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# System prepended metadata

title: DIT Release Schedule

---

# The DIT Release Cycle
## The Sprint
The Sprint is a fixed-length iteration of work that typically lasts two weeks. During the sprint, the DIT Squad builds and tests the clearly defined set of functionality (features/fixes/enhancements/discovery) agreed upon at Sprint Planning. 

The goal is to deliver one complete increment — the value that will be delivered to customers upon completion of the Sprint.
## The Release Candidate (Alpha Testing)
The release candidate (RC) is an Alpha version with the potential to become a beta product. The RC is tested by developers on the DIT Squad and is ready to become a PRE-Release unless significant bugs emerge. 

In this stage of product stabilization, all product features have been designed, coded, and tested through one or more development cycles with no known showstopper-class bugs. 
## The PRE-Release (Beta Testing)
The PRE-Release is "open beta" to allow testers from Data MOPSIT (P+, Pluto TV, etc), to perform QA in their own Staging environments.

Open betas serve the dual purpose of demonstrating a product to our customers, and testing among a wide user base is likely to discover and report defects that a much smaller testing team might not find.

## The Release (Production)
Once beta testing is completed and signed off by our customers, the release is considered Production ready. 

In this stage, the Tracking Service is tagged and released to the Github repo. Our customers are then free to synchronize their Tealium profiles and deploy the Tracking Service Release according to their publishing schedules

## The Release Lifecycle
|Status|Stage|Environment|Timeline|
|-|-|-|-|
|In Development|Dev|Local|2 weeks|
Release Candidate|Alpha|RC Branch|1 week|
Pre-Release|Beta|Staging|1 week|
Release|Stable/Prod|Production|n/a|

## Timeline
### In Dev
DIT runs on 2 week Sprint cadences which start and end on Wednesdays. DIT will announce the next planned release at the begining of the Sprint
### Release Candidate
DIT requires 1 week testing and makes the Pre-Release available 1 week after the targeted version date on the next Wednesday
### Pre-Release
TBD Mops

# Resources
- [Software Release Lifecycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle)
- [Product Releases Scrum](https://www.aha.io/roadmapping/guide/release-management/product-manager-sprint)