Table 4-1 Operational factor and patch management strategy matrix
Patch Management | New Features | Unplanned Down Time | Impact on Core | |
Strategy |
|
| Business |
|
Restrictive | No | Unacceptable | High | No |
Conservative | No | Unacceptable | Medium | No |
Innovative | Yes | Acceptable | Low | Yes |
The process of selecting an appropriate software change management strategy seeks to align behavior with the key business objectives of the systems involved. The goals of evaluating an operation and choosing an appropriate strategy include:
•Reduced risk
•Increased system and application availability
•Reduced maintenance time
There are four operational factors that should determine your appropriate strategy:
•New features
Do you need to introduce new operating system or application features into the operating environment?
•Unplanned down time
What is your tolerance for the operation being unavailable outside the scheduled maintenance windows?
•Impact on core business
How are business functions affected by down time?
•
This is an indication of whether or not all system planning and maintenance activities are performed inhouse without vendor or
Recommendations for software change management
The following are recommendations for software change management that correspond to each software change strategy. They cover the following five areas:
•Operating System and Applications
Includes versions of the operating system as well as the applications running in the environment.
•Proactive Patching
Includes all patching activities for which no symptoms or problems are currently evident.
•Reactive Patching
Performed in response to a visible system problem.
•Change Management
Covers all processes and standards used to manage data center operations.
•Test Environment
Includes systems, software, and equipment used to support the production operations. The test environment is used to evaluate changes before they are put into production.
Table
