Integration with change and configuration management

Release management is integrated with change management in a number of important ways:

• At any time during a release process, but most commonly during the planning and distribution/installation phases, you can specify configuration items (CIs) as sources and targets of a release.
• Software Image CIs are used to populate Definitive Media Library (DML) repositories, where they are readily available as sources for releases that involve the distribution of software packages to specified CI targets.
• A wide range of operations enable close interaction between the two process managers. For example, requests can be submitted from the Changes application to add one or more changes to a release, remove changes from a release, and so on. In the Releases application, you can remove changes from a release, approve or reject Add Change to Release requests, assign a change to a specific release, and perform other change-related operations. Notifications are sent to interested parties when any of these events occur.

Release management is also integrated with configuration management, enabling you to perform a number of operations for a release:

• You can search the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) for specific CIs that you want to designate as sources or targets for a release.
• CI owners are notified when CIs are changed; for example, if you update a server with a new release of a business application, owners of both the server CI and the business application CI receive notifications.