This is what we have with an Oracle product: Vanilla - no sample or legacy data, no dev Sandbox - oracle sample data, no dev Conversion - legacy data, no dev De

This is what we have with an Oracle product: Vanilla - no sample or legacy data, no dev Sandbox - oracle sample data, no dev Conversion - legacy data, no dev Dev - "scrambled" legacy data, dev Config - functional team environment setup Test - config and dev together, unscrambled user data Test2 - I have no idea why this here, but it is :) Training - for training users, selected legacy data and dev PreProd - everything after test and before prod Prod Given that each environment has an app server, a web server, two or more batch servers and a database, I can vouch that a fubarred deployment workflow is hell. You end up with no baseline to tell if your process is bombing due to configuration or code.