10+ SAMPLE Software Deployment Plan in PDF

What Is a Software Deployment Plan?

Before defining the software deployment plan, we should know what deployment is all about first. Simply put, the term deployment, as defined in software terms, refers to the process of moving revisions or updates from one deployment environment (for example, a computer system) to another one.

A software deployment plan is a document that outlines all the goals, important timelines, and the necessary approach to be taken whenever deliverables are to be implemented. This plan should also specify who will get the deployment items, as well as who will comprise the customer base and the predicted size of that target customer base.

What Are the Advantages of Software Deployment?

Why would someone take advantage of software deployment and its services? Here are the advantages:

Software deployment saves time. Software deployment saves time since it may now take place within hours, and the installation procedure is likewise becoming more efficient. The program may be immediately implemented, and no training or learning is required. For quick software deployments, the IT personnel can make use of many installation services that are readily available.Software deployment enhances security. Software deployment enhances security by establishing permission roles to provide greater leverage over sensitive or mission-critical computer groups. This provides protection for the enterprise’s PCs. Project groups could also be safeguarded by retaining task-based permission settings in roles. Mission-critical or sensitive jobs may need the use of additional security mechanisms.Software deployment monitors user actions. With software deployment, you can simply acquire insight into user actions that are related to the product with ease. The data may be used to analyze past user activities. It verifies that everything is in order and that the apps are running normally.Software deployment ensures easy and effective software updates. Reliable updates, software activities, maintenance activities, and removal can be targeted automatically via software deployment, and PCs may be monitored for faults in real-time.

Software/Application Deployment Strategies

When software or application nears deployment or is still in the development process, strategies on how to deploy them are usually being planned already. Here are some of the strategies on how it is usually deployed. Keep in mind that these strategies are under the DevOps (a combination of software development and IT operations) methodology.

Canary Deployment – What is canary deployment? Well, it is a deployment strategy that is used for reducing the risk of putting a software update into production by gradually delivering the change to a small selection of clients before making it accessible to everyone. In this strategy, an application or a software development team’s site reliability engineer uses a gateway or load balancer to target certain routes. With the newest version of the program, they target a tiny portion of the entire user base. Once the whole new set of users has used the program, vital metrics will be gathered and examined to determine if the new version is ready to be given out to all users on a large scale or whether it has to be pulled back for additional debugging.
Blue-Green Deployment – How does this strategy work? To answer, the software reliability engineers are attempting to allow quick rollbacks at the sight of the first issue in this deployment strategy. The stable version which is now operating is referred to as a Blue Instance, while the new version that is running in tandem is referred to as a Green Instance. To make sure that deployment downtime is reduced or eliminated, both of these versions are always accessible in the production environment. In the event of system breakdown, the load balancer will immediately redirect all traffic to the Blue Instance.
Recreate Deployment – How does the recreate deployment strategy work? This type of deployment technique is simply a basic deployment approach in which the older version of the software or application should be closed down before the newer version can be deployed. This strategy means that the service will experience downtime during deployment and that a full restart cycle will be performed. This strategy avoids the usage of a load balancer and works in environments with limited equipment where application availability would not be a big concern.
Shadow Deployment – What is shadow deployment? It is a technique where the new version of the software is accessible beside the old version during the production phase, but traffic to the older version is copied or forked and directed to the new iteration for production testing. Following satisfactory traffic and load testing, the updated version is being deployed out. It is a highly complicated deployment strategy because site reliability engineers must maintain two versions during the deployment cycle to avoid duplicate requests generated by forked user traffic. Payment gateway modules require more attention because users may be charged twice for the same transaction if the engineers fail to make sure that the forked requests are null.
A/B Testing Deployment – How does this deployment strategy work? To decide whether to roll out or roll back an A/B testing deployment strategy, real-world statistical data is used. It entails redirecting a group of users to a new feature or capability under certain conditions and then collecting data on this sample of users for the purpose of comparing it with the overall average of the previous version. This technique has its merits, however, when this deployment strategy is paired with a canary deployment it can further increase dependability.

Activities of Software Deployment

Now that we’ve discussed the deployment strategies, let’s go on and discuss the activities that are involved or that are to be undertaken during software deployment:

Releasing. This activity of software deployment comes right after the completion of the development process. It includes all the operations to prepare a system for assembly and transfer to the customer site. As a result, it must calculate the resources necessary to function at the client location and gather information for carrying out following deployment process operations.Installing and activating. Activation is defined as the action or activity of starting up the executable component of the software. In the case of a basic system, activation includes establishing some type of command to be used for the execution process. In the case of complicated systems, it must make all the supporting systems available to use. The working copy of the program may be put on a production server in a production environment in bigger software deployments. Other variants of the deployed software may be installed in test, development, and disaster recovery environments.Deactivating. Deactivation is often known as the inverse process of activation and refers to the shutdown of any system components that are currently running. Deactivation is frequently necessary in order to complete additional deployment actions, for example, a software program or system may need to be deactivated before an upgrade can be made. Application retirement or application decommissioning is different from this because it refers to the practice of withdrawing seldom used or outdated systems from service.Adapting. This activity of software deployment is also known as a technique for modifying a previously installed software system or program. This process varies from updating in that adaptations are begun by local events such as altering the environment of the client location, whereas updates are often launched by the remote software producer.Updating. This activity of software deployment simply refers to the act of replacing an older variant or version of an entire or just a portion of a software system or program with a much newer edition.Built-in updating. Sometimes, some software systems include techniques for making use of built-in updates. These update procedures are automated in a variety of ways, ranging from entirely automatic to user-initiated and controlled. An example would be antivirus programs that automatically update as their database is also updated. Other software packages have different query techniques that may be used to determine whenever updates are available.Version Tracking. Version tracking systems assist users in locating and installing software updates for PCs and local networks. There are three types of version tracking systems: Web-based version tracking systems that tell the user when updates for software systems installed on a local machine are available, Local version tracking systems serve the same function since they also tell the user when updates for software systems that are installed on a local system are available (only that they do it locally within the system), and Browser-based version tracking systems which tell the user when updates for a software package are available. Uninstallation and Retirement. The opposite process of installation is uninstallation. It is defined as the elimination of a no longer necessary or required system software or system package. It also necessitates some modification of other software systems in order to eliminate the data and dependencies of the removed system. When we talk about software retirement, we mean that a software system is designated as obsolete, and support from the manufacturer is terminated. It is the end of a software product’s life cycle.

How to Write a Software Deployment Plan

Now that you know what a Software Deployment Plan is, as well as some basics of software deployment, it is now time to know how a software deployment plan is successful, through the use of an effective software deployment plan. Here are the steps in writing one:

1. Exercise Proper Documentation
It is important to keep in mind that an effective deployment plan will always encourage and ensure that everyone involved has a sufficient understanding of how the execution of the plan should occur. What does proper and thorough documentation contribute to a software deployment plan? It simply helps provide a framework or a template for progress. The documents that are compiled should include functional vs non-functional requirements, update checklists for servers and applications, and outage and catastrophe recovery strategies. A section on how to handle data redundancy, protections, and downtime restoration can also be included. More to that, you should define the right times to implement these modifications across the deployment lifecycle.
2. Define the Scope and Responsibilities
As stated earlier, an effective software development plan should outline the recipients of deployment items, including the personnel who makes up the user or customer base and the size of that user base. The IT operations teams must decide who should get progress updates inside the organization. This section of the strategy assigns each stakeholder’s role in the process and describes how critical documents will be distributed. The main takeaway of this step is that everyone in the deployment team must have a defined role, and to never deploy software while leaving its customers in the dark.
3. Set Project Schedules
The timeline of a software deployment process is not overnight. The procedure for this is lengthy, with several variables involved to keep track of. Outline unambiguous milestones in your documentation that indicate where the deployment should be at any given moment in time. Any software deployment strategy should include time estimates for initial planning, testing, monitoring, and fine-tuning, as well as other responsibilities of the management that are outlined in their scope of work.
4. Perform Multifaceted Deployments
The actual software deployment only serves to be a part of the software deployment plan. Be that as it may, it is still a very important component of the plan. IT administrators must be knowledgeable with the platforms that the program will be deployed on, as well as the appropriate operating systems, cloud providers, and supporting hardware. They should choose a host or a home site for the software download, which might be self-hosted, a public marketplace, or a native app store. A solid deployment also includes deployment testing to ensure that server and client programs are working properly and deployment monitoring.

FAQs

Are there any enterprise concerns regarding software deployment?

Yes, there are enterprise concerns since a software deployment plan has a tendency to affect the remainder of the enterprise just as drastically as the IT. Concerns include the introduction of new tools such as a third-party application because they require adequate testing. Another concern of enterprises is that runaway processes and unsolved bugs tend to wreak havoc on stability; this is especially true when numerous business apps are running concurrently. Another concern is that operating systems also update from time to time, which leads to the staff testing those updates comprehensively.

What if something breaks during the software deployment process?

If something breaks, it doesn’t necessarily mean the end. The most important thing to do is to stay calm instead of performing an immediate rollback. An immediate response can make things even worse for the software deployment process. First, you should determine if a rollback is really feasible and whether it will genuinely repair anything. Another thing you can do is to investigate whether the issue was caused by an existing or new feature. If the broken feature was not included in the current release, reverting to a previous version is unlikely to assist in the troubleshooting process.

Is a review necessary before actually deploying the software?

Yes, it is necessary. Before commencing with the actual deployment of the software, it is important to double-check the software as well as to perform a comparison between your development environment and the actual environment where the software will be actually deployed. Why is it necessary, you may ask? Well, because even after testing is completed and quality assurance procedures are performed, glitches can still appear. It is always preferable to avoid glitches at any cost since it can be a daunting task to perform a full rollback or to apply any hotfix.

The success of a software deployment procedure heavily relies on the ability to create and automate a certain number of tasks and rely on them for the sake of minimizing issues to the company’s stakeholders as well as their customers. Having a proper software deployment plan will also help in a massive way. In this article, examples of an effective software deployment plan are readily available so that you can have a reference if you need one now.

10+ SAMPLE Software Deployment Plan in PDF | MS Word

Software Deployment Plan | MS Word