Design – Build – Run: Applied Practices and Principles for Production-Ready Software Development

1.1. What Is Production Readiness?

The term production readiness will mean different things to different people. In the world of software systems implementation, the term refers to whether a software system is ready for live service. In its simplest form, this means "Is the system ready for implementation?" It doesn't matter whether you're developing software for external clients, for internal purposes, for general sale, or even for yourself — the question remains the same.

The word production also means to produce or manufacture. In achieving production readiness for your system, you need to ensure that you're not only ready for its final implementation, but that you're also ready for everything that leads up to it.

Modern software systems encompass many different applications, environments, processes, and tools, as well a wide variety of users and uses. To fully assess whether a system is ready for go-live or production, you must truly understand the production-readiness criteria. You should ask yourself the following questions:

• Are your applications fit for purpose?

• Are your environments fit for purpose?

• Are your processes and tools fit for purpose?

• Are your users trained and ready?

Production readiness is underpinned by the criteria associated with these questions. However, it is very difficult to answer yes or no to any of these questions without fully understanding their true and entire meaning. For instance, what is meant by "Are your environments fit for purpose?" or "Are ...