BNL IT Change Control Board

• Overview
• Process
• Board membership
• Change Control Chair
• Significant Change
• Advance Notification
• Change Plan
• Challenges
• Communication Process 
• CCB Event Calendars

Overview
The IT Change Control Board has been established to improve the management of changes to the computing and networking infrastructure here at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Specifically, it is hoped the role of the Board will:

• Ensure that changes are reviewed and implemented on a timely basis.
• Minimize the risk of disruption to scientific and business operations.
• Provide on open forum to discuss ideas and or concerns.

Process
In order to ensure that these changes are planned and communicated in advance to all of its members, each Board member will be given the opportunity to halt or modify any of the proposed changes by submitting a challenge to the Change Control Board’s Chair. Notification of all planned changes and challenges will be communicated via e-mail. There are no scheduled meetings for this Board, but at the discretion of the Chairperson meetings may be held if there is a need.

Board membership

• Chair - Martin Gormezano
• Members - The membership will include all system administrators appointed by their respective departments or Divisions. It is the responsibility of each Board member to appoint an alternative member to represent the department in the event of the current members absence (vacation, sick, travel, etc.) Any alternate member should be communicated to the Chair.

Change Control Chair
The Chair will manage the membership of the Board. All requests for the addition of members or their withdrawal will be communicated to the Board’s Chair via e-mail. The Chair will arbitrate all challenges and inform all members of any changes in schedule. 

The Chair position is not permanent and will be rotated every six months. It is fundamentally a technical position and candidates should possess a broad knowledge of the network and infrastructure. It is not necessarily an ITD function.

Significant Change
The definition of a significant change is any major change or project that impacts multiple departments/divisions and services.

Examples are:

1. The system or service will be unavailable for a pre-determined length of time
2. A change to the system requires actions by clients in the form of configuration changes, outages, upgrades or training.
3. Any intuitional change requiring knowledge or effort by system administrators or the general laboratory personnel at large, which may impede the production or pursuit of science.  If a change is classified as significant by the department/division, the change plan will be documented with as much detail as possible and sent for approval to the Change Control Board.

If a change is classified as significant by the department/division, the change plan will be documented with as much detail as possible and sent for approval to the Change Control Board.

Advance Notification
Change plans will be submitted with as much lead time as possible in advance of the proposed change. It is the Chair’s responsibility to indicate the date that a vote is due from the Board. It is also the Chair’s responsibility to prioritize the proposed change and to inform the Board as to whether the change falls into the normal change process or is considered to be an emergency. If a change is deemed an emergency, the Board will be notified for information purposes only as it may or may not be subject to a vote. 

Challenges to the plan must be submitted within a significant amount of time to be effective. The date that a challenge is due will be determined by the Chair and communicated to the Board.

Change Plan
The change plan must be an e-mail and should include the following information:

1. Who: Department, group, experiment that is planning the change. e.g.: ITD Network Services.
2. What: Affected System(s) or service(s). e.g. Email, File Service, domain etc. Include as much detail as possible.
3. Where: Scope of the change, buildings, departments, or groups affected. e.g. Building 490 Medical Dept.  
4. When: Start time and estimated duration.
5. Priority High, Medium, Important, Emergency, etc.

Challenges
Any challenge issued by a member must be an e-mail containing the following information:

1. Who: Department, group, experimenters who are challenging the change.
2. Why: The grounds upon which the challenge is based.
3. What: Proposed modification to the change plan.  
   

Challenge arbitration will occur as soon as possible between the effected parties.

Communication Process

1. The Chair will distribute via email the requested change that is submitted to the Board.
2. In the communication the Chair will include the date the vote is due, the date the challenge is to be submitted and the priority status of the change. The message will also include a voting area for each member to complete as follows:
   
   Ok to proceed as requested _______________  
   No, Request impacts my Dept/div adversely – need to arbitrate ____________
    
3. The Chair will review each response, tabulate the votes and communicate the results to all Board members. If a response is not received from a member it will be considered an abstention and will have no impact on the final decision of the Board.
4. In the event of a challenge, the Chair will bring the interested parties together.
5. The Chair will notify all board members of the final resolution prior to a lab-wide notification.
6. The Chair will notify the requesting department of the decision of the Board and if approved instruct that department to send a message via the Notify-L list.

Last Modified: February 1, 2008
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One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

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