Non-Production instance for production use

[pauladams]

Hello,

One my clients is running a Fuji production instance. They realized that they are on a very old release and have a migration plan.

However, as the workflows are outdated and needs to be changed and also they believe the previous implementer has not done good implementation, they decided to do an afresh configuration/build of their ITSM and non-IT workflows/modules and are not upgrading their Fuji instance.

Here is the problem - like any other implementation of a SM tool, they have some challenges in consolidating their processes/workflows. However, there is a high pressure from the management/part of the organization to implement their new processes/workflows on a new system.

To re-mediate this and as an interim workaround, they are planning to implement the processes/workflows for which they have consensus on a non-production instance (test instance) and release it to the users. Which means they will have two different releases one on Fuji (real production) and one on Istanbul but the one on Istanbul will be a non-production/test instance used as a production one.

As far as my knowledge and learning go about instances, the major difference between a prod and non-prod instance is the High Availability and everything else is same.

I want to know from you experts if there are any issues, risks and other consequences of using a non-production instance for a real production use.

Thanks

Pa

[The SN Nerd]

There are also license implications.

You don't get charge for licensed usage on sub-production, but if you are using it as a live environment you may be violating terms and conditions in your contract. Make sure you talk to your license manager about this.

[bernyalvarado]

Hi Paul,

What your team is doing sounds reasonable. I'll probably recommend you guys contact your ServiceNow sales rep or even Hi support team to request an additional production instance just to do the transition to Istanbul and with the intent to wipe-out the Fuji one. I'll believe that ServiceNow will be supportive of your decision/plans of moving from Fuji to Istanbul

Thanks,

Berny