What is a Software deployment and what should we take into account when making it?

In recent years there has been a dramatic change in the market, this has created a digital economy in which companies must take advantage of software to create innovation or face a significant risk of becoming obsolete.

IT organizations have to support an increasing number of applications and as these software portfolios change and grow, it becomes increasingly difficult - to plan, build-test - and deliver these applications. Automating the software delivery process is a very good idea, saves time, allows developers to focus on writing code, and creating useful functions; giving them short feedback loops on the quality of their code while and something important is that it costs less.

First of all, it is necessary to understand that each company has its own methodology that is the best for them. This is so because each application has its details and peculiarities and therefore, the methodology that works for one can be disastrous for another.

This is why it is very important to understand the client's organization as a whole; what the needs are, understand from a technological point of view what it is you want to deliver, what you want to give. For this, in Teracloud we rely on AWS Operational Excellence Pillar (Organization, Prepare, Operate, and Evolve). In this way, we guarantee a successful evolution of operations based on small frequent improvements, which help us to provide a safe environment and give us time to experiment, develop and test improvements, thus we learn from failures. It is important to be clear that the automation effort is not without risks and challenges.

Without a thorough and carefully considered implementation plan, launching an application can be a nightmare. We as software implementation specialists evaluate and assemble your applications for all environments, helping you deliver new technology to end-users without the headache, as this has a certain complexity and requires a process that we call Software Delivery Automation.

What is this? Deployment automation is what enables software to be deployed in test and production environments with the push of a button. Automation is essential to lower the risk of production deployments. It is also necessary to provide quick feedback on the quality of the software, as it enables teams to conduct comprehensive testing as soon as possible after changes.

Our software implementation specialists have cultivated an efficient continuous delivery process that emphasizes extensive and automated testing before integrating or implementing any code. We establish an organized central code repository with comprehensive version control and rollback processes that help us detect code errors and deploy iterations faster.

Helping organizations solve the complex problem of continuous delivery of high-quality software and closing the gap between Devs and Ops, version control and deployment automation enable teams to gain control with actionable insights to track versions from start-up to production.

Any organization that needs to implement applications quickly and efficiently can benefit from different tools and must follow the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) process step by step.

This life cycle is divided into 7 phases, as seen in the image. The life cycle approach is used so that users can see and understand what activities are involved in a certain step. We explain a little about each one:

1. Planning: It is the phase where it is identified if a new system is needed to achieve the strategic objectives of a company. It is the preliminary plan, it is to identify the problem and determine the possible solutions.

2. Analysis and systems requirements: In this phase, you work on the source of the problem. Systems analysis is vital to determine what the needs of a company are.

3. Systems design: In this phase, the specifications, characteristics, and operations necessary to meet the functional requirements of the proposed system to be implemented are described. It is where the necessary components (hardware and software), structure (network capacity), processing, and procedures are considered to achieve the objectives.

4. Development: This is where the “real work” begins, this phase means the start of production, and it is the installation and change phase.

5. Integration and testing: The fifth phase determines whether the proposed design meets the initial set of business objectives. The tests are performed to detect errors, thus ensuring the successful completion of the program.

6. Implementation: This phase is where most of the program code is written. Here the program is actually installed. This step puts the project into production by moving the data and components from the old system and placing them on the new system through a direct transition.

7. Operations and maintenance: Here the maintenance and the necessary periodic updates are done.

Of course, currently, SDLC is done in an automated way, this is achieved through a solid CI / CD pipeline and is built on the foundation of DevOps. One of the initial restructurings for digital transformation is moving to a DevOps culture, with small dynamic teams and cross-communication. The next stage is technology, which provides an infrastructure that supports rapid development cycles.

The way to evaluate a good idea is through thorough and effective testing, not only of the quality of the code but also of the user's experience and preferences. This can only be known through experience. As Kohavi, a distinguished engineer and general manager of Microsoft's experimentation team for artificial intelligence, puts it, "data trumps intuition".

Therefore, this is the purpose of continuous delivery and advanced deployment techniques. CI/CD is the platform for rapid deployment; implementation techniques are tools for experimentation and refinement. Behind these two stages is a culture change, which encourages innovation and supports failure and risk. Innovation is not a destination or a single point; it is a process that feeds on experimentation. Being willing to risk failure on the path of innovation requires a culture of humility | 1 |.

With Continuous Integration, development changes are constantly compiled and built with each commit, so problems are apparent faster, reducing the feedback loops to the developers to address the fixes. This is usually combined with an automated test suite to verify stability or functionality. This ongoing process of registration, construction, and testing maintain superior code quality. Once the continuous integration path is executed, your application can be deployed, achieving changes in production faster. This speed benefits both developers and operations. Developers and business leaders have the satisfaction of seeing new products go to market faster. This is really what has mobilized automation, “the ability to deliver” and having the advantage of detecting any problems early and being able to act on time.

Finally, the life cycle approach of any project is a time-consuming process. Although some steps are more difficult than others, none should be overlooked. An oversight could prevent the entire system from working as planned.

As Teracloud DevOps specialists we have extensive experience in managing this type of project. If you have a situation in your organization and you think a custom software solution may be what you need, contact us today. Teracloud consultants will be able to quickly guide you through each of these steps, ensuring you can have your new system online as soon as possible.

|1| Teaching an elephant to dance, Intentional evolution across teams, processes, and applications (e-book) redhat.com