Types of change requests

The following is an overview of IBM® SRE internal change types.

BAU/Standard Change

BAU (Business As Usual) changes are those that are relatively low-risk and well understood. BAU Changes are processed frequently and initiated based on client requests. These changes do not have wide-ranging impacts on business-critical configuration items, and they are processed so often that they only require a basic review and approval prior to implementation. A BAU Change will go through all the standard phases of the SRE change process and can be managed throughout the process by the change owner with the exception of the approval phase.

BAU changes have to be scheduled in advance.

A BAU change can be for either a production or non-production environment. Changes for development environments do not require prior testing, however all other client environments require testing of some sort; either testing evidence from the client or a previous successful change in another related client environment.

BAU Changes will follow standard back-out procedures.

Once implemented, a BAU Change is verified by the SRE team to confirm 1) the change was applied and 2) that the environment is accessible; after which the change record is completed. Any other verification is the responsibility of the client and is not tracked in the change record.

Normal (Non-BAU) Changes

Normal (non-BAU) Changes require that all of the change process phases to be completed. These changes require a full range of assessments and authorizations to ensure completeness, accuracy, and the least possible disruption across the data center. In addition, these changes must be scheduled, implemented, verified and reviewed prior to closure. The normal type is used when a change will produce impacts on business-critical applications and other critical components of the IBM Cloud® environment.

A normal change can be for either a production or non-production environment. Normal changes can be initiated and requested by the client or IBM. Client initiated changes for development environments do not require prior testing, however all other client environments require testing. IBM initiated changes required testing evidence to be recorded as a work log entry on the change record or on a related change record. Normal Changes will follow standard back-out procedures.

Once implemented, a Normal Change is verified by the SRE team to confirm 1) the change was applied and 2) that the environment is accessible; after which the change is verified by the change requestor. Verification evidence is documented on the change records as a work log. Availability monitoring can be relied on to verify change completion in the case where it is an IBM initiated change to infrastructure that may impact client environments.

Emergency / Retrospective Changes

An Emergency change is one that must be done immediately. It is of a very high priority. An example of an emergency change might be the installation of new antivirus software during a period of severe viral infestation across the data center. Emergency changes are typically not performed often. An emergency Change contains all of the process steps and requirements that are followed for a normal change but the phases can be expedited outside of the normal change cycle.

Retrospective Changes are change records raised after changes have been implemented. Retrospective changes can only be raised to accommodate emergency change in 2 key scenarios:

  1. With prior approval from the IBM SRE Management Team by SMS text message or email

  2. In response to incidents where client system availability is impacted and a change is required to resolve the issue in a production system. Increase to system capacity (disk, CPU or memory) are included in this scenario.

Both the Emergency and Retrospective Changes will follow the same process in the change management system and will have a change type of Emergency. Retrospective changes differ in the fact that they are created after the change is performed. The criteria for an Emergency / Retrospective change is the same as a Normal change.