Application Release Automation (ARA) tools are increasingly important in relatively new in the world of DevOps. They are rapidly gaining traction for their ability to help organizations realize the value of Agile and DevOps by streamlining the release of software so processes are faster, repeatable and more efficiently. With every company now a software company, ARA tools have been gaining attention from industry experts for their ability to control the creation and deployment of software releases in an increasingly competitive landscape. This week, Forrester Research published a report on the current ARA vendor tools landscape , which outlines top ARA platforms that organizations can utilize to speed the release of quality software.
CloudBees is honored that our CloudBees Flow platform is included in the report and cited for its ability to simplify provisioning and that it allows teams to coordinate releases across physical and virtual infrastructure in an efficient, predictable and auditable way. As noted in the report, “ARA tools give you control over how you create and deploy environments and how and when to deploy releases.” The report tells I&O pros how to choose the best vendor for their ARA needs by looking for ARA tools that can automate the modeling, packaging, and deployment of application releases and their associated configurations and that have built-in connections with existing modern service delivery tools. The vendor landscape highlights features for products from 15 prominent ARA vendors, including our CloudBees Flow DevOps Release Automation platform. We believe the Forrester Vendor Landscape — along with several other research reports — demonstrates the growing significance of ARA tools and how they facilitate end-to-end software delivery.
This report is certainly helpful for IT professionals moving to DevOps initiatives. Also, it serves as a good industry benchmark for the state of ARA innovation, and where tool vendors are headed as we collectively work to connect, automate and streamline the entire software delivery lifecycle. You can access the full report here .