Development Landscape

[Craig, William]

All,
I have a general question about development and how other companies have set
up their SAP landscape.  Our company just went live with SAP and they have
proposed a new landscape because we are going to have a phase 2 go live with
some more functionality.  What they have proposed is to have a DEV, QAS, and
PROD layout for all existing ABAP and workflows, then they want to create
DEV2 and QAS2 by making a copy of DEV and QAS where they will be doing
development work for the next phase.  When they are ready for phase two they
will overlay DEV and QAS with DEV2 and QAS2.  They have proposed this
because they are modifying some ABAP code that they are currently using, but
it would be incompatible with the current production environment.  The
problem that we see is that for workflow, any modifications or fixes would
need to be done in both places, but more importantly if we develop a new
workflow that needs to go into PROD prior to the Phase 2, and we create new
workflows for Phase 2 we will have duplicate workflow numbers when Phase 2
goes into effect.
 
I am guessing we are not the only company in this situation and I would like
to hear how other companies have done this.  Perhaps this approach of two
DEV and QAS boxes is not a good idea?  If you have any comments or
suggestions we would appreciate it.
 
Thanks,
 
Bill Craig
SAP - Workflow Team
Great-West Life & Annuity
Desk Phone - (303) 737-4053
Email - william.craig at gwl.com