Building, Shipping & Running

Also deployment

Publishing software so it actually runs where people can use it, such as a server, the cloud or an app store.

Compile and package

Turning written source code into a finished program or package that can run.

A published version

A packaged, version-numbered edition of the software made available to users.

Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery (or Deployment)

The practice of automatically testing and shipping small code changes often and safely, instead of rare, risky launches.

The automated route to production

The specific configured sequence of automated steps a project runs (test, build, deploy). It is the machinery that puts CI/CD into practice.

Dev / Staging / Production

Separate copies of a system: development for building, staging for testing, and production ('prod') for real users.

Undo a release

Reverting to the previous working version when a new release causes problems.

A portable package

A lightweight, self-contained bundle holding an app and everything it needs, so it runs the same way on any machine with a container runtime installed.

Container tool

The best-known tool for creating and running containers, and the one that popularised the format.

Container orchestration

Software that automatically deploys, scales and manages containers across many machines. The industry standard for running containers at scale.

Development + Operations

A way of working that merges the teams who build software with those who run it, so releases are faster and more reliable.

Infrastructure as Code

Managing servers and cloud resources through code and config files rather than manual setup, so it is repeatable and less error-prone. Terraform is the best-known tool.

No servers to manage

Running code without renting or managing servers yourself; the cloud provider handles that and you pay only for what you use.

Feature toggle / switch

A runtime switch that turns functionality on or off for selected users, separating code deployment from feature release.

Operational practice

The ability to understand what a system is doing from its telemetry, especially logs, metrics and traces, so unfamiliar failures can be diagnosed.

Service Level Indicator / Objective

An SLI is a measured aspect of service quality, such as latency or error rate; an SLO is the reliability target set for that measure.

Reliability allowance

The amount of unreliability a service can tolerate while still meeting its SLO; teams use it to balance release speed against stability.

Mean Time to Recovery / Repair

The average time taken to restore a service after an incident, used to track how quickly operations recover from failures.

Production failure classification

An incident is an unplanned service disruption; severity levels such as Sev 1 or P1 express its urgency and user or business impact.

Operational duty rota

A rota that assigns someone to respond quickly to production alerts and incidents outside ordinary planned work.

Runbook / Standard Operating Procedure

A documented, repeatable set of steps for an operational task or incident, reducing guesswork, recovery time and human error.

Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Plan

DR restores technology after a serious failure; a BCP is the wider plan for keeping critical products and services operating through disruption.

Recovery Time / Recovery Point Objective

RTO is the maximum acceptable restoration delay; RPO is the maximum acceptable amount of recent data that can be lost.

Progressive deployment strategies

Canary sends a small share of users to a new version first; blue-green keeps old and new environments live so traffic can switch or roll back safely.

Pre-deployment readiness check

A set of checks run before deployment to confirm that the build, configuration, permissions, dependencies and target environment are ready, so likely failures are caught before anything goes live.