Introduction

So far in the book, we have talked about planning, developing, testing, and building software. Software teams spend weeks and months developing and testing software; however, software can only reap its worth when it reaches the hands of the people it's meant for. Release management is an enabler for that:

	"Release management is the process of managing, planning, scheduling, and controlling a software build through different stages and environments; including testing and deploying software releases."
	--Wikipedia

On June 3rd, 2013, Microsoft acquired the InRelease product from InCycle software. The InRelease product was rebranded as Microsoft Release Management and integrated into Team Foundation Server 2013. Microsoft Release Manager gave Microsoft a position in the growing release management market. While Release Manager shipped along with Team Foundation Server, it required separate installation and setup. Though various improvements were made to improve the integration between...