Skipping staging could be your biggest deployment mistake

Theater productions open only after there has been a full dress rehearsal. The cast and crew perform the entire play in costume to check that everything runs smoothly before opening night. In IT, staging is the dress rehearsal for any deployment: it allows teams to test the software in an environment that mimics the live production setup.  

This means any bugs or issues can be identified and resolved in a controlled space, reducing the risk of errors when the system goes live.

But is staging still necessary now that we have zero-touch provisioning (ZTP)? With ZTP, we can automatically provision and configure infrastructure, which means faster deployments, more consistency, no manual intervention and therefore fewer human errors.

We believe the rise of ZTP and automation does not remove the need for staging — in fact, it remains a critical step in deployments.

Here’s why. 

Why staging is still essential

While ZTP focuses on deploying solutions with minimal intervention, staging verifies that your infrastructure is set up correctly and that applications work as intended. This includes validating network connectivity, application functionality and user access control.

You can scan deployments for security vulnerabilities that can lead to data breaches and system outages, and assess their performance under simulated production loads. This helps you to identify and address performance bottlenecks before they can affect your users and applications down the line.

Staging supports change management, too, as users can familiarize themselves with new configurations and applications before they are deployed.

How staging complements ZTP

While ZTP may automate configuration, it cannot replicate the valuable testing and validation options provided in a controlled, preconfigured staging environment. In this environment, systems, devices and applications can be evaluated and validated before deployment.

You can, of course, use automation tools during staging — for example, to run scripts that verify functionality, configurations and security. This reduces manual effort and makes testing more comprehensive.

Integrating staging and ZTP leads to a fast, streamlined rollout that maintains high standards of quality and performance, potentially with a better user experience throughout the deployment lifecycle.

What happens when you skip staging?

If you test changes directly on your production network only, you could face degraded performance and unexpected disruptions that affect users, applications and services in real time. This is because you won’t know how new devices or software will interact with your existing network, or if there will be compatibility issues or other problems in production.

You also won’t know what the effect on user experience might be when network paths, bandwidth allocation or device configurations change.

Deploying changes to network security devices like firewalls, routers and intrusion detection and prevention systems directly in production without testing could also leave your network vulnerable. 

Staging therefore acts as a safety net. You can test rollback procedures, validate your disaster-recovery plans and identify potential failure points, leaving your IT team feeling more confident to continue. Without it, troubleshooting or restoring your network to its previous state after a failure might be more difficult or time-consuming.

Also keep in mind:

• Many applications and services require integration — cloud services, IoT devices, network management tools and more. Testing these integrations in staging is essential to avoid service disruptions.
• Should a problem occur, not having a staging environment means you can’t compare the old and new configurations in a controlled environment, which can significantly delay resolution.
• In some industries, changes to network infrastructure must meet regulatory compliance standards. Testing in staging ensures that these standards are met before making changes in production.

NTT DATA makes staging easy

At NTT DATA, we take the hassle off your plate by handling everything from inspecting and prepping your equipment to making sure it’s deployment-ready. We even provide secure equipment storage until you’re ready to go live.

We check for shipping damage, scan serial numbers into your inventory database, assemble all components and simulate your network environment for testing. We also load, configure and validate software, stress-test devices and label everything to your specifications.

Then our staging engineers simulate the network and test configurations to confirm your operational readiness.

When we’re done, your equipment isn’t just ready — it’s fully prepared to hit the ground running.