Advantages of having a third instance

[Community Alums]

We currently have two instances and have gone live with Change as we're still working on Incident and Problem. I've noticed that only having two instances can be a little tricky as I can't just use dev as a sandbox to just test things as I often have to remember what I did and then undo them. I'm looking at convincing my manager that we need a third instance and looking for some reasons to justify the cost.

Those that have three instances, can you please give me some reasons and advantages of having a third instances? Those that have only two instances, can you please tell me if it's hindered your development in any way or if it's been sufficient for you?

Thanks,

Aryanos

[Community Alums]

Thanks, I'll ask our rep how many licenses we need in order to get a third instance in the cost.

[AdityaTW]

Well, we have five instances : Sandbox, Development, UAT, Stage and Production.

The Sandbox is where people can play and try new stuff, etc. but more importantly is also used for prototyping and designing the solution for the next release. We use this instance to rigorously review, discuss and debate the design and get the sign off from everybody. Once we have obtained the design sign-off, we start the development in the Development instance from scratch. After the development is done, we merge the update sets for a particular release and then bring the merged update set to the UAT instance. This is where UAT testers, process owners, data owners, and everyone else do their test and give the thumbs up for that particular release.

Now - the fourth instance is what we call Stage. This is where operations can do their dry-run to load/preview/commit update set and run any admin instructions, and process owners certify that everything is OK and it doesn't break the existing functionality. Once the Stage is signed off, we move the code and run admin instructions in Production.

For defect fixes, depending on the criticality of the issue, we typically start with the development in the Dev environment. Prototyping is used for releases (Enhancements or projects).

Of course, we use the 'follow the environment' methodology when we do the platform upgrade.

[Community Alums]

Thanks Aditya, we won't be able to have five instances like you do but I'm hoping three will suffice instead of the two we currently have. It seems like having more instances is the best case scenario but I don't think I can justify the case for more than three at the moment.

[cwjurges]

Hello all - Take a look at what we have developed at Perspectium.   ServiceNow admin's can use Replicator for ServiceNow to replicate and synchronize your production data with other ServiceNow instances. We can help you reduce the frequency and eliminate the need to clone. Please message me if you would like to learn more.

www.perspectium.com