Software Release Glossary

A/B testing involves a process of testing and comparing two different versions of a website or feature in order to see which one performs better.

Server-side testing refers to any type of testing that occur directly on the web server instead of in the user’s browser.

Blue-green deployment is a strategy that uses two production environments where traffic is directed to one of these environments once changes are ready.

Canary deployment, or canary release, is a deployment strategy that reduces risk by releasing software for testing on a small subset of users.

A CI/CD pipeline is a series of steps which automates the software delivery process allowing releases to be delivered rapidly and efficiently.

Continuous Delivery is a software development practice that enables code changes to be released to end-users at any time.

Continuous deployment is a strategy of software release where every change is released to production automatically without human intervention.

A software development practice where developers continuously integrate their changes into the trunk resulting in more stable product releases.

Dark launch is a software release technique that involves turning on features for a subset of users using feature flags to gather feedback and improve releases.

A DevOps engineer is an IT professional who oversees the release of new code and facilitates collaboration between development and operation teams for increased productivity.

Fake door testing is a method where you can measure interest in a product or new feature without actually coding it.

Feature branching allows developers to collaborate effectively around a central mainline by keeping any changes to a feature in a separate branch.

Software development tool whose purpose is to turn certain functionalities on and off in order to safely test new features without changing code.

Feature testing is a software development process that allows you to test several variations of a feature to validate new releases and to determine the one with the best positive impact.

Feature toggles, also known as feature flags, is a technique that allows specific features to be switched on or off quickly and safely for testing purposes.

A kill switch is a button used to disable features, such as turning off a faulty feature during production, usually implemented through a feature flag.

Multi-armed bandits are a complex form of A/B testing that use machine learning algorithms to dynamically allocate traffic to better performing variations.

Progressive delivery is a software development technique where features are gradually rolled out to users to minimize risk of testing in production.

A Release Manager manages all aspects of the software delivery lifecycle and works across teams to ensure a proper release schedule.

Remote config is a mobile app development technique where the behavior or features of an app can be changed remotely without releasing an app update.

Ring deployment is a technique to gradually introduce new features to different groups of users to limit impact or blast radius on end-users.

A site reliability engineer is typically a software engineer with IT operations experience that creates highly reliable systems to solve complex problems.

Smoke testing is a rapid regression test of major functionality to detect early errors and indicate whether the product is ready for further testing.

Soak testing is a type of performance and load test that evaluates how a software application handles a growing number of users for an extended period of time.

Software development life cycle (SDLC) refers to the different stages that a software goes through from planning to completion.

Trunk-based development is a practice in which developers divide their work into small batches and later merge their work into a shared trunk or mainline at least once daily.

Type 1 and type 2 errors, also known as false positive and false negative) are two types of statistical errors that may result from a hypothesis test such as A/B tests.

User acceptance testing (UAT) is used to verify whether a software meets business requirements and whether it’s ready for use by customers.

Version control, or source control, is the practice of managing and tracking changes to software code.