Release Management Best Practices - Release Management vs. Environment Management

Release Management Best Practices

Chapter 13. Release Management vs. Environment Management

Release Management vs. Environment Management — Release Management Best Practices

Authored and Published By: The International Foundation for Information Technology (IF4IT), LLC

Executive Summary: Chapter Overview

IF4IT

The Bottom Line

Environments are planned/built/secured by Environment Management for reuse across many Releases, not built fresh per-Release; ephemeral (IaC-based) Environments are generally preferred.

Core Concepts

ConceptDefinition & Strategic Role
Environment ReusabilityEnvironments are built once and reused across many Releases.
Ephemeral EnvironmentAn Environment that shuts down when not in use, reducing waste.
Infrastructure-as-CodeThe reusable template/definition behind ephemeral provisioning.

Quick Q&A

Question: Does Release Management build the Environments it uses?

Answer: No.

Question: Does ephemeral use contradict reusability?

Answer: No, what’s reusable is the IaC template.

Read More Below

Overview

Environments are not built fresh per-Release. Planning, designing, configuring, building, and securing an Environment (including role-based/designated access for appropriate stakeholders within it) is Environment Management’s job, done with deliberate intent to make the Environment reusable across many Releases over time. Release Management consumes well-governed, already-provisioned Environments; it does not create them.

Release Management vs. Environment Management — Environment Factory and Release Consumption Model
Environment Factory and Release Consumption Model — Environment Management plans, designs, configures, secures, provisions, automates, and governs reusable Environments for repeated use across many Releases. Those Environments may be persistent or ephemeral, with ephemerality commonly enabled through reusable Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) templates. Release Management does not build Environments; it consumes those already-provisioned, governed Environments to move Releases through their lifecycle safely and efficiently.
Environments required for a given Asset/Product/Service and its Releases can be persistent or ephemeral, where ephemeral is most often desired because it shuts down an Environment and everything in it when not in use, reducing waste. This is well-supported by Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) and modern Cloud platforms, and is already fully covered in the [IT Operating Environments](https://if4it.org/best-practices/it-operating-environments/) Best Practices document. Ephemeral provisioning does not contradict reusability across Releases — what's reusable is the IaC template/definition, not necessarily a persistently-running instance.

Best Practice

Even though Environment Management owns Environment build/teardown automation, Release Management should actively advocate for and depend on it, since slow or manual Environment provisioning directly inflates Total Release Delivery Time and Average Release Time.

Benefit(s)

  • Improves Release Management’s own velocity metrics without Release Management needing to own the automation itself.

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