Deployment automation vs. build automation

Since make was introduced in 1977 to automatically build software, more areas of the software construction and release process have been automated. In fact, anybody building serious software without automating their builds, their tests and without using continuous integration is not considered to be a professional. A hot topic within the application lifecycle management (ALM) space is deployment automation. This is driven by middleware environments getting bigger and more complex, by the increasing number of application releases demanded by modern businesses, and by the fact that application deployment needs to happen reliably to not disrupt online services and businesses. Add to that the fact that cloud infrastructure is becoming more mainstream by the day, you can bet there is a lot happening in this space.
At XebiaLabs we have developed Deployit and that has given us a lot of insight into the deployment automation domain. This is the first blog in a series that will explore that domain by comparing deployment automation with a number of related topics.

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