Software release management

Software release management begins with receipt of a release candidate comprising a software build for a particular target software release. It ends with the step of handing off that software build and associated meta-data to a manufacturing team. No changes to the software build itself are made during this process. Information about builds, targets software releases and stock keeping units (software products) are stored using a hierarchical representation. A sequence of ordered testing and approval steps is stored and may be dynamically re-configured. A release manager automatically manages the testing and approval steps according to the sequence. Web services are used to receive meta-data about the builds and release candidates.