IT Operating Environments Best Practices

Overview

The Education and Training environment is where administrators and end users are prepared to operate a solution that is approaching or has already reached Production deployment. EDU/TRN serves a purpose that is distinct from all other environments in the pipeline: it is not a testing environment, and the activities performed in it are not validation activities. It is a learning environment, designed to allow trainees to interact with the solution in conditions that are sufficiently realistic to prepare them for Production use without creating risk to Production data, Production state, or other users’ Production experience. A solution deployed to Production without adequate user training consistently produces higher support burden, lower adoption rates, and more user-generated errors than one for which users are properly prepared before they begin using the Production system.

Best Practice

Govern the EDU/TRN environment as a purpose-built learning space that is configured to approximate the Production user experience closely enough for effective training while being fully isolated from Production data and Production state. The EDU/TRN environment should use training-specific data that is realistic in structure and representative in scenario coverage but contains no real PII, PCI, PHI, PFI, or other sensitive information. Training activities in EDU/TRN should not affect Production data, Production records, or other users’ Production state in any way.

The EDU/TRN environment may be used before the solution reaches Production - to train users in advance of deployment - or after Production deployment - to onboard new users or train on new features without using the Production system for learning activities. Both uses are appropriate and should be supported by the environment’s configuration and governance. Establish a defined lifecycle for EDU/TRN environments: they should be provisioned when training programs require them, maintained to a current and accurate configuration while in active use, and decommissioned when the training program is concluded and no active use is planned in the near term.

Benefit(s)

A well-governed EDU/TRN environment reduces the Production risk and support burden that result from deploying solutions to users who have not been adequately prepared to use them. Users who have practiced in EDU/TRN before Production go-live are more confident, make fewer errors, and require less post-deployment support than users who encounter the solution for the first time in Production. The Education and Training environment also protects Production data and Production state from the errors that are inevitable in a learning context - users who accidentally delete records, create incorrect transactions, or misconfigure settings while learning do so in EDU/TRN, where the consequences are inconsequential, rather than in Production, where they may require significant recovery effort.