Zero Hour is Tuesdays Around 5 AM EST

In case you were wondering, the optimal time to roll out new network software is Tuesday some time around 00:00 UTC to 02:00 UTC.

As seen on the namedroppers list:

I’ve always found it best to roll out changes on Tuesday, as it gives plenty of customer feedback time during the week. Mondays are often consumed with catching up on any operational problems over the weekend. Tuesday is better. 02:00 UTC is my favorite, although anytime after 00:00 UTC usually works OK.

(post by William Allen Simpson)

[Original draft: 8/9/2009.  In preparation for my blog redesign, I found draft blog posts that somehow never made it to publication. This is one of them.]

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2 Responses to Zero Hour is Tuesdays Around 5 AM EST

  1. William Allen Simpson says:

    I’m a long-time occasional reader of discourse.net, and was surprised and a bit delighted that you noticed my namedroppers DNS posting over a year ago. I’ll note that 02:00 UTC is 9 PM EST and 10 PM EDT (that is, most of the year) — not 5 AM! That gives network staff some time to catch any immediate problems with local late evening customers, and error logs to accumulate overnight during lighter loads.

    I do know a number of installations that make changes around 5-6 AM EST, but in my experience that really doesn’t give enough time for detecting problems and emergency rollbacks before daily business production. Also, it’s the middle of the day in Europe, so some international users could be badly affected.

    Of course, my US-centric schedule is hardest for international users on Pacific islands….

    [resubmitted comment originally posted Dec 7, 2010]

  2. OOPS. Thank you for the correction. I’m sure my subconscious trying to protect me is why I didn’t run this a year ago.

    I wonder how many of the other zombie posts (there are still 40+ in the queue) have similar problems?

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