Talk:Software deployment

Citation for names
The author needs to add specific references for why each step is named the way it is. For example, where did "activate" and "deactivate" come from? These do not seem to be standard names (defacto or from a standards body)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.26.123 (talk) 03:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Deinstall
I'm not sure this is only a misnomer for uninstall. Although it is much less common, I did find several sites in which it was used in a technical context, including.

Article quality
I'm not really that impressed with with the quality of this article. I think it needs to go on an improvement diet. We need concrete examples, for example a specific project, which I could supply, ANSI, ISO, OASIS standards (if any), and examples from specific architectures, like MS.NET clickonce deployment.Looking at Update, it says, considered a less complex process, when infact the opposite is true, to a great extent, updating software is a nightmare sometimes. I think is needs several categories the question is what. (scope_creep 18:46, 12 July 2006 (UTC))

Software Deployment
The reason I think article is not specific and is too generic. The first time when I read the entry I came away with the impression that deployment was a simple task. Its not. Software deployment is driven by configuration management. It should start from here.

The article at the moment is too generic, too specific to pc's, doesn't take cognizance of larger multi million pound systems, where deployment is a stage in itsef (in the plan), and is often lengthy, time consuming and difficulty, stuff like model office, deployment before testing, then post deployment, change control is briefly mentioned in version control (Which should be linked to the appropriate article), no mention of real time deployment issues, web based deployment/xcopy deployment, frameworks are show in links, but not compared or contrasted. Real world examples are few and far between. We should see Microsoft .NET/IBM J2EE deployment models, which are different, Oracle software deployment model is different again. Large scale deployment, like rolling out 3000 pcs over a weekend, what is the model/process for that (Its difficult and slow). The link between testing,testing scenarios and deployment is not shown. What about post deployment strategies and models (links to other articles). There is also no mention of deployment servers like Microsoft Systems Management Server, and Operation Manager, IBM Tivoli, HP insight integration server. How do these deploy software? scope_creep 15:38, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe that a wider understanding of the variety of software update processes will lead to the creation of more reliable mechanisms. I share some of your concerns about this article. Do our concerns overlap enough to be within the scope of an existing WikiProject, perhaps the Software project? Or one of the proposed projects? Or do our concerns rise to the level of a new separate WikipediaProject? If they are in the same project, are they candidates for separate Task Forces?


 * In any event, to be successful we will have to work as part of "a cohesive group of editors working towards a common goal." How do you propose that we proceed? * John Harvey 16:38, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Having come to this article for other purposes, I felt like there was already a conversation-in-progress. Thus, I was intrigued/distressed that very little seems to have been added in the last year concerning the overall processes of deployment.


 * I agree with scope_creep that "deployment" is indeed a very large and complex topic; many books and articles have been written about it. The key for this particular article is to decide just how much we need at this level, and create the subordinate article links.  Just taking the list of deployment-related items above and organizing them into a "list for article expansion" would be a great start.


 * The WikipediaProject Computing Project is the page set where we should manage these articles, along with others. Having looked over the Software project, it's my opinion that "Software Deployment" is not in that category, but is properly a subcat under Software Engineering.  GuiderBob (talk) 18:33, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Migration
One of the very important aspect of Software deployment is to provide and plan for a migration path from existing software to the software taht is being deployed.

Follwing are the few things important during deployment:
 * Understanding the operations and process that is being followed.
 * Configuring the software being deployed
 * To either align with the Operations/processes that are being followed currently at deployment site.
 * Or Identify the changes in operations/processes and get users buy in.
 * Writing tools/scripts/applications to migrate the exisitng data of the users to the new product.

I will further write more on this.

--Nigoyal 10:30, 18 February 2007 (UTC) Nitin Goyal

Update
One of my concerns is how various update processes both built-in and version tracking systems have been implemented. After some serious browsing of several wikipedia articles, I have come to the conclusion that the Update section belongs in this article. If anyone feels that it would fit better elsewhere, let me know.

Also, I agree that the rest of the article could be improved. :-) Because of my particular interest in the update process, I've tilted the article toward that section. Maybe someone can help by making the article more evenhanded.

John Harvey 18:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

deployment vs installation
Thinking that "deployment" was little more than a pompous synonym (pentagonese?) for "installation", I made this edit to Windows 2000. The next edit corrected (?) my mistake, with a firm nudge to look at this article in order to understand the difference between the two terms.

I've looked at the article and I still don't understand the difference, at least in the context of Win2K. Companies wanted it, ordered it, got it (in one physical form or another), backed up their existing files, installed it (with or without command line options etc.), put their own software on top of it, etc., wrote the files back on top, etc. To me, that all sounds like installation (in the broader sense). Of course it's a major headache for a company and I don't want to belittle the efforts of the people in the IT centers, but I also don't see how calling it "deployment" is more precise or informative, and when I look at this article I still don't see this. What am I missing? (Or perhaps: What is this article missing?) Morenoodles (talk) 08:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I suggest that "deployment" refers to the overall distribution process, whereas "installation" refers to the emplacement on a specific machine or group. On this basis, deployment is clearer when discussing the process, and installation should refer to the more specific.  Going further, consider deployment of Win2k to 2000+ machines, with several different configuration mixes, versus installation of Win2k on the Customer Service Group's machines, which all have the same configuration.  Hope that gives an alternative light on the matter.  GuiderBob (talk) 16:53, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

This definition is too broad
According to ITIL, deployment is a subset of release, ie, the last activity of a release cycle. ITIL isn't the only resource on the subject, but it is a standard, and I believe other standards in this space use Release to describe the broad set of activities, and a deployment would be a narrow set of activities, usually happening within a few hours on the same day.

A release includes the whole life cycle from deciding what to do through production validation. A deployment is all the activity that takes the built solution from a package repository to running in an environment. (not limited to prod.) Deployment includes transferring the package to the target environment, running installation scripts, and monitoring the environment for stability. An installation is just the act of taking a software package and running the install script, and doesn't usually include the transferring of the package or necessarily the validation or monitoring of the install.

I'll try to get more sources later to proove this, but this article is off. http://www.itlibrary.org/index.php?page=Release_Management —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.193.93.3 (talk) 16:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Distribution
Software deployment == software distribution? --Abdull (talk) 10:39, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Disambiguation?
What might many entities (companies, organisations, etc.) do: make SW (suites) available to the (end-)user ... maybe like an office suite, a whole os, or maybe just a reader (e.g. adobe) or so (you don't (re)code/program all that stuff yourself all the time, do you?)? So what is this process called? "Software distribution"? Although in my view that term would only apply to distributing the sw -> (maybe copying and ... ) running the installer. All other stuff that is done beforehand in the software configuration management (documenting the desired configuration; deliver THE sw (e.g. JRE, ... : bin(s), conf doc(s)) to the packaging dep., so they can package it into the desired conf; etc.) I wouldn't really call it "distribution". It's true, one [... iteration?] is a "release" of the software, but for the whole, I wouldn't call it "release", would you?

So would it be possible to call that thing "software deployment" (as much for the whole: all the software deployed in e.g. a company, as also just (post) deploying a pictures app or so) sliced in "releases" (updates and upgrades etc.), at which end is the actual "distribution" of the sw? Or is there another better term? And if you propose "distribution" or "release", please explain me, why any of them would be better than "deployment"? --Alien4 (talk) 14:26, 25 February 2014 (UTC)