Release engineering

Release engineering, frequently abbreviated as RE or as the clipped compound Releng, is a sub-discipline in software engineering concerned with the compilation, assembly, and delivery of source code into finished products or other software components. Associated with the software release life cycle, it was said by Boris Debic of Google Inc. that release engineering is to software engineering as manufacturing is to an industrial process: Release engineering is the difference between manufacturing software in small teams or startups and manufacturing software in an industrial way that is repeatable, gives predictable results, and scales well. These industrial style practices not only contribute to the growth of a company but also are key factors in enabling growth. The importance of release engineering in enabling growth of a technology company has been repeatedly argued by John O'Duinn and Bram Adams. While it is not the goal of release engineering to encumber software development with a process overlay, it is often seen as a sign of organizational and developmental maturity. Modern release engineering is concerned with several aspects of software production: Identifiability Being able to identify all of the source, tools, environment, and other components that make up a particular release. Reproducibility The ability to integrate source, third party components, data, and deployment externals of a software system in order to guarantee operational stability. Consistency The mission to provide a stable framework for development, deployment, audit and accountability for software components. Agility The ongoing research into what are the repercussions of modern software engineering practices on the productivity in the software cycle, e.g. continuous integration and push on green initiatives. Release engineering is often the integration hub for more complex software development teams, sitting at the cross between development, product management, quality assurance and other engineering efforts, also known as DevOps.