Hi Dave,

  We do not have a formal change management process yet.  It is certainly on our list to try and implement though.  A component of that is definitely not having staff to be strictly operational.  We are also using Hudson (http://hudson-ci.org/) as a continuous integration server for automated build and deployment.  It is a very powerful tool similiar to CruiseControl that goes a little farther by allowing you to run a Hudson node within your deployment environment in order to deploy locally in a pretty secure manner.  You just have to be more disciplined about who can deploy things within the people that have access to Hudson itself.

Thanks,
Rick
--
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Rick Johnson
Systems Analyst Manager, Digital Library Applications and Local Programming Unit
Library Information Systems
University of Notre Dame
Michiana Academic Library Consortium
Notre Dame, IN USA 46556
http://www.library.nd.edu
574-631-1086
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________________________________________
From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Walker, David [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2010 11:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] change management system

Thanks to everyone who responded.  The comments have been very helpful!

Is anyone using RT? [1]

Also, I'm curious how many academic libraries are following a formal change management process?

By that, I mean: Do you maintain a strict separation between developers and operations staff (the people who put the changes into production)?  And do you have something like a Change Advisory Board that reviews changes before they can be put into production?

Just as background to these questions:

We've been asked to come-up with a change management procedure/system for a variety of academic technology groups here that have not previously had such (at least nothing formal).  But find the process that the "business" (i.e., PeopleSoft ) folks here follow to be a bit too elaborate for our purposes.  They use Remedy.

--Dave

[1] http://bestpractical.com/rt

==================
David Walker
Library Web Services Manager
California State University
http://xerxes.calstate.edu
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From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mark A. Matienzo [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2010 5:47 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] change management system

I'm inclined to say that any sort of tracking software could be used
for this - it's mostly an issue of creating sticking with policy
decisions about what the various workflow states are, how things
become triaged, etc. I believe if you define that up front, you could
find Trac or any other tracking/issue system adaptable to what you
want to do.

Mark A. Matienzo
Digital Archivist, Manuscripts and Archives
Yale University Library