SW release challenges: A case study with mitigation plan using semi-automated process

Abstract

 Software Release management is an signi cant task for an organization. It supports to improve the quality of distribution process and make building or updating software task faster. Main purpose of release is to deploy build binaries in target environments and deliver to internal, external clients and testers. An e ective release management process can support frequent releases with less number of risk issues. Most of the cases, software release management involves manual and repetitive tasks and lot of errors can occur. It is also a time consuming task. Automated release process allows automating release activities such as build, test, and deployment of software. It makes the process faster and ensures less error counts. In case, if the release process involves manual testing activities full automation is not feasible. In this study, we analyze and identify challenges and problems of a manual release process. We introduce a semi-automated process to improve release management. Our case study shows that semi-automated process provides better results than other alternatives.