In today’s world of “we need to automate everything we can” we hear a lot of questions about the difference in app configuration management vs. app release management tools. We understand the confusion between these related but different concepts and at Orca, we love to simplify things. So here goes…
Application Release Management is limited in scope
First, when talking about app release there is a small reference to “config file management” because the release management tool is only doing one thing around configuration management — namely app config file release. Once the app is sent out to the target the configuration is no longer managed by your release tool. The configuration is typically monitored at the most from the app performance level – but not down to the configuration setting. So when and if the config settings get changed, regardless of the reason, it may break the app and no one will know why because no one can see that level of granularity with release management tools. Release management tools do just that. They release. They do not auto-remediate.
App-centric Configuration Management
Orca does a couple of clever things to really improve the work life of a Configuration Manager.
First and foremost, Orca manages dynamic configuration sources. It can work with a configuration setting that can only be retrieved or changed via an API call into a specified service. An example would be changing a setting in IIS. Some of the settings can only be managed via interactive API. Orca is purpose-built to A) find and B) unambiguously display that “needle in a haystack” that engineers need when dealing with changed configs.
No one likes to be “that guy” searching through logs and spreadsheets to figure out which line of code was fat-fingered or what setting was changed where.
Configuration Normalization Engine
That is not a rewarding way to spend your time. You deserve a normalized version of your configurations in a human friendly format. where all of your configurations are conveniently stored in an accessible, centralized location.
Using a Release Management system to detect drift?
Secondly, it is important to note configuration management systems need to be able to do actual drift detection and true auto remediation. Many release tools claim to detect drift but they do NOT compare to a Reference Point in Time, or to your Gold Standard, or your Most Frequently Occurring Configuration. True drift detection requires at least one of these methods. Orca uses all three if you like.
Most companies want to define configuration drift in different ways but release tools do not present the option to apply those compliance rules. (To read more about Orca’s application of compliance rules click here.) They also do not do true auto remediation to set the configuration to the expected state. Release tools have limitations as to what they can change in an app configuration. Beyond just the release process, a true application configuration system manages the app-centric properties of the application and middleware configs as well as the relationships between applications systems.
Wrong tool for the job
It comes down to your needs…
If you need app release management, get a release management tool. If instead you need the drift detection, granular reporting and true auto remediation that comes from full, life cycle application configuration management tool, get Orca.