XOC/Change Management Process

Question 1

Items (typically Software based) that provide/deliver services to the Production Environment?

Answer 1

Application

Question 2

A plan that restores service to previously existing levels for failed changes?

Answer 2

Back Out Plan

Question 3

Environments similar to the Production environment but not carrying “live” production traffic or paying subscribers?

Answer 3

Beta environments or Technical Trial environments or Market Trial environments

Question 4

A Normal Change driven by a business need to implement a change quickly, bypassing lead times. Not to be confused with an Emergency Change which is threat driven?

Answer 4

Business Critical Change

Question 5

A Change consists of any installation or alteration of hardware, system and application software, procedures and environmental facilities, which adds to, deletes from or modifies the Production Environment?

Answer 5

Change

Question 6

A change in the production environment. It identifies the Infrastructure or Application component (device/element) to be changed and a description of the change. Change Activities may be initiated from other processes (Incident Management, Release Management)?

Answer 6

Change Activity

Question 7

An authoritative and representative group of people who are responsible for assessing, from both a business and a technical viewpoint, all Major Impact and High Risk Change Activities. Usually facilitated at the departmental level, not governed by the National CM Program?

Answer 7

Change Advisory Board (CAB)

Question 8

The master schedule, including all Change Activities that are to be implemented during a time period?

Answer 8

Change Calendar

Question 9

Is based on a 3-tiered hierarchy: Category, Subcategory,

and Procedure and also helps drive the assignment of change tickets appropriately?

Answer 9

Change Classification

Question 10

The risk rating given to changes to determine the confidence level that the change will be implemented as planned as well as the risk potential for the change?

Answer 10

Change Risk Category

Question 11

A setting within change tickets that provide services desks with the ability to trigger the IVR to inform customers of outages in their area, keep the call centers from getting multiple calls, stop unnecessary truck rolls and suppress related tickets to that event?

Answer 11

Correlation (Device)

Question 12

A Change to either prevent a service disruption or address a current disruption or break/fix situation. Typically used to repair a failure, imminent failure, resolve an unplanned situation, or mitigate a risk or
threat to the production environment?

Answer 12

Emergency Change

Question 13

Follows standard process with accelerated review and approval and minimum Base Change Build information in order to quickly respond to Incidents and similar potential threats to the Production environment?

Answer 13

Emergency Change Activity

Question 14

Windows that generally restrict all non-essential changes to any production and non-production applications or platforms?

Answer 14

Hard Moratorium

Question 15

Those items (hardware, software, circuits/links, physical plant) that are used as a support mechanism for the delivery of services?

Answer 15

Infrastructure Component

Question 16

Scheduled time periods established for implementing Change Activities so as to minimize the impact to services and their users?

Answer 16

Maintenance Windows

Question 17

Requests which are handled on a case by case basis, require a clearly documented business case?

Answer 17

Moratorium Exceptions

Question 18

Testing, Lab, and QA environments that are physically separate from the Production environment and present no possible risk or alarms to the production environment?

Answer 18

Non-Production Environment

Question 19

Change Activities applied to infrastructure, servers, or applications where the implementation is performed without degradation or outage to the
associated service(s) provided?

Answer 19

Non-Service Affecting (NSA)

Question 20

Change Activities that follow the normal/standard change process. They are grouped by Impact and Risk and are reviewed, approved, and implemented through the standard process?

Answer 20

Normal Change

Question 21

Follows standard process of change submission, review and approval, and implementation with standard lead times as defined by policies?

Answer 21

Normal Change Activity

Question 22

Change Activities that are low-impact, low-risk, and are often frequently occurring and can be implemented without a formal approval step?

Answer 22

Pre-Approved Change

Question 23

Follows the standard process of change submission. Approval is treated as “automatic” based on a history of successful low impact/low risk implementation?

Answer 23

Pre-Approved Change Activity

Question 24

Includes but is not limited to all changes made in HE (Headend)/OTN (Optical Transfer Node)/), APOPs (Application Point Of Presence) IT network, Comcast Media Center (CMC), National Data Centers, as well
as all network, application, hardware, and software activities having connections to live customer data or active internal systems including PBX activities. This includes elements/devices in a “soak” status, connected to the Production Environment but not carrying customer
traffic.

Answer 24

Production Environment

Question 25

A child ticket created from a parent CM. Required when the maintenance will impact external customers and requires division/region correlation for call/alarm deflection. Maintenance requires on site market resources for implementation?

Answer 25

Schedule Maintenance (SM)

Question 26

Change Activities applied to Infrastructure or Applications where this implementation is performed with definite degradation/outage to the associated products/service(s) provided to either Internal or External
customers?

Answer 26

Service Affecting (SA)

Question 27

Through the course of a year events will surface requiring an additional level of review and scrutiny but not to the extent of a full moratorium. These periods will typically apply against a product line such as HSD, Video, and/or Voice?

Answer 27

Soft Moratorium

Question 28

A documented set of activities used to implement, validate, and back out Change Activities in a standard well-defined manner?

Answer 28

Service Method of Procedure (SMOP)