Document control

Policy status

FINALIZED

Approval status

APPROVED 

Approved version and date

v.75

StatementPolicy for applicability of change management
Dissemination Level

TLP:WHITE - Public

Table of contents


Goal

Ensuring effective change management within the EGI’s production IT environment is extremely important in ensuring high-quality delivery of IT services.

The purpose of this Change Management Policy is to establish guidelines and procedures for managing changes to Configuration Items (CIs) in the Internal CMDB in a planned and predictable manner. This policy ensures that Change Requests are effectively evaluated and approved in order to minimise disruptions to service delivery and mitigate associated risks.

Scope

This policy applies specifically to the IMS owner and IMS Manager, the Quality and Risk Manager, all Process owners, Process managers, Service owners, Service Suppliers and all EGI staff involved in a change affecting EGI branded services in the service catalogue of EGI Foundation. Changes to CIs in the Internal CMDB are under scope of ChaRDM. Of particular importance are changes which have the potential to directly affect other services under the scope of ChaRDM. Other EGI federated services are covered within Change Management of the respective SMS of the service supplier.

Major changes to services that affect the EGI Service Portfolios are those having a high-risk (see procedure ChaRDM.PR.02) to impact the business outcome of the EGI Federation and they should be within the scope of Service Portfolio Management SPM. These changes should be tracked via Service Design and Transition Package documents within the SPM process and are subject to approved by the Services and Solutions Board (SSB). Examples of such changes include:

  • introducing a new service
  • changing the phase of a service
  • retiring a service

If such changes are brought directly to the attention of the CAB (i.e. not from SPM), then the CAB will request that they require additional approval by SPM.

Policy

All changes (including emergency changes) to CIs in the Internal CMDB must follow a standard process to ensure appropriate planning, resourcing and execution.

Normal change: A Change Request is created by the Change Requester (usually the service supplier) and is approved by the Change and Release Owner (normally the service owner or a member of the CAB). 

Standard change: Recurrent changes may be classified as 'standard' or pre-approved changes and do not need to be explicitly approved by the CAB on subsequent occasions. A Standard change request is created by the Change Requester and approved by the Change and Release Owner. The Change Requester should never be the same person as the Change and Release Owner.

Emergency change: In exception to the above, Emergency changes may be applied with only the assessment and approval of the Change and Release Owner and without prior assessment and approval from the CAB. However, these Emergency changes shall still be recorded and reviewed. Emergency changes may be requested and applied by the supplier or exceptionally by EGI Foundation staff.

Change Advisory Board: The Change Advisory Board (CAB) along with the ChaRDM Process Manager are the stewards of this process. Changes to CIs in the Internal CMDB must be presented to the CAB for assessment and approval in order to coordinate timelines, avoid conflict and maintain a complete and controlled view of changes at EGI level.