January 10, 2022 26 min read

ITIL ITIL4 Practice Guides

Deployment Management: ITIL 4

Practice Guide
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This document provides practical guidance for the deployment management practice.

Table of Contents
1. About this document

2. General information

3. Value Streams and processes

4. Organizations and people

5. Information and technology

6. Partners and suppliers

7. Important reminder
8. Acknowledgements

1. About this document

It is split into five main sections, covering:

general information about the practice

the practice’s processes and activities and their roles in the service value chain

the organizations and people involved in the practice

the information and technology supporting the practice

considerations for partners and suppliers for the practice.

1.1 ITIL® 4 QUALIFICATION SCHEME

Selected content of this document is examinable as a part of the following syllabus:

ITIL Specialist: Create, deliver and support

ITIL Specialist: High Velocity IT

Please refer to the syllabus documents for details.

2. General information

2.1 PURPOSE AND DESCRIPTION

Key message

The purpose of the deployment management practice is to move new or changed

hardware, software, documentation, processes, or any other component to live
 environments. It may also be involved in deploying components to other environments
for testing or staging.

The deployment management practice is responsible for moving a service or service

component into a designated environment. This practice enables the deployment or
removal of service components from or to different environments, including
development, integration, live, production, test, or staging environments.

The practice is usually applied to digital and physical IT components, including software,
hardware, documentation, licences, and data, within the agreed scope of environments
controlled by the organization.

2.2 TERMS AND CONCEPTS

2.2.1 Environments
The deployment management practice enables the move of products, services, and
service components between the environments.

Definition: Environment

A subset of the IT infrastructure that is used for a particular purpose.

A service component’s lifecycle may vary depending on its type and the sourcing
approach. The number and purpose of controlled environments within the organization
may also vary. Table 2.1 provides a list of example environments for an organization that
develops software.

Table 2.1 List of example environments for an

organization that develops software

Environment Purpose
 Development/Integration Developing and integrating software

Test Testing service components

Staging Testing releases including products, services and other

configuration items

Live/Production Delivering IT services to service consumers

For products and components sourced outside the organization, development

environments can be out of the organization’s control. For products and services
delivered to service consumers outside of the organization, control over the live
environment can be limited. Other variations are possible.

2.2.2 Continuous integration, continuous delivery, and

continuous deployment (CI/CD)
The key concepts for deployment in Agile and DevOps are:

Continuous integration Integrating, building, and testing code within the software
development environment.

Continuous delivery Continuous delivery means that built software can be released
to production at any time. Frequent deployments are possible, but deployment
decisions are taken case by case, usually because organizations prefer a slower rate
of deployment.

Continuous deployment Changes go through the pipeline and are automatically

put into the

production environment, enabling multiple production deployments per day.

Continuous deployment relies on continuous delivery.

These approaches are supported by the software development and management,

service validation and testing, deployment management, infrastructure and platform
management, and release management practices. These practices involve specific skills,
processes, procedures, automation tools, and agreements with third parties. They enable
the continuous pipeline for integration, delivery, and deployment. This would also affect
the design of other practices, such as service configuration management, monitoring
and event management, incident management, and others.

2.3 SCOPE
The scope of the deployment management practice includes:

the effective move of products, services, and service components between

controlled environments, such as the development, live, test, and staging
environments.

the effective removal of products, services, and service components from designated
environments.

These additions, modifications, and removals can be part of authorized changes/releases

triggered by:

new/changed service requirements

new features/releases

technical and operational changes

third-party change requirements

service retirements and removals

support/troubleshooting

service requests.

Several activities and areas of responsibility are not included in the deployment
management practice, although hey are still closely related to deployment. These are
listed in Table 2.2, along with references to the practices in which they can be found. It is
important to remember that ITIL practices are merely collections of tools to use in the
context of value streams; they should be combined as necessary, depending on the
situation.
Table 2.2 Deployment-related activities described in
other practice guides

Activity Practice guide

Authorizing changes/releases Change enablement

Making services and components in the live Release management

environment available to users

Developing software Software development and

management

Developing and building infrastructure components Infrastructure and platform

Preparing and maintaining target environments for management
deployments

Providing IT assets to be deployed IT asset management

Maintaining authorized repositories of service
components

Testing and validating services and service Service validation and testing
components

Naming, versioning, and controlling the service Service configuration

components management

2.4 PRACTICE SUCCESS FACTORS

Definition: Practice success factor

 A complex functional component of a practice that is required for the practice to fulfil
its purpose.

A PSF is more than a task or activity, as it includes components of all four dimensions of
service management. The nature of the activities and resources of PSFs within a practice
may differ, but together they ensure that the practice is effective.

The deployment management practice includes the following PSFs:

establishing and maintaining effective approaches to the deployment of services

and service components across the organization

ensuring the effective deployment of services and service components in the

context of the organization’s value streams.

2.4.1 Establishing and maintaining effective approaches

to the deployment of services and service components
across the organization
The deployment management practice includes defining and agreeing a model or
several models to use when deploying products, services, and components. These
models may use one deployment approach or combine deployment approaches,
depending on their specific services and requirements and the sizes, types, and impacts
of the service components that are being deployed.

Models can be defined for deploying services or service components of similar types.
Such deployment models could be defined based on several factors, including:

automation considerations

costs/resource limitations

expected frequency of the deployments

rate of customer requirements change

rate of technology change

 risks of components flaws

source of the components

user adoption behaviours and preferences

visibility of the technology change to service consumers

Based on these and other relevant considerations, organizations define a set of models
for the deployment of different service components. These models may describe
different solutions in all four dimensions of service management. Table 2.3 outlines some
example models.

Table 2.3 Example models for the deployment of

different service components.

Deployment Organizations Information and Value streams Partners and

model and people technology and processes suppliers
applicability

Hardware A service A range of tools An installation Third-party

components provider should can be used to order can be shipping,
of services arrange a automate the triggered by delivery, and
provided to delivery team procurement, new or installation
external for the invoicing, user changed value service
service transportation communication, streams that providers can
consumers and installation and scheduling include clear be employed,
of the of the installation authorizations as agreed
components of to procure and between the
hardware install new parties
hardware

Hardware According to Vendor Vendor Third-party

components the delivery catalogues may activities, such shipping,
of services and installation be used for as invoicing and delivery, and
obtained clause in the ordering the shipping, installation
from a vendor components, as should be service
vendor contract, the well as to store accounted for providers can
responsibilities and provide up- during the be employed,
 for obtaining to-date value stream as agreed
hardware and installation design; between the
ensuring its manuals. A interfaces parties
correct configuration between
installation management parties need to
should be tool should be be founded in
clearly defined populated with the contracts
documentation
supplied with the
hardware,
including records
and documents,
such as warranty
certificates,
maintenance
schedules, and so
on

Software The service An automated Service Partners can

components provider can deployment providers can be engaged in
of services have staff toolset is utilized implement deployment,
provided to perform to make software additional such as
external roadshows to available for use controls before additional
service service or ordering a component is bespoke
consumers consumers to deployed, such testing of the
promote new as quality software
software assurances, made
components security, or available by
and facilitate commercial; is the vendor
change is crucial to prior to its
awareness account for deployment to
such controls the consumer
in-partially or environment.
fully-automated
deployment
pipelines

Software DevOps teams The continual Service provider Third parties

components are likely to integration and organizations can action
of services perform the continual have to some steps of
developed in deployment of deployment establish the
house software pipeline toolset organizational deployment
can be used to controls over model; for
deploy software the course of example,
 to a controlled deployment, manual
environment ensuring that environment
controls are not configuration
excessive activities

Deployment models also define the flow of deployment through controlled

environments, responsibilities of the involved parties, triggers for deployment, and
interactions with other practices’ activities in the context of value streams.

These models may be flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances, such as the
scale, urgency, or complexity of the deployment.

Deployment models, and the deployment management practice in general, should be a

subject to continual improvement with an aim to eliminate waste and increase
effectiveness and efficiency.

2.4.2 Ensuring the effective deployment of services and

service components in the context of the organization’s
value streams
Ensuring effective deployment requires orchestrating resources in all four dimensions of
service management.

The effectiveness and efficiency of the deployment is significantly dependent on, and
can be considerably impacted by, the availability of the relevant resources, skills,
technology, tools and infrastructure. The effective use of technology and automation in
deployment can improve the consistency, agility, and efficiency of the practice.

For changes/releases to be successful, it is crucial that the changed/released service’s or

service component’s integrity is maintained throughout the move process. Any
unauthorized change through manual, process, or technology errors can negatively
impact the objectives and outcomes of the changes and releases, often significantly
impacting the organization.

The success of service moves depends on the effective and efficient management of
changes and releases, which in turn depends on timely deployments that align with
requirements and objectives. Alignment of the deployment to the change and release
requirements, as well as key aspects such as schedule and cost, must be managed
effectively.

2.5 KEY METRICS

The effectiveness and performance of the ITIL practices should be assessed within the
context of the value streams to which each practice contributes. As with the performance
of any tool, the practice’s performance can only be assessed within the context of its
application. However, tools can differ greatly in design and quality, and these differences
define a tool’s potential or capability to be effective when used according to its purpose.
Further guidance on metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs), and other techniques
that can help with this can be found in the measurement and reporting practice guide.

Key metrics for deployment management practice are mapped to its PSFs. They can be
used as KPIs in the context of value streams to assess the contribution of deployment
management to the effectiveness and efficiency of those value streams. Some examples
of key metrics are given in Table 2.4.

Table 2.4 Examples of metrics for the practice success

factors

Practice success factors Key metrics

Establishing and maintaining effective

approaches to the deployment of
Level of stakeholders’ satisfaction with
services and service components
the rate of change of products and
across the organization
services supported by deployments

Rate of adoption of the agreed approach

to deployment across the organization

Level of key partners’ and service

consumers’ alignment with deployment
approaches

Number of audit findings and external

compliance issues caused by
deployments

Ensuring effective deployment of

services and service components in the
Level of stakeholders’ satisfaction with
 context of the organization’s value lead time to deploy
streams
Percentage of successful
deployments/number of deployment
errors/failures

Number/percentage of incidents related

to deployments

Timeliness/adherence to deployments
schedule

Deployment backlog throughput

Level of stakeholders’ satisfaction with

quality of deployments

The correct aggregation of metrics into complex indicators will make it easier to use the
data for the ongoing management of value streams, and for the periodic assessment and
continual improvement of the deployment management practice. There is no single best
solution. Metrics will be based on the overall service strategy and priorities of an
organization, as well as on the goals of the value streams to which the practice
contributes.

3. Value Streams and processes

3.1 VALUE STREAM CONTRIBUTION

Like any other ITIL management practice, the deployment management practice
contributes to multiple value streams. It is important to remember that a value stream is
never formed from a single practice. The deployment management practice combines
with other practices to provide high-quality services to consumers. The main value chain
activities to which the practice contributes are:

Obtain and build

Design and transition

The contribution of the deployment management practice to the service value chain is
shown in Figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1 Heat map of the contribution of the

deployment management practice to value chain
activities
3.2 PROCESSES
Each practice may include one or more processes and activities that may be necessary to
fulfil the purpose of that practice.

Definition: Process

A set of interrelated or interacting activities that transform inputs into outputs. A

process takes one or more defined outputs and turns them into defined outputs.
Processes define the sequence of actions and their dependencies.
Deployment management activities form two processes:

deployment

deployment models development and review.

3.2.1 Deployment process

This process includes the activities listed in Table 3.1 and transforms the inputs into
outputs.

Table 3.1 Inputs, activities, and outputs of the

deployment process

Key inputs Activities Key outputs

Deployment requirements Deployment Deployed service

and expectations planning components/releases
Environment details Verification of the Deployment records Deployment
Service component/release service communications
components components Feedback and inputs to change
Hardware and software Verification of the enablement, release
components from the target management, service validation
authorized repositories of environments and testing, project management,
ITAM and definitive media Deployment etc.
library execution Updates to onboarding
Acceptance criteria Deployment procedures,
verification customer knowledge base,
service desk data
Figure 3.2 shows a workflow diagram of the process.
In an Agile or DevOps environment that has adopted a CI/CD framework, many of these
activities will be performed in an automated fashion, without manual intervention.

Table 3.3 provides examples of the process activities.

Table 3.3 Activities of the deployment process

Activity Manual deployment to a datacenter Automated deployment of

a software component

Deployment After a trigger from deployment Deployments in automated

planning (often procurement or the change pipelines are triggered by
request initiator), the service provider committing all of the
will schedule the shipping, delivering, necessary pieces of code to
verification, storing, and installation of a branch of the
hardware components. This schedule development version
will align with the priorities of other control system that will
work units for the affected teams and contain software features
other resources. that are prepared for
deployment.

Verification of Upon receiving delivered The code in the appointed

the service components, the service provider branch is deployed onto a
components checks the completeness of the suitable test environment,
inventory, including the
 documentation, and conducts basic tested, and any issues are
quality checks before accepting the fixed directly in the branch.
delivery. The ‘deploy, test, fix,
redeploy, retest’ cycle
continues until a pre- set
quality threshold of
automated
tests is met.

Verification of The item is delivered to the For an Infrastructure as a

the target installation location, where it is Code solutions, the
environments installed with an aim of causing configuration of a virtual
minimal disruption to the service environment in which the
users. The installation location should software should be run also
have sufficient power, back-up power, follows an automated
air- conditioning, and fire protection pipeline and is deployed to
arrangements. It may be necessary to the virtual resources
include target environment checks in alongside the software code.
the deployment
plan.

Deployment The service provider or an external Deployment to an

execution supplier staff installs and activates the environment is automated,
equipment according to the but can include additional
installation instructions, which may human interaction steps
include intermediate checks. before the actual
deployment to account for
business, security, or other
non-automated types of
verification.

Deployment After the item has been installed, a The version control system
verification series of tests is performed to confirm sends notifications to the
the equipment is functioning. change requestor, such as a
The staff performing the installation product owner, when the
notifies those who triggered the deployment is complete.
deployment of the deployment
results.

3.2.2 Deployment models development and review

process
This process focuses on the continual improvement of the deployment management
practice, deployment models, and deployment procedures. It is either performed
regularly or triggered by deployment failures which highlight inefficiencies and other
improvement opportunities. Regular reviews may occur every three months or more
frequently, depending on the effectiveness of the existing models and procedures.

This process includes the activities listed in Table 3.4 and transforms the inputs into
outputs:

Table 3.4 Inputs, activities, and outputs of the

deployment models development and review process

Key inputs Activities Key outputs

Current deployment Deployment model Updated deployment

models and planning models and procedures
procedures
Deployment model Deployment models and
Deployment records implementation procedures update
communications
Deployment failure Deployment model
reports testing Change requests

Policies and
regulatory
requirements

Release information

Figure 3.3 shows a workflow diagram of the process.

Figure 3.3 Workflow of the deployment models
development and review process
Table 3.5 provides examples of the process activities.

Table 3.5 Activities of the deployment models

development and review process

Activity Description

Deployment model When a product follows a similar low-risk, high-success-rate

planning deployment pattern and there are means to eliminate waste and
reduce deployment lead times, the deployment manager may
choose to define a new deployment model. The deployment
model should reduce the human
involvement and control over the deployment.

Deployment model The deployment manager arranges for appropriate pipeline tools
implementation to be configured to support the new model, such as access
settings, code support, or branching procedures. Alternatively, if
automated deployment tools are not applicable, the deployment
manager establishes and communicates
adequate guidelines to the teams and parties involved.

Deployment model The deployment manager tests the new deployment model to
testing ensure proper edge-case handling and workflow. Where testing
is impossible, the deployment manager oversees the first of the
model’s live runs.
 Deployments The deployment manager, together with service owners and
review and other relevant stakeholders, performs a review of selected
deployment failure deployments or deployment failures. They identify opportunities
records analysis for the optimization of deployment
models and deployment procedures.

Deployment model The deployment manager registers the improvement initiatives

improvement to be processed with the involvement of the continual
initiation improvement practice, or initiates a change request, if the
deployment models and procedures are included within the
scope of change enablement.

Deployment model If the deployment model is successfully updated, it is

update and communicated to the
communication relevant stakeholders. This is usually done by the deployment
manager and/or the service or resource owner.

4. Organizations and people

4.1 ROLES, COMPETENCES, AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The practice guides do not describe the practice management roles, such as practice
owner, practice lead, or practice coach. They focus instead on specialist roles that are
specific to each practice. The structure and naming of each role may differ from
organization to organization, so any roles defined in ITIL should not be treated as
mandatory, or even recommended. Remember, roles are not job titles. One person can
take on multiple roles and one role can be assigned to multiple people.

Roles are described in the context of processes and activities. Each role is characterized
with a competency profile based on the model shown in Table 4.1.

Table 4.1 Competency codes and profiles

Competency Competency profile (activities and skills)

code
 L Leader Decision-making, delegating, overseeing other activities,
providing incentives and motivation, and evaluating outcomes

А Administrator Assigning and prioritizing tasks, record-keeping,

ongoing reporting, and initiating basic improvements

C Coordinator/communicator Coordinating multiple parties,

maintaining communication between stakeholders, and running
awareness campaigns

М Methods and techniques expert Designing and implementing work

techniques, documenting procedures, consulting on processes, work
analysis, and continual improvement

Т Technical expert Providing technical (IT) expertise and conducting

expertise-based assignments

Two practice-specific roles may be found in organizations: deployment manager and

deployment practitioner. These roles are often introduced in organizations where the
number of deployments is high. In other organizations, these roles might be combined
with, or assigned to, other roles carrying related responsibilities in development,
operations, IT asset teams, and so on.

4.1.1 Deployment manager role

A deployment manager role calls for a strong knowledge of the organization’s business,
products and services, technology, platforms, frameworks, and processes. The role
requires strong planning and project management skills and the ability and authority to
coordinate teamwork. The competency profile for this role is LACM. This role is usually
responsible for the planning, management, and coordination of deployment
management as a practice as well as the deployment of individual releases, including:

planning deployments

ensuring the alignment of deployment plans with change/release plans,

 requirements, and objectives

planning, coordinating, and ensuring the availability of the resources needed for the
effective completion of deployments

effectively managing overlaps or conflicts among multiple deployments

implementing and maintaining effective control and governance to ensure the

integrity of components throughout the deployment practice

managing and/or ensuring effective interfaces between and coordination with other
practices and stakeholders

managing and optimizing deployment resources to ensure optimum levels of

availability, capability, and capacity to manage deployments

monitoring, reporting, analysing, and improving deployment performance against

defined KPIs.

In more complex organizations, some of the deployment management responsibilities

may be delegated to the role of deployment coordinators, team leaders, or any other
similar additional roles.

4.1.2 Deployment practitioner role

A deployment practitioner role calls for strong technical skills and effective teamwork.
The competency profile for this role is TAC. This role is usually responsible for effective
deployments to the target environments in alignment with applicable requirements,
objectives, and targets, including:

acquiring, maintaining, and continually improving the skills and capabilities required
for technical aspects of deployments

contributing and assisting in deployment planning

ensuring the integrity of components throughout the deployment practice

managing and coordinating deployment documentation, records, and

communications, including for training purposes
 coordinating with other practices and stakeholders and facilitating interfaces
between groups

verifying and providing feedback on deployments to stakeholders

contributing to monitoring, reporting, analysing, and improving deployment

performance against defined KPIs.

In some organizational contexts, the deployment practitioner role can be divided into
multiple categories and levels based on the types and requirements of the deployments
and platforms, the complexity of organization’s products and services, and so on.

4.1.3 Roles involved in the deployment management

activities
Examples of other roles which can be involved in the deployment management activities
are listed in Table 4.1, together with the associated competency profiles and specific skills.

Table 4.2 Examples of roles with responsibility for

deployment management activities

Activity Responsible roles Competency Specific skills

profile

Deployment
process

Deployment Service owner, Product ACMT Understanding the

planning owner, Development deployment’s impact
team member, on the service levels,
Technical specialist, user experiences, and
Service desk agent, environments
Engagement Good communication
manager, Delivery and cross-team
manager Users coordination skills
Good knowledge of
deployment models
 Understanding of
technical service
design, supporting
infrastructure and
platforms,
development tools

Verification of the Technical specialist T Good knowledge of

service Deployment manager services and
components Development team components
member
Service Owner
Product owner

Verification of Technical specialist TC Good knowledge of

target Deployment manager environments and
environment Development team infrastructure
member
Systems administrator
Infrastructure team
Service Owner
Product owner

Deployment Technical specialist TM Understanding of

execution Deployment manager technical service
Development team design, supporting
member infrastructure and
Systems administrator platforms,
Infrastructure team development tools
Good knowledge of
deployment models

Deployment Technical specialist TC Understanding of

verification Deployment manager technical design of
Development team services and
member components
Systems administrator Good knowledge of
Infrastructure team service performance,
Service Owner service levels, and
user experience
 Product owner
User

Deployment Deployment models Deployment Deployment models

models development and models development and
development and review process development review process
review process and review
process

Deployment Deployment manager CAT Understanding of the

model planning Service Owner service design,
Product owner resource
configuration, and
business impact
Good knowledge of
existing deployment
activities

Deployment Deployment manager TCL Knowledge of

model Service Owner deployment pipeline
implementation Product owner tools
Knowledge of the
continual
improvement and
change enablement
practices

Deployment Deployment manager TCL Good knowledge of

model testing Service owner testing practices
Product owner across the workflows
Good knowledge of
requirements and
commitments,
service levels
Knowledge of
deployment models
and methods;
analysis skills
Deployment Deployment manager TCL Understanding of the
review and Service Owner service design,
deployment Product owner resource
records analysis Supplier configuration, and
business impacts
Good knowledge of
deployment models
Good knowledge of
requirements and
commitments,
service levels
Knowledge of
deployment models
and methods;
analytical skills

Deployment Deployment manager TMC Understanding of the

model Service Owner service design,
improvement Product owner resource
initiation configuration,
business impacts,
and service levels
Good knowledge of
deployment models,
diagnostic tools, and
methods
Knowledge of the
continual
improvement and
change enablement
practices

Deployment Deployment manager CA Knowledge of

model update and Service Owner communication
communication Product owner procedures and tools
Service desk agent

4.2 ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES AND TEAMS

Designated deployment management teams are unusual, except in very large
organizations with significant volumes and complexity of deployment. This role is often
handled by the technical/operations teams.

In a DevOps environment, deployment is often automated through the continual

deployment practice/framework with use of deployment pipelines. However, the role of
deployment manager is often still relevant; the deployment manager would own the
overall practice and aspects around deployment. This role could be independently
established or combined with other relevant and suitable roles, such as release manager.

5. Information and technology

5.1 INFORMATION EXCHANGE

The effectiveness of the deployment management practice is dependent on the quality
of the information used. This information includes, but is not limited to, information
about:

authorized repositories of service components and assets, such as IT asset databases

and DML

assets and configurations

change and release plans

deployment communications

deployment documentation and records

deployment plans

deployment metrics and reports

entry, exit, and acceptance criteria for each stage of deployment

feedback from deployment

issues and errors identified during deployment

platforms and environments within deployment’s scope

 products and services and their architecture and design

requirements and expectations about changes and releases

stakeholder needs, expectations, and contact details.

This information may take various forms. The key inputs and outputs of the practice are
listed in Section 3.

5.2 AUTOMATION AND TOOLING

In most cases, the deployment management practice can significantly benefit from
automation. Deployments in Agile and DevOps environments are predominantly
automation- and technology- oriented.

Where automation is possible and effective for deployment, it may involve the solutions
outlined in Table 5.1.

Table 5.1 Automation solutions for deployment-

management activities

Process Means of automation Key functionality Impact on the

activity effectiveness of
the practice

In traditional, In traditional, non-CI- In traditional, non-CI- In traditional, non-

non-CI-CD CD environments CD environments CI-CD
environments environments

Planning the Planning tools Activity planning, Improved visibility,

deployment scheduling, and control, and
tracking governance over
deployments

Verification of Service Ability to compare the Improvement in

the service component/release components on accuracy and
components verification using various parameters efficiency of
tools/technology
 verification
leading to
improved success
rate, reduced
reworks, quality
and overall
efficiency of
deployments

Verification of Platform verification Ability to check the Improvement in

the target using tools/technology target platform(s) accuracy and
environment against set of efficiency of
parameters and verification
attributes leading to
improved success
rate, reduced
reworks, quality
and overall
efficiency of
deployments

Deployment Deployment/retirement Ability to deploy the Improvement in

execution using tools/technology designated service overall
components/releases effectiveness,
to target efficiency, and
environment(s) in a consistency of
scheduled and deployments
controlled
manner

Deployment Verification of Ability to verify the Improved

verification deployments using deployment and verification of
tools/technology deployed service deployments
components against
defined acceptance
criteria

In CI/CD In CI/CD environments In CI/CD In CI/CD

environments environments environments
 Automated Integrated CI/CD tool Schedule/trigger- Effective
deployments chains based, automated integration of the
to dev, test, deployment of the release/transition
test, staging, required components stages for
and to target seamless build,
production environments at each integration,
stage. testing, and
deployment.

6. Partners and suppliers

6.1 SOURCING CONSIDERATIONS FOR DEPLOYMENT

PRACTICE
Very few services are delivered using only an organization’s own resources. Most, if not all,
depend on other services, often provided by third parties outside the organization (see
section 2.4 of ITIL Foundation: ITIL 4 Edition for a model of a service relationship).
Relationships and dependencies introduced by supporting services are described in the
ITIL practices for service design, architecture management, and supplier management.

It is important to understand how the organization depends on third-party components

and how it aims to establish effective and efficient collaboration with its key suppliers
and partners around many activities, including those of the deployment management
practice.

In an environment with multiple suppliers, it is important to understand the scope and

boundaries of each organization’s deployment activities, and how these will interact.
Most organizations have a process for deployment, which is often supported by standard
tools and detailed procedures to ensure that software is deployed consistently. It is
common to have different processes for different environments.

Many areas of the deployment management practice might be enabled by effective

sourcing, which could be in terms of people, capabilities, tools, processes, and services.

Deployment management and its PSFs can be enabled and enhanced through selective
and judicial sourcing in many forms, including those outlined in Table 6.1.

Table 6.1 Sourcing in the deployment management

practice
 Sourcing area Details

People Where deployment management activities are manual,

resources could be sourced from a partner. Key considerations
include the schedule of deployments, availability of internal
resources, cost, and so on.

Technical/Non- Sourcing specific skills, including technical (about specific

technical skills and systems, technologies, platforms) and non-technical (planning,
capabilities governing, and execution capabilities), are useful or even
required in many deployment management activities. Key
considerations include the variety and complexity of
technical/service environments, dynamic technology
environments, lack of
appropriate internal resources, and so on.

Outsourced In certain contexts, it may be necessary or useful to source the

deployment entire deployment management practice from a partner.
management

Tools and Several areas of the deployment management practice can be

technologies for enhanced through the adoption of tools and technologies.
deployment Except in minor cases, these technologies, tools, and tool-chains
are sourced from specific product/service
providers.

7. Important reminder

Most of the content of the practice guides should be taken as a suggestion of areas that
an organization might consider when establishing and nurturing their own practices.
The practice guides are catalogues of topics that organizations might think about, not a
list of answers. When using the content of the practice guides, organizations should
always follow the ITIL guiding principles:

focus on value
 start where you are

progress iteratively with feedback

collaborate and promote visibility

think and work holistically

keep it simple and practical

optimize and automate.

More information on the guiding principles and their application can be found in section
4.3 of ITIL Foundation: ITIL 4 Edition.

8. Acknowledgements

AXELOS Ltd is grateful to everyone who has contributed to the development of this
guidance. These practice guides incorporate an unprecedented level of enthusiasm and
feedback from across the ITIL community. In particular, AXELOS would like to thank the
following:

8.1 AUTHORS
Vinod Kumar Agrasala, Roman Jouravlev, Konstantin Naryzhny.

8.2 REVIEWERS
Jon Hall, Anton Lykov, Samantha Robertson, Oleg Skrynnik.

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