How to Speed Up Software Release Rates

CIOs and other IT decision-makers are committed to increasing the frequency of software releases. However, boosting the rate of these releases often leads to eventual failures, according to a recent survey from Appvance. The resulting report, "IT Decision-Makers: State of Software Release Efficiency," indicates that security concerns often play a major role here. Meanwhile, bottlenecks that emerge during software testing and quality assurance efforts will often slow down the frequency of software releases. In addition, many organizations are not taking full advantage of the latest in automation tools for software testing. Fortunately, the majority of companies have launched official DevOps processes, and these initiatives are expected to help them accelerate software release rates, while maintaining good security and overall product quality. "Enterprises have adopted agile and continuous delivery processes to improve efficiency and productivity and to deliver business results," said Kevin Surace, CEO of Appvance, "but they often maintain traditional thinking about software testing, which has not changed significantly in over 20 years. As a result, companies still struggle to get past [obstacles] created by old test automation tools that can't move as fast as DevOps moves." An estimated 200 U.S. enterprise IT decision-makers took part in the research, which was conducted by Vanson Bourne.