In
software deployment
Software deployment is all of the activities that make a software system available for use.
The general deployment process consists of several interrelated activities with possible transitions between them. These activities can occur on the p ...
, an environment or tier is a
computer system
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...
or set of systems in which a
computer program
A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components.
A computer progra ...
or
software component
Component-based software engineering (CBSE), also called component-based development (CBD), is a branch of software engineering that emphasizes the separation of concerns with respect to the wide-ranging functionality available throughout a give ...
is deployed and executed. In simple cases, such as developing and immediately executing a program on the same machine, there may be a single environment, but in industrial use, the ''development'' environment (where changes are originally made) and ''production'' environment (what end users use) are separated, often with several stages in between. This structured
release management
Release management is the process of managing, planning, scheduling and controlling a software build through different stages and environments; it includes testing and deploying software releases.
Relationship with processes
Organizations that ...
process allows phased deployment (rollout), testing, and rollback in case of problems.
Environments may vary significantly in size: the development environment is typically an individual developer's workstation, while the production environment may be a network of many geographically distributed machines in
data centers, or virtual machines in
cloud computing
Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over m ...
. Code, data, and configuration may be deployed in parallel, and need not connect to the corresponding tier—for example, pre-production code might connect to a production database.
Arc