Everything changes after Release 1.0. The consultants leave; key developers get reassigned to new projects, and the wild and free environment of development gets replaced by change review boards and defect reports. And the public starts beating on the system. Your application needs to be ready to live in that environment--without you.

Out in the real world, your system may have to endure the huge traffic spikes of a Slashdot posting, or a sudden influx of international customers in the middle of the night, or enjoy such popularity that you can't even take it down for maintenance.

Other books on design and architecture only tell you how to meet functional requirements. They help your software pass Quality Assurance. But painful experience has shown that "feature complete" is not even close to "production ready."

With a combination of case studies and practical advice, Release It! will help you avoid the pitfalls that cost companies hundreds of thousand--sometimes millions--of dollars.

Whether it's in Java, .NET, or Ruby on Rails, getting your application ready to ship is only half the battle. Did you design your system to survivef a sudden rush of visitors from Digg or Slashdot? Or an influx of real world customers from 100 different countries? Are you ready for a world filled with flakey networks, tangled databases, and impatient users?

If you're a developer and don't want to be on call for 3AM for the rest of your life, this book will help.

In Release It!, Michael T. Nygard shows you how to design and architect your application for the harsh realities it will face. You'll learn how to design your application for maximum uptime, performance, and return on investment.

Mike explains that many problems with systems today start with the design.