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Microsoft Completes Purchase of InRelease, Incorporates it into Visual Studio 2013
InRelease automates TFS deployment across multiple environments.
Microsoft has closed the deal to buy InRelease, and already integrated its automated deployment abilities into the preview version of Visual Studio 2013.
The acquisition of InRelease was announced by Microsoft Technical Fellow Brian Harry at last month's TechEd conference. Harry wrote on his blog today that the purchase closed "about a week ago."
Harry noted that the product isn't fully ready yet, including branding, but it's far enough along to include in VS 2013. He called the product "Release Management," perhaps hinting at the official future name.
InRelease, from the company InCycle, is currently in version 3. It's meant to integrate with Team Foundation Server (TFS), the developer collaboration software built into Visual Studio. According to InCycle, InRelease serves four primary functions:
- Automates deployments directly from TFS to all environments, including production
- Ensures that all deployments are done the same way, removing release-related risks
- Automates the approval workflow, minimizing delays and coordination issues
- Automates support compliance
Microsoft didn't buy InCycle as a whole, but just the business unit of InRelease. At the time the agreement was announced in June, S. Somasegar, Microsoft's corporate vice president of the Developer Division, stated in a press release that "The InRelease continuous delivery solution will automate the development-to-production release process from Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, helping enable faster and simpler delivery of applications."
In a blog entry today, Somasegar said that when Visual Studio 2013 ships later this year, InRelease will be available as part of Visual Studio Test Professional, Visual Studio Premium and Visual Studio Ultimate.
About the Author
Keith Ward is the editor in chief of Virtualization & Cloud Review. Follow him on Twitter @VirtReviewKeith.