick defect resolution exercises.

Keeping code in a releasable state is a hallmark of agile development. All the lean planning and iterative development in the world doesn’t matter if you can’t ship the code when you decide to ship it.

Successful software distribution begins with a modular architecture

In all software projects, the best thing is to release frequently and smoothly. By building (or refactoring) a modular architecture, teams can make publishing a natural part of their agile culture. Early in the project, before there is a big application (such as the behemoth mentioned above), it should be modularized and shelled. Group similar features into smaller applications or components, and have a clear API interface between each application and component. These apis can be tested automatically on every build to ensure compatibility and reduce risk in software release.

The modular architecture means you don’t need to “big bang” your entire software library, and API contracts make it easy to make components compatible between old and new versions. In short, modular publishing requires very few components to move. This simplifies the release process.

Successful software releases are driven by good relationships

Software development is rarely done in a vacuum. In fact, great software development involves the entire team, from product management to operations. For example, operations teams are key partners in delivering software to production because they help it reach end users.

The development team can help the operations team by:

  • Make a release list for each release. The operations team doesn’t always know the details of a release as well as the development team.

  • For each issue resolved in the release, provide a problem trace and a link to source code versioning so that if problems occur during deployment, the operations team can know the ins and outs of the problem.

  • Sometimes, problems arise when you push code from the development environment to the custom environment. Fix these problems, as they may recur during production.

  • When a deployment failure occurs, it is important to give the operations team a clear upgrade plan to resolve the problem smoothly.

In turn, the operations team can help the development team by:

  • When something goes wrong in production, take the time to understand the root cause and the solution. This will prevent these problems from recurring (or be handled more gracefully) in the future. Migrate configuration data from production to custom and development environments to prevent configuration data from being out of sync.

  • As code moves from development to release to production, critical configurations and user data migrate in the opposite way: from production to development. Doing this bidirectional synchronization well helps the development environment more realistically mimic the production environment. This means fewer bugs and “surprises” on release day.

“CODING enterprise edition”To provide convenient release management, clear each release deliverables, convenient operation team to execute the development team’s release plan.

Successful software releases are easy to drive

Automation! Automation! Automation!

Automating publishing is the best way to improve publishing culture. If your release is not automated today, you can start by automating your release to a customized environment. Once everyone saw how simple it was, the natural step was to automate the release to production deployment.

If you find publishing difficult, make it a regular exercise — even if it’s just for the release. Making the development team feel the pain point of a release will stimulate their ability to innovate, making it easier and more automated.

Automated testing and continuous integration are key disciplines that drive successful release. Make sure build and test times are as short as possible, and remember that builds that are easy to verify are easier to ship.

Great software releases are great!

Keeping code in a releasable state is a hallmark of agile development.

All your lean planning and iterative development means nothing if you can’t deliver quickly.

How did we do that

We found that because we were offering software as a service (SaaS), the baby steps release model was the easiest to manage. For downloadable products, close collaboration between development, operations, and build engineering teams will go a long way. These teams should work together to accomplish automated releases and proactively adjust automated releases for upcoming product changes. Many teams at Atlassian release every successful mainline release into a test environment. When it comes time for a formal release or release to customers, these teams can simply push a button and trigger automated deployment.

“CODING enterprise edition”As an enterprise software development management system, task Kanban function realizes the implementation of agile concepts such as Epic user Stories Sprint.

As software developers, publishing should be the focus of our innovation cycle. Publishing allows us to see customers interact with the code we write and provide feedback. Yeah! Make publishing a natural part of your workday, and when code flows through your fingers, you’ll enjoy the satisfaction of saying, “This is my code!”

Three Ingredients for Great Software Releases