Release & Deployment Management Objective according to ITIL®, Service Transition - ST 4.4.1. Clear & comprehensive release and deployment plans to align with customer & business change project activities; release package can be built, installed, tested and deployed efficiently and on schedule; new or changed service and enabling systems, technology and organization are capable of delivering the agreed service requirements; minimal unpredicted impact on the production services, operations and support organization; customer, users and service management staff are satisfied with the Service Transition practices and outputs.

Release & Deployment Management Software

IncidentMonitor™ Release and Deployment facilitates the full life cycle management of the release and deployment process. IncidentMonitor™ Release and Deployment ensures that planning, building, testing, quality assurance, scheduling and deployment are managed based on the organization's requirements.

• Each stage of the process is audited to ensure compliance and accountability.
• Fully integrated with Change Management
• Fully integrated with Service Asset and Configuration Management (SACM)

To manage the building, bundling and scheduling of different types of release packages.

Out of the box, Release and Deployment is integrated with Change Management where one or more Request for Changes (RFCs) has to be associated with the Release before the package stage in the work flow is completed. Release approval is routed to the appropriate release manager. Approval is granted via a secure web page from which the release manager can selected and approve RFC(s) to be deployed with this release package. Once approved the release package can be scheduled for deployment. The deployment date is updated on the RFC, thereby providing a closed loop between Change Management and Release and Deployment.

IncidentMonitor™ Release and Deployment is integrated with Service Assets and Configuration Management to ensure that a new version of the CI is associated with the release package. The CI maintains a full audit of all previous versions with associated release and RFC requests.

Some features of the out of the box Release & Deployment Management Process

• Closed loop integration between Change Management and Release and Deployment. RFCs are associated with the Release package at specific stages of the RFC and Release work flows.
• Integrated approvals and acceptance of the RFC associated with the release package.
• Out of box work flow to support full, partial or failed release packages.
• Scheduled implementation dates are updated on the RFC when the release package is scheduled for deployment
• Manages CI releases life cycle. All previous releases are audited and associated RFCs and Releases are accessible from the CI.
• Release calendar displays all scheduled releases. Authorized users can drill down on the release listed on the calendar to display all associated RFCs and CIs.
• Out-of-box and configurable approvals, escalations and notifications.
• Out-of-box interactive and scheduled reports. Customer-specific reports can also be easily created.
• Out-of-box work flows, which are easily configured to support any customer specific requirements.
• Supports any combination of serial, parallel or ad hoc work flows.