© 2006 Jupitermedia Corporation Webcast TitleSuccessful Rollout Planning 1 January 19, 2006 2:00pm EST, 11:00am PST George Spafford, President Spafford.

1© 2006 Jupitermedia Corporation

Webcast TitleSuccessful Rollout Planning

Successful Rollout Planning

January 19, 20062:00pm EST, 11:00am PST

George Spafford, PresidentSpafford Global Consulting



Housekeeping

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Main Presentation



Copyright Notices

• ITIL® is a registered trademark of the UK Office of Government Commerce.

• Visible Ops is the trademark of the IT Process Institute (http://www.itpi.org)

• This webcast is the property of Spafford Global Consulting, Inc.

• All other trademarks and company names are the property of their respective owners.

• A copy of these slides can be emailed to you for personal reference use. Please contact [email protected]



Agenda

• Release Management Overview• Release Policy• Release Planning• Rollout Planning• Back-out Planning• Rollout Checklist



Release Management Overview

• Tasked with planning, designing, building, configuration and testing of releases.

• “The focus of Release Management is the protection of the live environment and its services through the use of formal procedures and checks.” – ITIL Service Support

• Release management spans development, test and production.

ProductionEnvironment

Test Environment

Development Environment

Release Management



Overview - What is a Release?

• A collection of authorized changes to an IT service.

• Can contain new and revised hardware and software in three categories – Major, Minor and Emergency

• Release Unit – describes the IT infrastructure portion that is released together.



Overview – Types of Releases

• Full – This is a complete set of hardware and/or software.– Example: Windows XP or Windows Server 2003

• Delta – Contains only the configuration items that changed. – Example: Service packs are typically delta releases.

• Package – Is a formal combination of full and delta releases. – Example: Windows XP and Service Pack 2.



Overview - Release Management Dependencies

• Change Management Is the set of standardized processes and tools used to handle change requests in order to support the business while managing risks.

• Configuration ManagementFocuses on tracking and documenting configurations and then providing this information to other areas including Change and Release Management.

The three process areas must work together and share information.



Overview – Detective Control Benefits

• To plan releases necessitates accurate knowledge of the current production builds

• An automated tool that can detect all changes within scope can– Ensure production matches the last known good build– Confirm that production and preproduction match– Reduce circumvention of the change process– Drive cultural change as the processes can’t be readily

bypassed



Release Policy

• Defines the release management control process• Establishes roles and responsibilities• The release numbering scheme• Frequency of releases• The level of infrastructure detail that will have

releases• Release deliverables• Release documentation• Requirements and testing of back-out plans• Configuration and acceptance criteria for the

Definitive Software Library (DSL)



Release Planning

• Define release contents• High-level scheduling and distribution• Conduct Site Surveys• Resource requirements• Establishing roles and responsibilities• Negotiating with vendors for hardware, software

and professional services• Development of back-out plans• Support planning



Rollout Planning

• Gets into the details of the rollout• Development of a detailed project plan / schedule• List of all affected CIs and the plan for installation

or removal of each• Development of a detailed action plan by site

taking into consideration potential differences at each.

• Stakeholder communication plan• Acquisition of required hardware and software• Schedule related meetings



Back-out Planning

• Releases can and will fail• Change Management determines how to back out (rollback)

each change• Release Management ensures that the individual back out

plans will operate together in order to back out the release• Two approaches

– Complete roll back to the previous state

– Partial rollback when a complete rollback is not practical

• Back out plans must be reviewed and, when possible, tested



Rollout Checklist - 1

• Appendix 9A of the ITIL Service Support volume has a thorough list.

• The following are example questions and each organization needs to develop their own checklist based on their needs:

• Is there sufficient budget to support the release?• Have the necessary request for quotes been processed and

authorized?• Have training requirements been reviewed for end users,

support staff, release management and operations?• Has technical support for the rollout been established?• Have software licensing issues been addressed including

obtaining license keys, establishing online validation measures, passwords, dongles, and so on?



Rollout Checklist - 2

• Have capacity requirements been addressed? (processing, storage, network, etc.)

• Has operations performed, or are they scheduled to perform, their acceptance testing?

• What are the success criteria for implementation?• Are any conflicting changes planned?• What is the back-out plan? Has it been reviewed and

tested?• Has the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) been updated?• Has the relevant documentation been created or updated?



The Goal

• To introduce changes into the production environment

• To manage risks to a level that is acceptance to management

• To balance risks and costs



Process References

• For a definitive reference, see ITIL’s Service Support Volumehttp://www.ogc.gov.uk/index.asp?id=2261

• Microsoft’s Operations Framework – Service Management Functionshttp://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/cits/mo/smf

• British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA)http://www.becta.org.uk/tsas

• IT Process Institute’s Visible Ops Methodologyhttp://www.itpi.org


Webcast TitleSuccessful Rollout Planning

Thank you!

George Spafford

[email protected]

http://www.spaffordconsulting.com

Daily News Archive http://www.spaffordconsulting.com/dailynews.html



Questions?



Thank you for attendingIf you have any further questions, e-mail

[email protected]

© 2006 Jupitermedia Corporation Webcast TitleSuccessful Rollout Planning 1 January 19, 2006 2:00pm EST, 11:00am PST George Spafford, President Spafford.

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