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5 Steps to Continuous Delivery and APM Success

Solving the Continuous Delivery Mystery

Continuous delivery, continuous deployment and continuous integration — what do these all mean and are they the same thing, or even related? There is a lot of confusion around continuous delivery, but what isn't a mystery is that this topic and manner of releasing applications into production is a hot button issue in the industry right now.

Continuous delivery is defined as releasing into production high quality software quickly, through build, test and deployment automation. Basically the process allows organizations to release software into the “wild” in minutes, opposed to days or even weeks.

Test automation is the sticky point for many organizations opposed to continuous delivery — yes, we said opposed. Similar to how many IT organizations balked at adopting Agile development at first, organizations are doing the same for continuous delivery. The reason: it is a relatively new paradigm shift to traditional software deployment. The controversy: there is much less emphasis on the testing phase of the process than with more traditional software development and release.

What everyone can agree on is the driving force behind continuous delivery: the speed that software can be delivered into production is unmatched compared to traditional software release trains.

DevOps, Continuous Integration and Lean Computing

There are three aspects that make up continuous delivery: DevOps, continuous integration and lean computing – tying these together is when the magic happens.

The DevOps community focuses on infrastructure as code, monitoring and improved collaboration between the houses of development, test and operations.

Lean is about innovating efficiently, soliciting feedback from customers as quickly as possible and leveraging technical competences such as continuous integration, comprehensive configuration management, automation of build, test, provision and deploy processes.

Like any continuous improvement, it should be achieved incrementally, taking into account where folks are starting from and their ability to effect changes and adopt them. The tools, practices and patterns are now available to support this, and Serena uniquely orchestrates enterprise agility.

Incidentally the KPI or metric we should be measuring is the cycle time for the software delivery process (implies a continuous delivery workflow).

For continuous integration, there is a significant cost savings to consider. Since Continuous Integration is in the early development cycle, many changes are tested frequently with feedback immediately going the development team. Multiple changes from multiple developers are developed and tested with many deployments daily.

The earlier in the development, test and release cycle that a problem is identified and a fix developed, the lower the cost. It is much more expensive to fix problems after the application is in late-stage testing, pre-production, or production. Therefore, effective continuous integration reduces costs and reduces risks.

Today’s successful business is lean, efficient and lives online. It is an agile enterprise, relying on non-traditional IT imperatives such as Cloud, mobile and social computing. These companies are defined by the new and enhanced solutions empowering their IT stakeholders. From operating on mobile phones and tablets, to automating the release of their applications both on-premises and to the Cloud, agile enterprises live and breathe efficiency. Continuous deployment delivers the speed and agility these companies crave. They do not have time to wait for three-month development and release cycles they need software deployed in minutes.

While there is an interesting angle around APM and measuring performance, adoption, etc. once deployed as an ex development manager, there is still much improvement available in the area of test automation and in particular the adoption of TDD (Test Driven Development) practices.

We have come up with the five steps organizations can take to optimize continuous delivery:

Step 1: Make the release management process and workflow accessible for many different IT functions through a common function portal for: Business, Development, Test/QA, DevOps, Release, IT Operations and IT Service Management.

Step 2: Document detailed requirements in demand, stories and the requirements management process.

Step 3: Connect the requirements, development, and release processes. Ensure that the only changes that are released are those that have been defined by requirements management and approved by the business.

Step 4: Orchestrate the release management process with Development so that newly developed code from multiple development environments flows smoothly into the common release management process.

Step 5: Improve release management flexibility through improved support of:

- Traditional Stage-Gate QA methodology

- Modern Continuous Delivery QA methodology

- Support for many different environments for deployments (test, SIT, UAT, Staging, Pre-Prod, Production)

- Support for multiple platforms such as, Windows, Linux, Unix, Mainframe

For companies that want to take this developer-driven approach, there has to be an understanding of the changes required in getting to continuous delivery and how it affects the whole process for getting new software and updates out to the organization.  

The benefit of going down this route is that IT as a whole can be more nimble in responding to a changing market, whether this is launching new services or expanding available functionality. With a lot more businesses looking at how to expand the ethos of agile from development into their wider organization, this is a great opportunity to show the rest of the world how things can and should be done.

ABOUT Ashley Owen

Ashley (Ash) Owen is Serena Software’s Director of Orchestrated ALM Strategy for the ALM Business, providing product management assistance, field support and solution strategy & advice to our customers, prospects and partners. Extensive experience in the successful design and implementation of ALM solutions across Europe, APAC and America.



Ash has spent more than 23 years in Application Lifecycle Management and Software Change and Configuration Management markets. Ash has a singular focus on improving efficiency, automation and traceability within both Enterprise IT and Embedded Systems environments.

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5 Steps to Continuous Delivery and APM Success

Solving the Continuous Delivery Mystery

Continuous delivery, continuous deployment and continuous integration — what do these all mean and are they the same thing, or even related? There is a lot of confusion around continuous delivery, but what isn't a mystery is that this topic and manner of releasing applications into production is a hot button issue in the industry right now.

Continuous delivery is defined as releasing into production high quality software quickly, through build, test and deployment automation. Basically the process allows organizations to release software into the “wild” in minutes, opposed to days or even weeks.

Test automation is the sticky point for many organizations opposed to continuous delivery — yes, we said opposed. Similar to how many IT organizations balked at adopting Agile development at first, organizations are doing the same for continuous delivery. The reason: it is a relatively new paradigm shift to traditional software deployment. The controversy: there is much less emphasis on the testing phase of the process than with more traditional software development and release.

What everyone can agree on is the driving force behind continuous delivery: the speed that software can be delivered into production is unmatched compared to traditional software release trains.

DevOps, Continuous Integration and Lean Computing

There are three aspects that make up continuous delivery: DevOps, continuous integration and lean computing – tying these together is when the magic happens.

The DevOps community focuses on infrastructure as code, monitoring and improved collaboration between the houses of development, test and operations.

Lean is about innovating efficiently, soliciting feedback from customers as quickly as possible and leveraging technical competences such as continuous integration, comprehensive configuration management, automation of build, test, provision and deploy processes.

Like any continuous improvement, it should be achieved incrementally, taking into account where folks are starting from and their ability to effect changes and adopt them. The tools, practices and patterns are now available to support this, and Serena uniquely orchestrates enterprise agility.

Incidentally the KPI or metric we should be measuring is the cycle time for the software delivery process (implies a continuous delivery workflow).

For continuous integration, there is a significant cost savings to consider. Since Continuous Integration is in the early development cycle, many changes are tested frequently with feedback immediately going the development team. Multiple changes from multiple developers are developed and tested with many deployments daily.

The earlier in the development, test and release cycle that a problem is identified and a fix developed, the lower the cost. It is much more expensive to fix problems after the application is in late-stage testing, pre-production, or production. Therefore, effective continuous integration reduces costs and reduces risks.

Today’s successful business is lean, efficient and lives online. It is an agile enterprise, relying on non-traditional IT imperatives such as Cloud, mobile and social computing. These companies are defined by the new and enhanced solutions empowering their IT stakeholders. From operating on mobile phones and tablets, to automating the release of their applications both on-premises and to the Cloud, agile enterprises live and breathe efficiency. Continuous deployment delivers the speed and agility these companies crave. They do not have time to wait for three-month development and release cycles they need software deployed in minutes.

While there is an interesting angle around APM and measuring performance, adoption, etc. once deployed as an ex development manager, there is still much improvement available in the area of test automation and in particular the adoption of TDD (Test Driven Development) practices.

We have come up with the five steps organizations can take to optimize continuous delivery:

Step 1: Make the release management process and workflow accessible for many different IT functions through a common function portal for: Business, Development, Test/QA, DevOps, Release, IT Operations and IT Service Management.

Step 2: Document detailed requirements in demand, stories and the requirements management process.

Step 3: Connect the requirements, development, and release processes. Ensure that the only changes that are released are those that have been defined by requirements management and approved by the business.

Step 4: Orchestrate the release management process with Development so that newly developed code from multiple development environments flows smoothly into the common release management process.

Step 5: Improve release management flexibility through improved support of:

- Traditional Stage-Gate QA methodology

- Modern Continuous Delivery QA methodology

- Support for many different environments for deployments (test, SIT, UAT, Staging, Pre-Prod, Production)

- Support for multiple platforms such as, Windows, Linux, Unix, Mainframe

For companies that want to take this developer-driven approach, there has to be an understanding of the changes required in getting to continuous delivery and how it affects the whole process for getting new software and updates out to the organization.  

The benefit of going down this route is that IT as a whole can be more nimble in responding to a changing market, whether this is launching new services or expanding available functionality. With a lot more businesses looking at how to expand the ethos of agile from development into their wider organization, this is a great opportunity to show the rest of the world how things can and should be done.

ABOUT Ashley Owen

Ashley (Ash) Owen is Serena Software’s Director of Orchestrated ALM Strategy for the ALM Business, providing product management assistance, field support and solution strategy & advice to our customers, prospects and partners. Extensive experience in the successful design and implementation of ALM solutions across Europe, APAC and America.



Ash has spent more than 23 years in Application Lifecycle Management and Software Change and Configuration Management markets. Ash has a singular focus on improving efficiency, automation and traceability within both Enterprise IT and Embedded Systems environments.

Hot Topics

The Latest

In the final part of APMdigest's 2025 Predictions Series, industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025 ...

E-commerce is set to skyrocket with a 9% rise over the next few years ... To thrive in this competitive environment, retailers must identify digital resilience as their top priority. In a world where savvy shoppers expect 24/7 access to online deals and experiences, any unexpected downtime to digital services can lead to significant financial losses, damage to brand reputation, abandoned carts with designer shoes, and additional issues ...

Efficiency is a highly-desirable objective in business ... We're seeing this scenario play out in enterprises around the world as they continue to struggle with infrastructures and remote work models with an eye toward operational efficiencies. In contrast to that goal, a recent Broadcom survey of global IT and network professionals found widespread adoption of these strategies is making the network more complex and hampering observability, leading to uptime, performance and security issues. Let's look more closely at these challenges ...

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Broadcom

The 2025 Catchpoint SRE Report dives into the forces transforming the SRE landscape, exploring both the challenges and opportunities ahead. Let's break down the key findings and what they mean for SRE professionals and the businesses relying on them ...

Image
Catchpoint

The pressure on IT teams has never been greater. As data environments grow increasingly complex, resource shortages are emerging as a major obstacle for IT leaders striving to meet the demands of modern infrastructure management ... According to DataStrike's newly released 2025 Data Infrastructure Survey Report, more than half (54%) of IT leaders cite resource limitations as a top challenge, highlighting a growing trend toward outsourcing as a solution ...

Image
Datastrike

Gartner revealed its top strategic predictions for 2025 and beyond. Gartner's top predictions explore how generative AI (GenAI) is affecting areas where most would assume only humans can have lasting impact ...

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating across the telecoms industry, with 88% of fixed broadband service providers now investigating or trialing AI automation to enhance their fixed broadband services, according to new research from Incognito Software Systems and Omdia ...

 

AWS is a cloud-based computing platform known for its reliability, scalability, and flexibility. However, as helpful as its comprehensive infrastructure is, disparate elements and numerous siloed components make it difficult for admins to visualize the cloud performance in detail. It requires meticulous monitoring techniques and deep visibility to understand cloud performance and analyze operational efficiency in detail to ensure seamless cloud operations ...

Imagine a future where software, once a complex obstacle, becomes a natural extension of daily workflow — an intuitive, seamless experience that maximizes productivity and efficiency. This future is no longer a distant vision but a reality being crafted by the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence ...

Enterprise data sprawl already challenges companies' ability to protect and back up their data. Much of this information is never fully secured, leaving organizations vulnerable. Now, as GenAI platforms emerge as yet another environment where enterprise data is consumed, transformed, and created, this fragmentation is set to intensify ...

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Crashplan