production and development environment

[dr46014]

i am very new to datastage..rather new to dataware housing.i want to know what is the basic difference between a production environment and a development environment.when we create jobs in development environment how to move them to production environment.is there any specific procedure.are these two environment different...one on unix or other on windows..or something like that.is the repository is moved from one environment to other..please give a detailed description.i have searched similar topics in this forum but unable to find one..so if there is any previous post specify the link.i want to have a clearcut concept about it
thanks in advance

[ray.wurlod]

A good topic to research would be Software Development Life Cycle - more on Google, etc., than here.

The general rule is that, by the time things are in production, they've been fully tested and do not change there.

If changes are needed, those changes are wrought in a development environment where they undergo initial ("unit") testing, and are then more thoroughly tested - by someone other than the developer - probably in a separate test/QA environment. Failure to satisfy test criteria mean that the version in the development environment gets fixed, and more testing is performed until it's right. Only then can the work be given approval to be moved into production, and this must be coordinated with end users, particularly if the results they see will vary from the previous version.

[kumar_s]

Not necessarily that it will be on different OS. But unfortunately its the case in many site to reduce the cost. Just because Windows license is cheaper and flexible than Unix. W.r.t Datastage, moving component is, just exporting the jobs from your development environment and importing back in the new environment. It is generally moved to testing and later to Production through a preferably a change control process, and import back in Production environment. The supporting scripts, routines, SQLs will also be sent.

[I_Server_Whale]

when we create jobs in development environment how to move them to production environment.is there any specific procedure.are these two environment different

Obviously, the production environment and the development environment are different in many ways. Production environment is the final destination of a job/program. It is where the job is doing the real thing, dealing with actual/live data. A job/program is fully designed and tested before it is moved the production environment.

Well! In datastage, one way of moving jobs from one environment to the other is by exporting jobs in one environment and importing them back in the other.

The other way is to use version control (available within DataStage) to promote jobs from environment to the other. You can read the pdf manual or search the forum to learn more about version control.

.i have searched similar topics in this forum but unable to find one..so if there is any previous post specify the link.i want to have a clearcut concept about it
thanks in advance

About acquiring knowledge, you got to explore, research and learn. Like Ray suggested, SDLC would be good point to start from since it not only applies to data-warehousing but to any information technology.

Whale.

[narasimha]

Your development environment has access to the developers, but your production environment will not and should not have access to developers. Your production environment should be more a read only environment.

Any changes to production, should be follow the proper channel and steps.
Different companies have different policies. But the most general method followed by most of the companies is that; The changes should be done in the development environment (as per the new changes or enhancements.)

It has to be promoted to the test environment. This is where the testers test it. (You are not allowed to make any changes in this environment too).
If the testers find a defect/bug, you will need to make changes in development and ask for promotion to test again.
Once the Test/QA team certifies the jobs, only then is it eligible for promotion to production.

There is should proper documentation, which will help in case of audits.

[kumar_s]

Version control is again a part of Import/Export but done by the tool itself.