Resources
From prototype to production
A prototype shows an idea works; going to production commits that it will work tomorrow morning, for everyone, without you. Between the two sit precise decisions, and they can be learned.
What production adds to the prototype
In production, the service runs while you sleep. It therefore needs a record of what it does, an alert when it drifts, a restorable backup and a path back to the previous version. These four elements are designed alongside the feature, never after: an application deployed without logging is diagnosed by questioning users one at a time, which costs days where one log line costs minutes.
- A reproducible container image, built identically every time
- An automated deployment, repeatable and reversible
- Structured logging, readable by a machine
- Monitoring that alerts on drift, not on an incident already reported
- A backup whose restore has been tested
The chain, from repository to service
- 01
Build an identical image
The container freezes dependencies. The version that passes the tests is exactly the one that ships.
- 02
Deploy without manual steps
An automated deployment replays identically. That is what makes rollback fast and safe.
- 03
Observe the running service
Structured logs, load indicators and threshold alerts: the service reports its own health.
- 04
Restore and resume
A tested backup and a rehearsed switchover turn an incident into a short, controlled interruption.
The volume the catalogue devotes to it
- taught hours on operations
- 180
- hours on service continuity
- 120
- hours on web deployment
- 140
Dedicated block of the long computing programme.
Recovery plan, backups, switchover drills.
Hosting, continuous integration, monitoring.
Questions about operations
Do I need a dedicated team to operate a service?
One well-equipped person is enough for a modest service, provided the automation is in place. That is exactly what the operations block installs: repetitive gestures become scripts, and human attention concentrates on diagnosis.
What is the difference between logging and monitoring?
The log tells what happened, line by line, and serves diagnosis. Monitoring aggregates indicators and raises an alert on a threshold. The two complement each other: the alert calls you, the log explains.
When should a prototype move to production?
When someone is about to depend on it for their work. At that precise point the four operational elements become necessary, and adding them before the switch costs far less than grafting them onto a service already in use.
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