Change Management for Web Development

Monday, October 06, 2003

The purpose of CM for Web Development is to maintain a production copy of all of the code that is needed for any given application. CVS is not a Change Management tool, it’s a Versioning tool. CVS can be used to store and label versions as they are released to production. CVS is also used by the developer to maintain versions while the code is still in development. There should be two CVS repositories, one that the developers should have full access to and the production repository that developers should only have read access. When the developers are ready to move an application to production it should be placed in a staging area in preparation to be moved to the production repository. The code then should be moved into the production repository and version labeled by Technical Services.

The production version is then available for the Deployment Team to install to production web server, or for the Developer to get a new copy of the application to do maintenance or further development.

The Change Management Procedure

1) Developer will move all code needed for new version of application to the staging area.

2) Developer will send a move sheet in the form of an email to [email protected] alerting Technical Services as to:

a) Name of application

b) Billing code

c) time frame in which the move needs to be done (standard or emergency)

d) location of the code, if new staging area

e) special instructions need (deleted code, new code or code that may be affected)

f) and supply a release notification (brief description of change or application)

3) Technical Services will move code to the production repository

4) Technical services will version label new production version

5) Technical Services will send a Release notification to Deployment team.

6) Deployment Team will retrieve the current version from the production repository and do installation