Overview of Designing a Pilot Project

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

A pilot release is a deployment of your Windows Server 2003 or Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional operating system to a subset of the live production environment or user group. The primary purposes of a pilot are to demonstrate that your design works in the production environment as you expected and that it meets your organization’s business requirements. Conducting a pilot reduces your organization’s risk of encountering problems during full-scale deployment. To further minimize your risk during deployment, you might want to conduct multiple pilots consisting of separate pilots for different technologies or operating systems, or you might want to conduct a full-scale pilot in phases.

Depending on the context of the project, the pilot release can take the following forms:

  • In a general business enterprise, a pilot can be conducted with a group of users on a set of servers in a datacenter.

  • In a Web development enterprise, a pilot can be conducted by hosting site files on a staging server or servers or in folders that are live on the Internet, using a test Web address.

  • Commercial software vendors, such as Microsoft, often conduct a pilot with a special group of early adopters.

The pilot participants provide feedback about how well the design and features are working. The release management team uses this feedback to resolve issues that arise or to create a contingency plan. Ultimately, the pilot leads to a decision to proceed with a full deployment or to slow down so you can resolve problems that could jeopardize your deployment.

The Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) training course offers in-depth instruction on the practical use of MSF for planning and conducting a deployment project. For more information about the MSF training course, see the Microsoft Training and Certification link on the Web Resources page at https://www.microsoft.com/windows/reskits/webresources, and search for MSF.