What is software change management?

The process of changing from one state of the product to an improved status is called change management in software development. This process takes care of the changes in the artifacts such as code changes, documentation changes, process changes. The following explains the steps in the change management process at a high level.

Change requests can come from different stakeholders of the software. A change advisory board monitors the change management process in any software development project/product.

For example, a product user might encounter an error and report it to the service desk. Then, the service desk prioritizes this incident and works with incident managers to solve the issue. A workaround might be provided for the time being; however, the root cause of the issue might be different. Therefore, once the root cause analysis has been done, the change request must be made by the relevant party to the change advisory board. Then, they discuss and approve the change. Once the change request has been approved, the relevant party can implement the change. Then the change will be reviewed.

What is being agile in change management?

Being agile in change management favors incremental changes, the collaboration between development teams, interactive work on the project in a sequential manner which are called sprints. A software development sprint might last from one to four weeks duration. The following characteristics explain the agility of software development.

1. Predictable task delivery – faster releases with manageable sprint and planning
2. Fixed scheduling – manage the development of software in a fixed and feasible time frame
3. Improved final product and quality – the quality of the final product should be adequately tested.
4. Providing a better end-user experience.
5. Continuous testing of the product, continuous improvement, and adaptability.
6. Better transparency and visibility for all stakeholders of the project.

Change management in microservices

Following are the components of a microservices platform.

1. Microservices
2. Platform Components
3. Databases
4. Legacy Systems
5. External Systems
6. Libraries

You need to know which team is responsible for which service or platform component for better change management. The microservices are individual components with their database and a technology stack. Therefore, any changes to the microservices can easily be made without affecting the entire application. Individual components can have different versions as well as per the business requirements.The external integrations such as endpoints can have changes in terms of security and configuration. The relevant changes need to be adequately analyzed via logs and recorded as well. Apart from all of these, better collaboration between inter and intra teams makes it easier for better change management with proper documentation.

How can Codeobe help?

• You can expect from the ideation to the deployment in hours which provides faster release cycles and flexibility.
• Looking for a root cause is very easy as all actions are appropriately logged, generating reports.
• Each microservice can have its own technology and databases implemented.
• The collaboration and visibility among the teams are high with the platform with proper access controls and flexibility.
• Codeobe is a MiPaaS that takes care of the entire development life cycle of the microservices.
• Using Codeobe requires no special experience involving a low/no-code approach, making developing faster and releasing faster.
  Codeobe is cost-effective, and you can scale as you go.
• Codeobve works on any cloud on any repository; therefore, any platform changes are made easy.
• Codeobe supports Github, GitLab, BitBucket, and Azure Repos, and you could deploy your runtime in any of the major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) within your data centers. Therefore, you don’t need any migration effort, which means you can move between clouds per your requirements.
• You can pick and choose your vendor depending on tech advancements and budget, even at a later stage.
• Codeobe provides less complexity in managing and monitoring the microservices.
• Even though the platform is Codeobe, you can freely develop and test your microservices as it is mainly based on Java. This technology is understood by many, and even any issue arises, you can solve those on your own.