The Release management discipline covers moving code form a developers machine t o live/production.

This is done in the following order or there about: Developer develops code and runs unit test, integration tests and re-factors the code prior to putting it in to the main build, which then leads to Install and build test server, this is where the install team install the code w hich has come out of the build, if the build does not work then the release mana ger knows there is a problem, most companies have a code curfew where they make sure developers don t submit code for the nights build unless hey have tested it. Then the Build is automatically run every night using the code cut form the curf ew time. If the install is ok a regression test is run and if this passes, then the code is release to the test team, on one or more ideally two test servers. The tester s then run their test scripts against the test plan and test schedule, which is driven by the requirements and change control documents. Once it is tested by the test team, the code is moved onto the staging server wh ere the business test the code and sign off as to fit for productions, normally refereed to as UAT (User Acceptance testing), then there is OAT (Operational Acc eptance testing) which is done on a server which is like production, this is whe re the staging server come into its own, as this is normally the same as product ion where the normal test servers are normally virtual servers and lower spec. O n the staging server the company may also run performance tests which are linked to the acceptance criteria as agreed between the business and the development t eam/company. Then once there is a signature on a release note, down time for production is pl anned and the release is moved to production and put live, make sure there is a roll back position, if not you could end up with production down for hours and a not very happy business. years ago in a roll for a telco, down time of the netw ork was counted in millions per second, even a single cell or part of the min ne twork could lose a Million every 15 minutes, so the pressure was on to make sure the code was tested and a signature was given before moving to the next stage o f the release process.