Originally Posted by
FRBJeffJ Well .. Being in my 40's and having done scripting, testing, support, development, Q&A and more support for 20+ years.... I'll pass along how things work in our shop, maybe it will help inform folks who do other things for a living and question how code flows..
- Customers (in most cases financial institutions we work with/for) tell us what they'd like to see in regards to my dept's specific function/role
- We get documents drawn-up to propose said feature requests and do costs analysis and await approvals from higher-ups
- Once the higher-ups have approved of costs/tech docs, we pass it on to other depts/organization to gather forms on hardware requirements
- Info's passed on to Info-Sec people and firewall folks to gauge network/security issues/costs/etc.. Architects re-work flows ..
- Once all this is done we meet with said customers and discuss
- Once approved we contact and draw up papers to work with our vendors.
- Vendors develop code..
(Keep in mind up to now this process could have taken a couple months..)
- Vendors release a build to us.. It's their gold code.. What this means is.. they believe this will furnish our needs and wants to the best of their ability, for now, without any serious bugs or issues that might impact us or our customers.. This does not mean there won't be any further releases of same code. However, further releases are updates, fixes, sometimes a new "base" level with database migrations, new versions of WebSphere, changes to 64bit .. etc..
- We test this code, install in a development rack.. meet, agree it seems to work, and get permission to install into a QA rack that customers can also QA test on/with.
- We install in QA, customers commence testing.. Reports are given on performance, bugs, problems.. new desires/wants/etc.. Reports are considered, we determine what we send back to 3rd party vendors for more costs/planning/etc..
- We move approved code into production racks.. This is where the s**t can hit the fan if you haven't tested well ..
- Usually while installing into production servers/LPARs ..or even while still in QA systems, we'll multi-task and get new Dev code with fixes/changes to install and test..
It's a vicious circle of documentation, testing, installing, testing, reporting back, communication with various people at various sites in various states.. so getting any code at all with the speed RIM seems to be leaking out is marvel in itself I'd think .. or is it RIM at all? It must be a beta tester or employee leaking these eh?
Anyway .. just a day or week in the life of me I guess.. in regards to apps work ..
Jeff