Change freeze
A period when no changes may be made to production systems, except emergencies, to protect a busy or important time.
Also written freeze, code freeze, change moratorium, frozen period
A change freeze is a period when production systems must not be changed. It protects times when a problem would be especially costly, such as year end, the busiest shopping days, a large migration or a regulatory deadline.
During a freeze, the normal change process is closed. New features, routine maintenance and planned upgrades wait until it ends. Only emergency changes are allowed, usually with extra approvals from senior people, because breaking something during a freeze is exactly what the freeze is meant to avoid.
Freezes are planned well ahead and published in a change calendar, so teams can finish their work before the freeze starts. The weeks just before a freeze are often the busiest of the year for changes.
If you join a mainframe team, find out the freeze dates early. A change that is not approved in time may have to wait several weeks.
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- Change controlThe process every change goes through before reaching production: reviewed, approved, scheduled and reversible.
- Emergency changeA change to production that cannot wait for the normal approval process, usually to fix a live problem, approved quickly and reviewed afterwards.
- Maintenance windowAn agreed time, usually when few people use the systems, set aside for planned changes that may affect a service.
- Month-end processingThe extra batch work a business runs at the end of each month, such as interest, fees and statements, on top of the normal daily run.
- Production supportKeeping live systems running: diagnosing failures, fixing what broke, and getting the service back.