Most companies which have ERPs deployed run many instances of the ERP. Instance represents a seperate system with its own set of data and configurations. Normally, as a best practice it is suggested that there should be four instances in any ERP environment. These are development instance, test instance, Patch instance and the Production intance. The more instances a company has, the greater the responsibility of maintaining integrity of each instance. The four instances mentioned above are considered the bare minimum and represent the best practice developed for IT environments. However, it is suggested that companies should look at the overall IT scenario and needs before deciding upon the number of instances.

To shed some more light on instances, let us see the four instances mentioned above in detail.

1. Development Instance - The development instance also called as the 'Dev' instance represents the IT environment in which intial development is done. New programs, functions in ERPs are first rolled out in the development instance. The development instance in some cases is replicated with live data from production environment to reflect real processing scenarios.

2. Patch Instance - Patch instance is the instance used by IT support for testing patches, any new developments, assessing the impact of changes and customizations. Patch environment is sometimes also referred to as a playground instance.

3. Test Instance - Test instance represents a exact replica of the production environment. Test instance is very important since any changes are tested here before being moved into the production environment or instance. Final testing of user patches, customizations, setup changes, changes in configuration are tested here before being moved to production.

4. Production Instance - Production system is the live system of the company. This represents the actual live data stored in the system. Production system hosts the final set of books or application data for the organization.

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