How often do you clone over non-production instances?

[Joe Calabrese]

Open question to the community:  How often do you clone Production over into non-production instances?

I've seen Quarterly, Monthly, 6-Months (before Upgrades), and even every 2 weeks (which seems too frequent).

What's your experience/preference?

[GlideFather]

Hi @Joe Calabrese 

i have experienced all mentioned options in my experience.

universally the bigger the development team (or higher number of different dev teams) was the more frequent the clones were scheduled…

The most common approach was right before the yearly upgrade and then on-demand one. Usually not more than 2x per year.

The on-demand clone was for example after some bigger deployment (e.g, integration developed in TEST as DEV was not connected with the other systems), to narrow everything 1:1.

what’s your modus operandi? 

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @Joe Calabrese 

There is no thumb rule for this, but the best practice and recommendation is that cloning should be done before an upgrade whenever possible.

In my experience, I’ve worked with clients who perform a clone after every major release, and others who follow a fixed schedule—every 6 months.

Ultimately, it depends on your business needs, and how frequently you are pushing changes or releases to production.