Nightly Releases for Installed Software

Yesterday, I wrote about establishing a software release cadence for startups. Today I want to discuss some ways in which installed software can emulate some of the good characteristics of SaaS software (including hosted or cloud software).

A big advantage of SaaS software is the ability to push updates to the customer on a rolling basis. It enables efficient on-the-fly A/B testing. Most installed software does not come with this capability, though a notable exception is Google Chrome which by default automatically updates itself on a rolling basis.

Given the nature of GPU computing software, it is impossible for us provide auto-updates to our products. So, in order to still provide rapid-fire releases, we’ve instrumented processes to provide nightly builds of our main source code branch. These nightly builds are automatically posted to a “Nightly” download page on our website.

Our Nightly Releases provide a quick mechanism for delivery of features or bug fixes to customers with pressing needs. We only share the link to it with customers that have a particular need, as most customers will be best served by the current official release.

As long as the source code is committed into the right GIT branch, our build process automatically generates full product installers, tests them on our farm of GPU machines, and uploads the nightly product to the website if all tests passed successfully.

These nightly builds have been wonderful for developing strong relationships with our customers. It shows them that we are responsive and attentive to their needs.

Does your startup get continual product releases out-the-door? How do you provide quick fixes and features to your customers?

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