What’s new in Release Management for VS 2013 Update 4?

This post announces Release Management for Visual Studio 2013 Update 4, detailing 10 key features: 1. Integration with the Release Management Service in Visual Studio Online (VSO) for cloud-based release pipelines. 2. Ability to release to Azure directly from Visual Studio using the VSO service. 3. Support for server tags in Azure and on-premises environments to streamline deployments to multiple servers and control deployment order. 4. Access to system variables (e.g., build directory, build number, stage name) within deployment scripts. 5. Configuration variables for agentless deployments to manage reusable settings like credentials. 6. Manual intervention steps within release stages for manual validation or sign-off. 7. Support for deploying from build drops stored directly on TFS servers. 8. Deployment from build drops located on shared UNC paths. 9. Usability improvements including dropdowns for servers/components and friendly action names. 10. Ability to mix Azure and standard environments within a single release path. The update also includes performance optimizations and bug fixes.