On-Premise SDLC Best Practices

This article defines recommended best practices for:

• Promoting the EKB platform (application) from Non-Production to Production
• Promoting EKB projects and AI use cases from Non-Production to Production
• Clearly defining roles and responsibilities for each promotion activity, including updates, testing, configuration, and approval

The approach is designed for On-Premise environments and aligns with common SDLC, security, and operational governance standards. This approach:

• Clearly defines roles and responsibilities during promotion
• Accounts for environment-specific configuration updates
• Aligns with enterprise On-Premise SDLC and security models
• Maintains strict Production access control
• Enables repeatable and auditable promotions

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Environment Model (On-Premise)

Your team maintains separate On-Premise Non-Production and Production environments for EKB. These environments are:

• Logically and physically isolated
• Promoted via controlled, manual processes

Both platform updates and project promotions are governed under a single SDLC framework.

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SDLC Phases and Promotion Overview

Phase 1 – Design & Build (Non-Prod)

• Use cases are designed and configured in EKB Non-Prod
• Prompts, workflows, and integrations are iterated and tuned
• Test data is used where possible

Owner: Business Team / SMEs
Support: EKB (AA)

Phase 2 – Testing & Validation (Non-Prod)

• Functional testing and UAT
• Accuracy, performance, and security validation
• Business sign-off confirming readiness for promotion

Owner: Business Team / SMEs

Phase 3 – Promotion Readiness

Before any promotion:

• Change approvals are obtained
• Firewall and network requirements are reviewed
• Production access and RBAC approach is confirmed
• Environment-specific configuration values are identified

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Promotion Mechanisms

Platform (Environment) Promotion

Platform promotion includes:

• EKB version upgrades
• Security patches
• Platform-level configuration changes

High-Level Flow

1. Update applied in Non-Prod
2. Platform testing and validation
3. Change approval and scheduling
4. Deployment to Production
5. Post-deployment validation

Project / Use Case Promotion

EKB supports promotion via a project export/import mechanism between On-Premise environments.

Included in Promotion

• Project configuration
• Workflows and agents
• Prompts and rules

Excluded from Promotion

• Users and role assignments
• Environment-specific secrets
• Network and firewall settings

This ensures Production access remains explicitly controlled.

High-Level Flow

1. Project finalized in Non-Prod
2. Export from Non-Prod
3. Import into Production
4. Environment-specific configuration updates
5. Production configuration and access setup
6. Smoke testing and go-live

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Roles and Responsibilities for Promotion Activities

This section defines who performs each activity involved in promoting updates and configurations from Non-Prod to Prod.

Platform (Environment) Promotion Responsibilities

Activity	Business Team	Run / Middleware Team	EKB (AA)
Plan platform upgrade	I	C	R
Apply upgrade in Non-Prod	I	I	R
Run platform regression tests	I	C	R
Review test results	I	C	R
Change approval & scheduling	I	R	C
Deploy upgrade to Production	I	C	R
Post-deployment validation	I	C	R

Key Point

EKB (AA) is responsible for executing platform updates and running platform-level tests.
Run / Middleware teams control approvals, scheduling, and infrastructure readiness.

Project / Use Case Promotion Responsibilities

Activity	Business Team	Run / Middleware Team	EKB (AA)
Develop & configure use case (Non-Prod)	R	I	C
Functional testing & UAT	R	I	C
Confirm readiness for promotion	R	I	I
Export project from Non-Prod	I	I	R
Import project into Production	I	C	R
Production smoke testing	R	C	C
Go-live approval	R	I	I

Key Point

Your team’s business stakeholders own validation and approval, while EKB (AA) executes the technical promotion steps.

Post-Promotion Configuration (Production)

These activities occur after import to maintain Production controls.

Activity	Business Team	Run / Middleware Team	EKB (AA)
Create Production users	I	R	I
Assign RBAC	I	R	C
Configure firewall / network	I	R	C
Validate integrations	R	C	C

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Environment-Specific Configuration Updates (Required During Promotion)

When a project is promoted from Non-Production to Production, certain configuration values must be updated to reflect the Production environment. These values are not carried over automatically and must be reviewed during promotion.

RPA Configuration Updates (If Applicable)

For use cases that integrate with RPA tooling, the following values typically need to be updated in Production:

• Control Room URL
• Username
• User v2 Token

These values must reference Production RPA infrastructure and credentials.

EKB Configuration Updates

Within EKB, the following environment-specific values must be reviewed and updated after promotion:

• Base URL

  • Example:
    • Non-Prod: https://nonprod.example.com
    • Prod: https://prod.example.com

• Project ID

• Project xApiKey

• Project xApiSecret

• Smart Table ID(s)

These values are unique per environment and are required for correct runtime behavior in Production.

Responsibility for Configuration Updates

Activity	Business Team	Run / Middleware Team	EKB (AA)
Identify required config changes	C	C	R
Update RPA Production variables	I	R	C
Update EKB Production variables	I	C	R
Validate configuration changes	R	C	C

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Production Operating Model

Your Team

• Owns Production operations
• Manages users, RBAC, and monitoring
• Provides first-line incident response

EKB (AA)

• Owns platform stability and fixes
• Delivers platform upgrades and patches
• Supports complex configuration issues

EKB does not act as the Production run team.

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Change Management and Governance

• All Production changes follow formal change management processes
• Non-Prod is the only environment for experimentation
• Emergency fixes follow expedited approvals

Each Production use case should have:

• Business owner
• Defined scope
• Support contacts
• Rollback plan