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CA Gen Development Blog no.5 - IRs and Continuous Delivery

By Rob_T posted Mar 05, 2018 02:29 PM

  

All,

 

First of all, I would like to apologize for my absence from the  community for the last 2 months. My plans for activity were overtaken by events, and I have spent much of my time dealing with a family medical issue. Between that, and just the day to day demands of the job I haven't had much time to spare. For the moment, that issue has at least stabilized. I appreciate your forbearance, and hopefully I should now be able to spend some time attending to the community.

 

As many of you may be aware, the issuance of interim releases (IRs) in CA Gen has had its ups and downs. Generally, the idea has been unpopular and confusing for many customers. Due to the diversity of content and platforms in Gen,  IRs would often contain updates for only a small subset of our supported environments. This in turn caused confusion of what  "correct" IR level was required for any given portion in Gen - a problem since these IRs were required for maintenance continuity as prerequsites for additional service.

 

Over the past year, we have begun releasing content as it became available in individual PTFs, or in documentation and community announcements for certifications.I feel that this reduces the complexity for both the customer and our engineering group, as well as allowing ad hoc customer testing and involvement without requiring a commitment to a complete release. It allows content to be delivered more rapidly, and permits me to adjust our schedule when pressing customer requirements present themselves in a mid-development cycle.

 

We have therefore made the decision to release the remaining IR2 content in this fashion. This means that the content will still be available (some of it has already been released), but it will be released as individual PTFs targeted to individual platforms rather than a combined package. Each feature will be individually announced in the community, and I will provide a summary of the items released and their information once the final items of IR2 content have been released. The remaining IR2 content should become available over the next few weeks to months.

 

We plan to continue this methodology following the release of this content, and items that can be delivered discretely will continue to be issued in PTF form and not as IRs. 

 

While there is still some internal planning to be done, the general thought is to deliver a complete release of CA Gen 8.6 next, with a fully installable package that may be installed from scratch for non-CA Gen 8.6 customers. We will also deliver a full roll-up PTF in parallel that will include all previously released Gen 8.6 content (including base IR1, IR2, fixes, and additional continuous delivery content) for the convenience of those customers who have already transitioned to CA Gen 8.6.

 

Please feel free to ask questions about, or comment on the merits of, this change. We hope it will provide for improved delivery and reduced routine maintenance costs, as well as facilitate more responsive development for our customers.

 

Best Regards,

 

Rob Thompson

Product owner, CA Gen 

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