Valuable release windows

A UK government department is especially well placed to make full use of all available release window s. They work in a secure financial, low risk environment, with carefully planned changes scheduled well in advance and allocated to pre-arranged release windows, which are scheduled several months apart. Because of their careful and longer term planning, when a change proves unsuitable for release, i.e. test s are failed, alternative, quality -assured changes are usually available – prepared and tested but lower in business priority and so targeted at later releases. These can be accelerated to make use of the unexpected vacancy created by the test failure. The test and build process also allows elements of later scheduled releases to be slotted in for release, or successful components of the failed release to be implemented, even though the full products is not ready. This allows subsequent fuller release to be a ‘smaller’ product, therefore allowing further additional changes to be scheduled alongside them in later release windows.

Figure 4.20 Coordinating the deployment of service components

Any significant new or changed service or service offering will require the deployment stage to consider the full range of elements comprising that service – infrastructure, hardware, software, application s, documentation, knowledge etc. Effectively this means the deployment will contain sub-deployments for elements comprising the service, as illustrated in Figure 4.20. The combination, relationship and interdependencies of these component s will require careful and considered planning. Significant deployments will be complex project s in their own right.

To understand the deployment options a high level assessment of the deployment units, locations and environment s may be required, for example:

• Assessment baseline – this is a snapshot of the relevant environment, services and infrastructure, including ‘softer’ elements such as skills level and attitudes where applicable, should be taken as a first step.
• Identify the components – this may include deciding the best way to break down a major deployment into components. Often there will be different ways of achieving this breakdown and consideration needs to be given to establishing the most appropriate method for all the identifiable circumstances, stakeholder s and possibilities.
• Determine the appropriate deployment approach for each.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-29