Cost Justification for a Development/Test Environment?

[pcnelson]

How have you helped justify the costs (hardware, implementation) of creating a Development/Test Environment? Other than it just makes sense not to test changes and updates in Production, how would you convince someone in upper management to approve the expense of creating a Development/Test Environment? There are costs associated with shutting down production, but it seems self-defeating or incriminating to use as justification that we could avoid $x in downtime that I may potentially cause in testing…

[BenLoosli]

It is very tough to just the expense of the hardware for a test environment. I am lucky in that I did not have to justify the expense. When Windchill 10 was announced that it would only run on 64-bit OS, management did not hesitate to order 4 computers for the upgraded systems. I am running my production and a set of test systems in a classified environment, so I cannot get PTC support to look at these systems when I have issues. I MUST have my upgrade procedures nailed down before I get to the production servers.

I do have a set of virtual servers on the unclassified side that I use to develop my procedures on. While it is essentially an OOTB install, it still brings up issues with PTC's upgrade procedure and allows me to play and get it right for my classified systems.

I do 3 upgrades for each revision we install. By the time I get to the production system, I am very confident I have the procedure right and it will go without any problems. Anyone who tries to do Windchill with only 1 set of servers is taking a big risk.

Thank you,

Ben H. Loosli
USEC, INC.

[pcnelson]

Thanks for the input Ben. It seems a little silly to need justification for something so obvious, and when the potential damage could be so large. I'm not really sure how to quantify that damage and use it as part of the justification.

[Nitin]

I agree this is one of those several obivious scenarios which need to be backed by logical explanation for management.

Sometime managements do understand that these environments are required but need calculatios on excel sheets to be just in place.

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