Release Management should be utilized in a SOA environment

Release Management is one of the Service Support ITIL processes that allows planning and overseeing the successful rollout of software and related hardware. Deploying Release Management will encourage IT Management to designin and implement efficient procedures for the distribution and installation of changes to IT systems, and will ensure that hardware and software being changed is traceable, secure and that only correct, authorized and tested versions are installed. IT Operations groups that are implementing ITIL Release Management in a SOA context should collaborate with Application Development leaders to extend those processes for new kinds of distributed applications and services.

IT Service Management and SOA Governance concepts

Application Development teams building SOA solutions either internally or externally or mixing both approaches must consider the ITIL Release Management process to rollout any software and hardware components.

ITIL is a set of Best Practice recommendations for IT Service Management. ITIL consists of a series of publications giving guidance on the provision of Quality IT Services, and on the Processes and facilities needed to support them. These services which are used by the user/customer can take the form of applications that they use (e.g. email services, components of HR systems, ERP and financial systems) or other services which are utilized, such as internet access, printing services, etc.

A SOA Service is defined as a unit of work to be performed on behalf of some computing entity, such as a human user or another program. SOA defines how two computing entities, such as programs, interact in such a way as to enable one entity to perform a unit of work on behalf of another entity.

The SOA Service is much more granular that an IT Service and the latest can be the aggregation of several SOA Services. For these reasons, more and more IT Service Management and SOA will relate to each other and be part of an SOA Governance framework which should really be considered as part of a broader IT Governance strategy.

SOA is introducing many independent and self-contained moving parts, components that are typically widely reused across the enterprise and are a vital part of mission-critical business processes; it becomes critical to properly manage the life cycle. SOA governance usually includes:

• Lifecycle management. This involves the definition, the implementation and the enforcement of policies and processes across the entire SOA lifecycle.


• Policy management. This process is used for a successful web services deployment ensuring that services, XML messages and transactions comply with local and global security and operational policies. This woulde include access-control list management, identity management authentication and authorization policies.


• Contract management. This activity consits of managing the relationships between service consumers and providers. Policies, capabilities and Service Level Agreements (SLA) are negotiated. Service Level Management is an ITIL Service Delivery process can be used.


• SOA metadata management. More and more data services are created based on various information sources, metadata centric visibility tying data services to their associated information sources participating in Data Integration techniques is critical. SOA Metadata management can be based on SOA Metadata repository and SOA Registry.

Activities within Release Management must also cover SOA solutions but have additional constraints

Release Management helps to communicate and manage expectations of the Customer during the planning and rollout of new Releases. It also allows agreeing the exact content and rollout plan for the Release, through liaison with the Change Management process. New software or hardware releases are then implemented into the operational environment using the controlling processes of Configuration Management and Change Management. Also, a Release should be under Change and Configuration Management and may consist of any combination of hardware, software, firmware and document Configuration Items.

Release Management activities in the development, control, test and live environments include:

• Release policy and planning. The Release Policy document covers Release numbering, frequency, the level in the IT infrastructure that will be controlled by definable Releases. The SOA policy defines configurable rules and conditions that affect services during design time and at runtime. The SOA policy is used to validate services at design-time, well before they're released to consumers, and is used to enforce specific standards and behaviors at runtime. The Release Policy has to include instructions such that deployed SOA solutions have to comply with the SOA Policy. Release Planning would also have to include applications running on SOA infrastructure.
  


• Release design, build and configuration. The Release design of a SOA application differs from a classical application as several web services can be aggregated for a composite application from in-house developments or from third party components. License, support a and Service level Agrements will have to be defined at the web service level and Application Development groups will have to negotiate at the component level with the different vendors. The Release Build will require additional efforts because of the highest granularity of software components and also because an impact analysis is required to identify what other applications could be affected. Configuration will require detailed procedures for installation from all web services providers.
  


• Release acceptance. This activity is responsible for testing a Release, and its implementation and Back-out Plans, to ensure they meet the agreed Business and IT Operations Requirements. Additional consideration has to be given to existing applications already using some component of the release. An impact analysis will conduct to a non-regression testing for other applications already using some components. A controlled test environment must be configured to replicate the current live version also taking into account external web services. Vendors should be able to contribute to the release and provide as well a test environenment.
  


• Rollout planning. First of all it is almost impossible to agree a rollout plan without consulting the customers; indeed they are an integral part of the planning. So to meet this goal companies will need to work closely with the customers to prepare a release or rollout plan that not only meets IT needs but also takes into account customer availability and their business deliverables. Once the plan is agreed, the IT department will need to provide constant feedback to the customers during the processing of the Release or rollout. Ideally the customers should be able to view the plan on-line any time and should receive regular reports from the plan team leader. SOA applications do not really impact this activity as customers are often not aware of the underlying architecture.
  


• Extensive testing to predefined acceptance criteria. Testing of a Build or Release to ensure that the parts including the web services work correctly together. SOA will require additional non-regression testing because of the potential share of components between old and new applications. Tests may have to include vendors’ components when used and will require dedicated tests vendors environments even if the web service is hosted somewhere else.
  


• Signoff of the Release for implementation.
  


• Communication, preparation and training.
  


• Distribution and installation. This will cover the installation of new or upgraded hardware and the distribution and installation of software. The ITIL Definitive Software Library (DSL) which is the storage of controlled software in both centralized and distributed systems will also contain the SOA hardware and software components. External components will have to be documented in a SOA registry-repository as they will be hosted externally.

SOA Repository and Registry

The ability to register, discover, and manage Web services is an essential requirement for any SOA implementation. This need may not be fully appreciated in the early stages of an SOA rollout when dealing with a small number of services but becomes almost mandatory when there is a need to support a large number of Web services. When the number of services deployed grows to dozens or hundreds, centralized facilities for access and control of service metadata and artifacts becomes critical. A service registry provides these capabilities and becomes a key infrastructural component. First generation service registries were based on the UDDI standard but new products have recently emerged from various vendors inspired by the standard.

SOA Repositories and registries should integrate with CMDBs (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Registry and Repository linked to a CMDB

Product choices and strategies

• Systinet is a mature solution but requires further integration in the HP IT Service Management suite. The roadmap for HP’s IT Service Management soultions identified Peregrine ServiceCenter has the evolution for the HP OpenView Service Desk. However as HP also acquired Mercury, the future of the HP CMDB will target Appilog (Now Mercury Application Mapping). In January 2006 Mercury extended its offering with Systinet which provides the foundation for SOA Governance and lifecycle management. Mercury ITG for the time being manages Change and Release Management, Peregrine ServiceCenter manages Change Management, and Systinet 2 manages SOA Changes. The Governance Interoperability framework (GIF) developed by multiple SOA vendors does not seem to cover the integration with a federated CMDB[i].
  
• IBM proposes its Websphere Service Registry and Repository V6 which integrates with the Tivoli CCMDB. This solution will communicate with Tivoli CCMDB which manages Changes and Configuration. The Tivoli CCMDB also integrates with IBM Tivoli Release Process Manager and Tivoli Configuration Manager which are other Release Management modules. The end to end solution will have to be validated.
  
• Flashline which joined in august 2006 the BEA Aqualogic product family is a new offering but BEA until now distributed Systinet. Flashline is now the BEA Aqualogic Enterprise Repository, has out of the box connectors source code management systems but does not have yet integration with ITSM suites.
  
• Webmethods acquired Infravio but seems more focused on new clients acquisition with an integration with Fabric. Its governance edition integrates with System Management suites such as IBM Tivoli, BMC Patrol, CA Unicenter but custom development would be required.
  
• Amberpoint is a Web services management product which completes a repository-registry. Amberpoint integrates into any IT environment and specifically system management suites, but does not consider yet ITSM (although it does deliver a module related to SLM).
  
  

Release Management is a pre-requisite to properly manage the service lifecycle

IT infrastructure and operations/engineering professionnals using IT Service Management and starting SOA programs should evaluate the maturity of their Release Management process or consider its implementation. The acquisition of a SOA Governance platform must take into consideration existing IT Service Management suites in order to have as a target an end to end view of the SOA components deployment. Without any integration, operations staffs will not be able to quickly track the end to end life cycle and carry out root cause analyse in an efficient way in case of problems.

• Review the process activities and ensure they take into consideration components based on SOA infrastructures. Release policy and planning will be adapted to SOA solutions implementations taking into consideration the use of potential external and distributed web services. Design and build of a Release will have to integrate more granular components which can be hosted externally and sold by vendors. Service Level Agreements will have to be defined not only at the IT Service level but also at the Web service level. Testing will have to cover non-regression for shared application components and situations were componets are hosted externally.
  
• Evaluate cautiously SOA Governance platfoms. SOA Management platforms, metadata repositories and registries should take into account not only Release and Change Management, but also Service Level Management from Service Management suites. Identify the vendor’s strategy in terms of either partnership with ITSM vendors, or internal roadmaps such as IBM and HP.
  
• Understand the level of integration required between products. A complete integration would be ideal but the existing solutions are not yet there. Some vendors have started to understand the need for integration between a SOA Registry and repository and a CMDB in a federated way, the repository-registry being considered as a specialized database in this federation. Some others are only provinding APIs to system management solutions.
  
• Ensure that Underpinning Contracts are covering Release Management for third party components. Companies building applications either composite or integrating in BPM activities third party web services should define in a SLA with the vendors how new external components versions should be managed in the Release Management process. Vendors should not be allowed to upgrade customers web services without any authorization if hosted externally. The contract should specify that any new component modification will be part of the customer’s IT Operations Releases covering testings.

What It means...

Convergence between the SOA registry, repository and the CMDB

The registry and repository of SOA has allowed convergence of the development time asset repository with the run-time service registry. We must now proceed into the management repository. As we frequently see another repository associated with that space called the Configuration Management Database, or CMDB. A convergence across this space is required in order to be able to correctly track the end to end life cycle of Web services as well as to maintain an up to date software and hardware information. Part of the metadata associated with a service needs to be the machines where it is deployed. The chances are that information may already be in the CMDB.


Non ITSM shops will integrate SOA Governance Platforms with adhoc deployment solutions

Companies which have not considered ITIL as an IT Operations framework can deploy a SOA Repository and Registry without fully considering the Release Management process. They will be able to manage the service lifecycle and if they have a software deployment product, they will use it for deployment. Reconciliaton between the various products will have to kept manually or integration development will be required. However IT Operations group haven’t yet endorsed IT Service Management and starting to embrace ITIL will gain substential benefits in terms of customer’s quality of service. Release Management among other processes such as Change and Service Level Management will definitly improve the quality of SOA solutions.

[i] Ten leading SOA vendors have partnered with Systinet for the GIF, including Above All Software, Actional, AmberPoint, Composite Software, DataPower, HP, Layer 7 Technologies, MetaMatrix, Reactivity, and Service Integrity.