Continuous delivery: Software deployment and configuration management for critical operations environments

Abstract

In space operations environments, both software development management and system configuration management are essential. The two disciplines interface at release and deployment management, where source code is built into a software package, which is then deployed onto hardware underlying (ground) system configuration management. The missing link is between the software development management system and the ground system configuration management system. Until now, the delivery of released software packages to the actual deployment targets consists of several manual error-prone steps, it has to overcome technical barriers (for example network barriers between staging areas and secure operational environments). To overcome these barriers and close the missing link with appropriate tool support is the challenge we address in this paper. We present an approach in this paper that builds on the existing infrastructure and tool chain, supplemented by an in-house software development. It enables us to reliably access the correct software release builds and deploy them easily on the appropriate targets, thereby also serving as a backup and history repository for the deployment packages. The tool-enabled workflow makes both configuration management and software development management more efficient and transparent. By closing the gap between continuous integration and deployment in an operational environment, we make both configuration management and software release management more efficient and transparent.