application packaging

Application Packaging 

Cloudpaging packaging

Application Packaging

Packaging is only a part of the solution within the Packaging Process Flow (PPF).

You can divide the Packing Process Flow into 5 major activities:

1. Application Discovery
2. Application Packaging
3. QA (Quality Assurance)
4. UAT (User Acceptance Testing)
5. Release and deploy

Stage 1: Application discovery.

This is the start of the process, and the better the quality of the input, the better the outcome in the next stage, packaging.

You can divide Application discovery into the following inventory and research steps:  

1. Is the documentation available of the current setup
2. Current LCM status of the application
3. Processes to follow regarding application deployment (ITIL)
4. Product owner and key users identified
5. Source(s) and licenses
6. Vendor (or internal developer)
7. Contracts and SLA’s
8. Architectural overview
9. Interfaces to other applications
10. IAM setup for the application (departments, rights, users)
11. Compliance and security guidelines
12. Infrastructure / Security team support
13. Test plan for UAT and Production release

Stage 2: Application packaging

With the above information we can create a packaging guide (tailormade on Cloudpaging and the customer), that we will have validated with the appointed stakeholders, before we start creating the package

With the cloudpaging studio we will create the package according to the guidelines. The outcome of this will be a fully functional application that we can publish to the next stage in process.

Stage 3: Quality Assurance

The current application will be reviewed by a senior specialist, to make sure the application is packaged according to the guideline. The application will also be tested (Technical) as described in the technical test plan and signed off, before it will be released for User Acceptance Testing.

Stage 4: User Acceptance Testing

Together with the product owner and/or key user we will test the application. When we run into issues, we are able with the Cloudpaging product, to repair, test and deploy on the spot, making the application testing process far more agile in comparison with the current other application packaging solutions. This will save time and prevents possible delay and extra burden on the customer resources.

Stage 5: Release and deploy

The last stage is the release for production and deploy. Depending on the customer solution, this can be fully automated as cloudpaging only or integrated in the current deployment tools (eg. SCCM).

In some cases the deployment is combined with other application, to provide the business also the possibility to test the business process chain before deploy / release the application to the whole community.

Patching and Updates.

The above process can also be followed for updates and processes. With the differentiation, the part with the most work, the application discovery, only needs to be updated. The following steps, can due to the Cloudpaging solution, be done fast and controlled, to make the application update and patching more agile within in the organization.