Welcome to part two of our Application Updates blog series. In case you missed it, this post proceeds How to Achieve Truly Seamless Application Updates with Cloudpager, which demonstrates how to adopt a modern, low-risk approach to application updates leveraging our patented application container technology and our fully managed, cloud-native container management platform for Windows desktops.
As discussed in that blog, I’d like to provide personal anecdotes from my 15+ years in IT to demonstrate how game-changing the Cloudpager platform is for application updates. Today I’m going to walk through the issues that arise from expediting application updates when you don’t have the proper tools, and how doing so fractured a former team of mine.
Slow Application Updates and Skipping Tests Are Recipes for Downtime
I worked on a team at a small insurance provider where those responsible for application packaging also managed application deployments and updates. This is common in smaller organizations where the number of packages is relatively low. We had a team of developers creating internal applications that were updated frequently. To prevent accidents from happening we had a testing and deployment plan, which permitted updates to be deployed on Wednesday nights. Unfortunately, management often insisted application deployments get expedited without thorough testing. This was usually because developers were given a request late and didn’t make their deadline. This was not a 24-hour business, which would have benefited us IF deployments were fast enough and IF there were enough people engaged for testing once the deployments were complete. In this scenario, the developers and a single application owner were solely responsible for application testing and sign-off.
Of course, the inevitable happened.
Traditional Approaches to Application Updates Are High-Risk
The next morning the calls would come in thick and fast. The main application used by the core workforce was throwing errors when launched. The classic instance of “but it worked on my machine played out,” and the developers and application owner were spared blame. Rather than management (who insisted on expediting the request) taking the blame, the man on my team who created and pushed the update became the scapegoat and was written up, despite protests from the team doing the deployment. This fractured our team, creating distrust with management and making everyone uncomfortable handling application deployments.
Reduce the Risk, Time, and Cost of Deploying Application Updates with Cloudpager
Cloudpager enables you to dynamically provision application updates. This becomes even more valuable with our Cloudpaging container technology. With Cloudpaging applications are virtualized on a per-user basis, limiting the visibility of updates to those who use the application, rather than everyone using a given machine in your organisation. By virtualizing on a per-user basis, there is no risk of conflicts when an application is updated or removed. This is true for users in active sessions, as well! All these features are key to reducing the risk of patches when compared with traditional application delivery methods.
If we had Cloudpager back then at the small insurance provider, updates could have been applied and tested within minutes before everyone went home. Moreover, we would not have had to limit testing to application owners and developers.
In the unlikely event a test fails with Cloudpager, updated applications can be reverted to the previous known good state. This would have allowed our developers to take the necessary steps to fix their code and get it deployed the following week. This would have saved hours of stress and effort on Thursday morning and saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. It also would have prevented my team becoming fractured due to the mistrust in management who pushed my colleague to break standards, for which he was punished when things went wrong.
“[Cloudpager] would have saved hours of stress and effort on Thursday morning and saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars”
Conclusion
Not only is rapid container provisioning a win for those pushing updates, it’s great for the applications owners and those responsible for testing applications. No need to wait until the morning for deployments to finish to begin testing, only to realize you need to spend the next few hours rolling back the changes. Real-time deployments enable rapid testing. It is good for admins, good for application owners, and good for users!
Learn More
Continue our deep dive into the world of application updates and how Cloudpager can help with the rest of the blogs in the series:
Blog 1: How to Achieve Truly Seamless Application Updates with Cloudpager
Blog 2: Expedited Updates without Capable Tools Fracture Teams
Blog 3: Weekend Updates Don’t Have to Take All Weekend
Blog 4: A Poorly Timed Application Update Cost a Financial Services Organization Millions in Revenue
Blog 5: Slow Application Updates Can Negatively Affect Patient Care
See Cloudpager in Action!
Schedule a demonstration with our Solutions Architects to see how Cloudpager enables you to dynamically provision applications and updates within seconds in a friction-free manner.
Schedule a Demo
