I’ve been through a number of major software releases as a team member or project manager in my career. There have been many “cutover weekends”, “cutover evenings” and even “cutover hours” as the team I was part of deployed new software into production. Many of you have been part of similar teams, and I’m sure all of you have been on the client side of this process, when you visit a retailer, online banking or government website and they are down for maintenance due to a system upgrade.
With DevOps gaining in popularity the concept of a formal cutover is starting to fade a bit, but cutovers as a concept are not going to disappear any time soon.
I came across this video on the AT&T Tech Channel on YouTube. Instead of a “cutover weekend”, they brought the upgrade online in under a minute. The level of coordination, and planning that went into this should be an inspiration for any project manager who has had to plan and execute a cutover. And the amount of funding and resources dedicated to the project by the company will likely make those same project managers a bit envious.
In addition to presenting an interesting topic, they physically demonstrate the etymology of the term “cutover” in this video.
