Preparing for Production Deployment

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

After your team has agreed that the pilot has been successfully completed and has obtained management approval for proceeding, the next step in your deployment project is to fully deploy the system to the entire organization. During this phase, the release team deploys the core technology and site components, stabilizes the deployment, transitions the management of the project to the operations and support teams, and obtains final management approval of the project.

Before the actual deployment begins, ensure that the production deployment plan is complete. The production deployment plan contains many of the same types of documents as the pilot plan. For a discussion of pilot plan documents, see "Creating a Pilot Plan" earlier in this chapter.

Keep in mind that your production deployment plan must include a strategy for deploying the Windows Server 2003 implementation across your entire organization, and, as such, must address such issues as how to manage specific requirements for particular sites, how to train all users, and how the deployment schedule will affect work in various departments. The production deployment plan is a living document that should continually be updated to reflect changes that are made when testing of the release components and processes reveals a deficiency.

Many of the tools that your team developed for the pilot deployment also can be used for the production deployment. These include the list of tasks that must be performed to deploy Windows Server 2003, the issue resolution process your team established, and the mechanism for monitoring your system.

MSF contains information about deployment that your team might find helpful for planning your production deployment. For more information about MSF, see the "MSF Process Model" white paper, available through the Microsoft Solutions Framework link on the Web Resources page at https://www.microsoft.com/windows/reskits/webresources.