Software Deployment vs Release: What is the Key Difference Between Them?

Quick Go-Through: Confused between the terms software deployment and release? Don’t worry. Here is the guide to solve and end all your confusion between deployment and release. In this blog, you’ll learn about these crucial aspects of release management - software deployment and release in a detailed way. Lastly, we’ll also discuss deploy vs release. Hope you enjoy it!

There’s a lot of hard work involved in software development. All the hard work only makes sense when the customer uses, achieves outcomes, and values it. Whether it be an app or website, it should be smooth like butter, isn’t it?

Hundreds and thousands of updates are frequently made on apps or software, including performance enhancements, better security features, and bug fixes. They also provide clients with the latest features to enjoy and cherish a smooth experience. This is why people love them and rely on them for their daily activities. According to recent Business of Apps statistics, Apple Store is responsible for 32.6 billion downloads and Google Play for 110.1 billion. Now, imagine the craze of apps among people. Truly unbelievable!

However, the stakes are always high, whether it be an application or any other software. It can and cannot be a win-win situation. Sometimes, the new software’s development process is 100% efficient, but they break whenever the IT teams release that software solution or its feature. Like, there might be new bugs or new loopholes, or there may be an outage. These issues impact your clients (and in the wrong way), leading to lost time, money, resources and less business growth.

But why? Why does it happen?

To be honest, a poorly planned and executed software deployment and release process can create havoc. And this is why you require a proficient release management process as an integral part of your software development planning. Software deployment and release are often used interchangeably (which is wrong). Moreover, software deployment is an essential aspect of the release management process. It isn’t the only one. Other crucial elements of the release management process include software planning, designing, coordinating, and testing the release before its deployment in an operational environment.

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Quite overwhelming, right?

See, release management is a highly technical topic. And the aspects – software deployment and release – also depend on the organization’s knowledge and expertise in software release management. In some companies, the development team creates efficient software solutions, and the operations team handles the releases. On the other hand, organizations with DevOps integration use a self-service model that allows development teams to automate and execute their releases. In both cases, the IT teams have better scope to enhance their deployment and release processes to boost reliability, agility, and scalability.

Scratching your head already? Don’t worry! We’re here to help.

Software release management is a rising discipline. And in this guide, we’ll discuss everything essential to know about the crucial aspects of the release management process - deployment and release. We’ll learn their individual concepts and, most importantly, talk about the difference between release vs deployment in the DevOps lifecycle (the most crucial topic).

Come on, hold tight, and let’s enjoy this knowledgeable ride together.

Here’s a deal, before diving into the deploy vs release debate, let’s just first start with the basics. It’s a thumb rule!

So, let’s first learn about software deployment in release lifecycle management.

What is Deployment in Software Engineering?

Software deployment is the process for rolling out an app, software system, any update, by pushing it throughout the different environments or to user initiating the deployment process. Software deployment involves all of the steps, processes, and activities that are essential to make a software system or update or any change available to its users. Software deployments are crucial in business scalability and security, specifically when they are persistent and timely. Frequent updates can help you fulfill the client’s demands and changing business requirements of organizations. Developers use continuous integration and continuous delivery pipeline to make this process efficient.

Software deployment is a vital software development life cycle (SDLC) phase. The software deployment process helps the developers create top-notch software solutions with minimal resources in terms of expense and human resources. The deployment consists of various correlated activities at multiple levels. And it is a bit challenging to define any activities or approaches for other functions because each software solution is different. Therefore, you should understand deployment in software engineering as a general process accustomed to software’s specific requirements or properties.

The software deployment process involves different steps and methods that help with application implementation and management. The software deployment process includes software release, installation, testing, deployment, and process monitoring. This is, therefore, a safe and customary process that enables developers to test every updated version or feature of their software.

Understanding Deployment Activities

The software deployment involves activities such as:

• Planning Software Deployment - It involves all the preparation activities, including authorization, authentication, resource arrangement, and scheduling.

• Checking Service Components - This involves unit and integration testing, retesting, and iterative reparation.

• Checking Target Environments - Follows validation to ensure the host environments are all set to receive the software packages.

• Executing Deployment - This involves pushing and moving the software package into the environment and conducting appropriate software system tests.

• Software Deployment Conformation - This activity involves successfully validating customer requirements. How does the validation occur? With the help of acceptance testing. In this step, the developers also carry out activities like posting feedback and the lessons learned.

Here’s the deal - organizations nowadays prefer to opt for DevOps services and solutions, as it helps them develop, deploy, and release robust software solutions. Experts at Radixweb also swear by this approach and understand the importance of DevOps in release management.

Let’s move forward and learn about the different approaches we can use for effective software deployment.

What are Different Deployment Techniques?

When talking about the difference between release vs deployment, their methodologies are the crucial differentiating factor between both. These techniques are used to execute the processes effectively.

The following are some popular methodologies used for software deployment:

• DevOps - Integrating diverse cultural practices, tools, and beliefs helps improve a company’s potential to deliver services and applications quickly. And to enhance the deployment process, a relevant DevOps toolchain is available in the market.

• Blue Green Approach. This is a software deployment technique that focuses on minimizing downtime and risks.

• CI/CD - CI/CD release management is the approach for regular app delivery to the customer by adding automation to the distinct phases of application development. Continuous integration (CI), continuous delivery, and continuous deployment are the three principal CI/CD concepts. To experience seamless CI/CD release management, you can also opt for different CI/CD tools.

How to Scale Deployment Activities?

Deployment was one of the biggest challenges of software development. But all thanks to the CI/CD consulting that enables the seamless automation of software deployment processes. In essence, DevOps CI/CD services at Radixweb help increase the software deployments’ velocity with minimal failures and loopholes.

Various elements contribute to the secret sauce of successful software deployment processes. Mentioned below are a few strategies you can change to scale your deployment activities:

• Environment - It’s essential to eliminate the difference between settings, particularly on a large scale. And if you make any changes to your code, whether you test it in your QA environment, integration environment, development environment, or production, it must be a unique variable.

• Process - You should maintain complete transparency throughout the software deployment process. Wondering how to do this? See, you can accomplish this with the help of source control and automation of your configuration files.

• Team - The right team in the right place is among the most critical factors of software deployment. Your development team must know how to reduce vulnerabilities and be on deck with your methodologies. Open and transparent communication keeps your software developers in the loop with various aspects of project development. Developers’ work is remarkable when they can work over long, consistent periods.

• Tools – Tools are also gaining immense popularity and becoming the prevailing solution in this area. Some popular tools include Chef, Jenkins, GitLab, and Bamboo. Also, to make your work a bit easier, Radixweb offers exceptional Jenkins services that help to speed up the development and deployment processes by minimizing build times and fast delivery. Isn’t it great? We hope you are feeling a bit relaxed now.

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Now let’s move to the other half of our blog and understand another critical aspect of release management.

What is Software Release?

Software release refers to the publishing/release of a new or modified version of an application or software that significantly aligns with the customer’s needs, experience, and business strategy. A software release can be both private and public.

The software release process happens after the completion of the software deployment process. It also falls under the software development life cycle (SDLC) phase, where the deployment phase acts as a blanket (the whole release management process). During software release, you should consider and remember some necessary steps to set up the software system for assembly and move it to the computer systems utilized during production.

Consequently, you need to determine the resources the system will require to run, plan, and document the later phases of the implementation. In a nutshell, software release happens after the deployment in a release management process. However, it needs clear instructions to plan, design, coordinate, and test the version before release. Wondering why? A simple yet evident reason - is that the version control process is complex.

Understanding Release Categories

Let’s go through some most common release categories:

• Minor Releases - These are also referred to as updates and modifications to the software’s or app’s current version.

• Major Releases - These are commonly known as the new versions of software or apps. Major software releases modify or upgrade your software or app’s existing version.

Okay, understand this with a simple example - a major release is software modifying itself from version 2 to 3, while in a minor release, it goes from 2.2.1 to 2.2.2. Quite understandable, right?

• Emergency Releases - They are also known as hotfixes. These are releases made immediately to rectify any genuine issue, particularly from the performance or security perspective.

• Maintenance Releases - These releases usually repair and perform bug fixes for application maintenance.

• Feature Releases - These releases occur when a new software feature or functionality needs to be delivered.

What are Different Release Techniques?

In release lifecycle management, the primary techniques used in software release differ from software deployment. So, let’s have a look at these different methodologies:

• Big Bang Releases - This release happens when the team spends multiple months working on a software project to publish it in a single significant product development event (all at once).

• Canary Deployment - A canary release is also known as canary deployment. It is a deployment model that allows software developers to send new code or functionalities to test a small group of users early. (Intelligent!)

• Dark Launching - Dark launching is like canary releases. This release method involves making features available for a teeny tiny portion of users who are clueless about the new parts and functionalities.

Let us tell you a secret, experts at Radixweb are well-versed in all these release management processes, concepts, and techniques. Whether it be software deployment, release management process, understanding the difference between release vs deployment, knowledge of CI/CD concepts, or overcoming DevOps challenges, you can always count on them. And we’re not even kidding!

How to Scale Release Activities?

Software release management requirements are rising as organizations prefer data-driven agile software development methodologies. So, it’s essential to scale these activities. Following are some best ways to scale your release activities:

• Set Clear Goals - For an efficient software release management process, you must determine end goals, like releasing software elements correctly or maintaining the integrity of a live production environment.

• Track KPIs - Coming from a tech world, we would suggest you have a follow-up on the commit KPIs. You can look for Cycle Time, Commits Volume, or Commits per Active Day. All these are known as velocity metrics. And they help you understand how rapid and effective your team is in software release management.

• Follow Pre-Defined Metrics - Automated release management for enterprise solutions ensures the success of your software release. And how? You just need to follow a set of pre-defined metrics to assess your team’s performance. It’s like what you and your team should do to scale your software deployment process.

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Now comes the heart and soul of our blog. Here, we’ll learn about some fundamental yet significant differences between deploy vs release.

So, ready to end the debate on release vs deployment?

Come on, then!

What are the main differences between Software Release and Deployment?

People often use software deployment and release terms interchangeably, confusing it. So, let’s make deploy vs release talk a lot less confusing.

• The main difference between software deployment and release is that deployment is moving software from development to production, whereas release is referred to as making the software available for end users.
• Talking about difference between deployment vs release, deployment can occur multiple times before a release, whereas release happens after successful deployment and testing of the software.
• The difference between release vs deployment is that deployment is a technical process involving servers and infrastructure, whereas release has a business process involving marketing and communication.
• Software deployment focuses on infrastructure and environment setup, while release focuses on feature availability and user readiness.
• Talking about deployment vs release, various tools like Jenkins, Ansible, and Docker are used in the deployment phase, whereas Jira and GitHub releases are used for release.

That’s all about the fundamental difference between deployment vs release. We’re sure now you’d understand why you should not use these terms interchangeably.

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This blog discussed the essential aspects of release management – deploy and release. Both these are crucial for completing any software development process. You cannot think of missing any of them. They both belong to the family of release management (the two brothers) but with distinctive characteristics and natures.

But how to ensure the success of deployment and release processes?

We have your answer!

You can keep track of your software deployment and release indicators; with their help, you can easily paint a complete picture of how your team works, eventually enhancing your deployments and release process. Radixweb plays by the same rule. Moreover, as a prominent DevOps services company, we help track all deployment and release indicators and activities.

Furthermore, on top of tracking all the essential KPIs, an expert at Radixweb also follows some best practices that help your team to simplify these two processes:

• Knowing and understanding the needs of every deployment and release
• Keep track of your deployment and release progress
• Understand your current processes and look for areas of enhancement
• Constant monitoring and testing of the outcomes
• Make sure you experience the right resources and workforce
• Maintains open communication with all the members of relevant teams

ConclusionUnderstanding the difference between deployment vs release will help you determine which technique allows for rapid and effective software delivery. Also, you’ll adore modern approaches like DevOps and CI/CD when implementing them. However, executing these techniques is not everyone’s cup of tea. It’s essential to pay attention to the execution part of these techniques. Starting from different process implementations, designations, specific duties, teamwork, organizational workflows, and everything everyone requires to adapt to these new methodologies.But there’s nothing to worry about!As a leading software development company, Radixweb is always in the foreground to help you make the implementation smooth like butter for your businesses. With years of experience, our experts are proficient in all technologies, empowering our several clients. They also try to help you make your software deployment and release processes a remarkable success.Your success is our success.So, who are you waiting for? Contact us and talk to our experts if you want to know more about release management or leverage our top-notch services.