Boots and sandals are basically the same thing—something to protect your feet while you walk about. The thing is that they are intended for slightly different purposes. You wouldn’t wear sandals outside in the middle of a Wisconsin winter*, and you wouldn’t wear boots to your day off, hanging at the beach. The thing is […]
6 Big, Bad Mistakes in Configuration Management, Part 2
In Part One of my article on big, bad mistakes in configuration management, I reviewed the dangers of using the wrong tools for the configuration management job. Provisioning management tools, application release automation tools and continuous integration tools each have their place in your DevOps toolchain. But they should not be used as a substitute […]
6 Big, Bad Mistakes in Configuration Management, Part 1
Configuration problems come in many flavors. Some are mere nuisances. Often though, configuration errors can lead to more serious mishaps like application performance problems, policy compliance violations or even security vulnerabilities. They can often go undetected, quietly doing their damage in the background while everyone’s attention is focused elsewhere. Unfortunately, I find that configuration management […]
Release Automation: Delivering the Big Quality Payoff
Have you ever gone down the path of testing the latest release of an application only to find out that you had the wrong version? Maybe you accidentally grabbed the wrong build or you didn’t have the correct configuration file for the environment you were testing against—or your database wasn’t updated correctly, or the script […]
Integrating ARA into traditional RM
Application Release Automation (ARA) is terminology that includes several DevOps constructs from a singular, application-centric point of view. In essence, ARA implies the automation of a single app from build through deployment (even if that deployment is to production). Of course, embedded or implied in that automation terminology is build automation or construction; deployment automation, […]
Electric Cloud Positioned the Highest for Vision and Execution in Gartner’s New Application Release Automation Magic Quadrant
SAN JOSE, Calif., August 3, 2016 – Electric Cloud (http://electric-cloud.com), the leader in DevOps Release Automation, today announced it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. as a Leader in its 2016 Magic Quadrant for Application Release Automation.* In its Magic Quadrant (MQ) for ARA research, Gartner analysts interviewed customers and evaluated companies for the […]
What CIOs need to know about building deployment quality
Application Release Automation, or ARA, is the process of packaging and deploying applications (or updates to applications) in an automated, repeatable and consistent way. In today’s market landscape software has become a major differentiator for many businesses, across all industries and verticals. In a world of apps, Internet of Things and customers’ expectations to be […]
Overcoming Siebel Complexity to Achieve Agile and Continuous Deployments
Siebel releases are complex. Executing one well is difficult. Extracting databases, migrating SRF repositories, deploying non-repository items and managing all the planned and unplanned outages is no small feat. Oh yeah, and there’s still that little thing called production. These deployments can easily take days and are updated infrequently, because the business can’t afford any […]