ThoughtWorks' 'Go' To Replace 'Cruise'

SAN FRANCISCO and BANGALORE, July 20, 2010 — ThoughtWorks Studios, a global leader in Agile ALM solutions, today announced Go™, a new Agile release management platform that allows organizations to incrementally automate the entire build, test and deployment process and release software faster and more reliably. Go enables Continuous Delivery, making it possible for enterprises to move from a world where software releases are governed by operational constraints to a world where they can release according to their business needs. Pioneered by ThoughtWorks as a key element of large-scale Agile adoption, Continuous Delivery combines automation and engineering rigor with a heavy emphasis on collaboration to break down the prevalent organizational silos that segregate development, QA and IT operations.

“For many enterprises, software increasingly plays a critical role in creating a competitive advantage and building and maintaining value-added customer relationships. As an industry, Agile practices have had a major impact on our ability to create software faster to keep pace with business needs,” said Cyndi Mitchell, managing director of ThoughtWorks Studios. “But many organizations still spend several weeks, and often months, putting software live in production – long after it’s been declared ‘ready’ by the business. As Agile and ALM come together, Continuous Delivery and Go enable a next-generation Agile approach that delivers rapid and reliable releases as and when the business needs them.”

Go is the upgrade path for ThoughtWorks Studios’ continuous integration solution, Cruise. It joins Mingle (Agile project management) and Twist (Agile testing) to form ThoughtWorks Studios Adaptive ALM™, the only holistic end-to-end solution built from the ground up to serve as a single platform for all aspects of the Agile software development and delivery lifecycle. It integrates requirements analysis, project and program management, test automation, quality assurance, and build and release management to achieve Continuous Delivery. Adaptive ALM is designed to be flexible to adapt to unique customer requirements while providing the structure needed to adopt Agile enterprise-wide and throughout the entire application delivery lifecycle.

As outlined in the upcoming book, Continuous Delivery (Addison-Wesley, Martin Fowler Signature Series, Jez Humble and Dave Farley), delivering software to users can be a painful, risky and time-consuming process. Continuous Delivery outlines the principles and technical practices that enable rapid, incremental delivery of high quality, valuable new functionality through the automation of the build, deployment and testing process. As a build and release principal for ThoughtWorks Studios, and product manager for Go, Humble has guided the technical vision behind Go to ensure it enables Continuous Delivery and fosters an environment where ideas can be turned into released software rapidly, regardless of the size or complexity of the project.

Go helps drive Continuous Delivery by providing organizations with a standard platform to automate, manage and control the entire build, deploy and release processes. It is a single system of record for managing and tracing each application’s lifecycle from check-in to release, thus providing visibility into the production readiness of the entire software portfolio. The result is automated releases that are rapid and reliable and can be self-serviced at the push of a button.

Unique features of Go that enable Continuous Delivery include:

Environments – this first-of-its-kind capability lets organizations see what version of each application is in each environment, audit back to the source, and perform one-click deployments of any version of software.

Parallel Test Intelligence – speeds up tests by running them in parallel on a grid. Go’s unique test intelligence lets organizations see exactly which tests broke, which check-in broke them, and who was responsible, even when they are run across a grid.

New UI for the DevOps world – enables easy centralized management of large numbers of projects and machines for both developers and IT operations.

Templates – allows for managing large numbers of projects within an Agile ALM environment. Templates allow organizations to manage branches and define re-usable workflow.
“Go uniquely addresses the needs of development and IT operations teams to have a common, integrated platform to manage their entire development, testing and release lifecycle,” explained Humble, product manager of Go. “Go fills a crucial gap in many Agile implementations – providing the automation, collaboration and compliance capabilities to break down operational silos and turn software releases into frequent, reliable, non-events.”

Go Availability

Go is available now as part of the Adaptive ALM platform from ThoughtWorks Studios. The Go Community edition is available as a free download directly from the ThoughtWorks Studios website, while the full-version, commercial Go Enterprise is available via license. For product, download and pricing information please visit: (#-Link-Snipped-#).

About ThoughtWorks Studios:

ThoughtWorks Studios is the global leader in Agile ALM tools and training. A division of ThoughtWorks®, the pioneer in Agile development and best-practices, it offers the only holistic, fully integrated set of lifecycle tools designed exclusively for sustainable, enterprise-wide Agile ALM success. Based on ThoughtWorks ground-breaking experience and commitment to software excellence, Adaptive ALM™ helps organizations manage all aspects of the software development lifecycle – from requirements definition and portfolio management to test automation, quality assurance and release management. The company also provides in-depth training courses that cover all facets of Agile ALM through its Agile Workshops series. Customers include 3M, Barclays, BBC, eBay, Honeywell, McGraw-Hill, and Rackspace. ThoughtWorks Studios is headquartered in San Francisco and Bangalore, with offices in London and select cities in Europe, Asia and Australia. For more information, please visit #-Link-Snipped-#.