On a recent call we agreed to provide a definition of provisioning that is reasonably high-level and in keeping with general industry usage, and to provide examples of specific usage. I also took the action of determining how deployment is used in OGSA and the reference model, and determining whether we should keep it as a glossary term. The answer is that deployment is used frequently and casually, and in keeping with its dictionary definition. I do think we should include it in the glossary.

Provisioning (and Deployment): Provisioning is the act of putting a resource or set of resources into a state such that it is available for use by a consumer of the service or resource it supplies. Depending on the context of the operation, the provisioning process might include activities such as reservation and allocation.

The term “provisioning” is commonly used in conjunction with or as an alternative to deployment. In contexts where the two are used together, provisioning is often regarded as the high-level process of gathering and readying all the necessary resources, while each lower-level process, such as allocating a server or installing and starting a software component, is referred to as deployment.

Both terms may have more specific meanings in particular contexts. For example, EMS defines both terms and regards provisioning as a heavyweight operation that instantiates operating environments and may take substantial time, while deployment is regarded as a lightweight activity that may simply place a dataset or an application on an already-provisioned resource.

Deployment: See provisioning.