by Jake Sorofman

A wise person once said that content cannot exist without context.

Without deep context, ideas may be pleasing to the ear—propped up by the rhythm of language and logical arguments. But for thought to really hit home, it must be supported by adequate context—context that allows audiences to identify, to internalize, to empathize.

Content is why we listen. Context is why we care.

I’ve been giving some thought to the context of release automation.

Let’s start with a refresher on the content. What is release automation?

Today, IT often relies on manual process for creating, provisioning and maintaining the software systems that enable applications and services. This manual approach adds time, cost and risk to the process of deploying and maintaining applications. Release automation is about automating these processes toward the goal of a zero-latency, low-overhead model for application deployment and maintenance.

It’s hard to argue with any of this—release automation tends to evoke an almost universally positive response, not unlike motherhood or apple pie. What’s not to love? It makes sense, and its benefits are sound. But the question may remain: What does this mean to me?

Answering this question requires a deeper exploration of the context of release automation.

Compliance — Today, enterprise IT is beholden to a range of regulations and standards—PCI, HIPAA, ITIL, CoBIT and the like. These specific requirements vary, but they share a common denominator: They exist to address the lack of transparency and control in IT systems. Release automation provides a solution for automating the creation, provisioning and maintenance of complex software systems, ensuring they’re transparent, easily controlled, and easily audited.

Self-Service IT — Today, there is a movement at the highest levels of organizations to transform IT from a centralized bottleneck to a self-service infrastructure. Why? Because the long waits traditionally associated with IT are no longer acceptable. The rise of cloud computing has brought yesterday’s model under scrutiny, forcing IT leaders to find a way to decentralize the task of provisioning and maintaining applications to reduce cost and compress months of waiting to minutes. But this requires automation. Systems can no longer be built, deployed and maintained by hand. That’s the role of release automation—the backbone of self-service IT.

Virtualization — In enterprises today, virtualization is spreading like kudzu. It’s no surprise when you consider the server utilization and cost economies it enables. But what many organizations are now coming to realize is that the cap ex goodness of virtualization comes at a significant op ex cost. Virtualization leads to an explosion in the number of system instances that need to be managed. In a time of constrained budgets, the solution is rarely hiring more people. The solution must be release automation—the backstop against the hidden cost of virtualization.

Cloud Computing — Cloud computing is appealing to enterprise IT organizations looking for an alternative to capital-intensive data center operations. It has profound implications for the cost and responsiveness of enterprise computing. But it raises as many questions as it answers. For example: How do I get my applications into the cloud? How do I maintain these applications without adding new costs? How do I ensure they’re controlled and compliant? How do I ensure I’m not locked into a single cloud environment? This is the role of release automation—the safe onramp to cloud computing.

OS/Platform Management — Many IT organizations have found that a one-size-fits-all approach to OS and platform provisioning no longer meets their needs. Application and enterprise requirements have become increasingly diverse and complex. In fact, some applications have mutually contradictory OS and platform requirements. And IT is realizing that bloated “one-size-fits-all” platforms are wasteful, consuming more than their share of storage, bandwidth and server capacity. This means that the traditional practice of laying down the same “off-the-shelf” platform no longer makes sense. It requires customization. But customization comes at a cost—the combinatorial complexity of customized platforms makes maintaining these platforms a special sort of hell. Release automation takes the pain out of managing customized platforms.

So, there’s the context. What’s the common thread running through each of these examples? A way to reduce the time, cost and risk associated with application deployment and maintenance.

What’s not to love about that?

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Jake Sorofman is vice president of marketing for rPath, an innovator in automating application deployment and maintenance across physical, virtual and cloud environments. Learn more about rPath at http://www.rpath.com, follow rPath on Twitter at @rpath and contact Jake at jsorofman@rpath.com.

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