Operational Practices: Deployment, Upgrades, and Cloning

Deployment Frequency

Agility in deployment frequency is a key indicator of an organization’s operational maturity:

35%

of organizations release new features or updates weekly, while 5% have adopted a daily deployment schedule.

25%

still operates on a quarterly deployment cycle, highlighting room for improvement in release velocity.

When it comes to upgrades:

The responses were evenly split between organizations upgrading once per year and those upgrading twice a year in alignment with ServiceNow’s release schedule.

Clone-Downs

43%

of respondents perform instance clone-downs quarterly, while 17% clone instances monthly or even more frequently.

70%

of respondents reported that clone-down processes lead to disruptions that frequently or occasionally cause extended development downtimes.

91%

This issue is particularly pronounced in heavily regulated industries, where 91% of respondents reported disruptions due to cloning—a stark contrast to less regulated industries, where cloning interruptions are less frequent.