What is a staging environment?

[Net Llama!]

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003, Alma J Wetzker wrote:
> > James McDonald <james at jamesmcdonald.id.au> Tue, 19 Aug 2003 17:41:39 +1000
> >
> > burns wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> After a short break, on the 8th day the Lord invented staging
> >> environments. And verily they were wise that used them, even if the
> >> scribes and elders knew not.
> >
> >
> > What is a staging environment? I haven't heard of it before in relation
> > to IT.
>
> It goes by many names.  It is where you have a smaller version of the
> production system with test data where all changes can be proven to work
> before they are put into the actual production environment.
>
> Sometimes management provides direct support for getting the hardware to
> set one of these things up.  Other times you need to scrounge parts from
> wherever.  Running without one could be "BAD".

Or more simply put, any mature development enterprise has three
environments:

Development
Staging
Production

Staging is what you use to remove any issues that could impact uptime in
production.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lonni J Friedman				netllama at linux-sxs.org
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo		     http://netllama.ipfox.com