Environments and Groups ------------------------------------- When releases are ready for deployment, systems and applications must be put into some operating environment. Within any environment identities will exist; some will be users, some services and some will be specific hosts. These principals for the sake of manageability are often categorized together into logical associations. By grouping identities together, administrators can handle them as a single entity where the same set of tasks may apply to the group whatever those management
operations may be. Although groups are designed by administrators to simplify and reduce their workload, it's no coincidence that these groups are highly dependent on an organization's structure or the processes within an organization. General groups may exist for the entire organization. More specific groups will exist for the departments of an organization. When processes drive the creation of groups, membership is a based on similar functions required of a group's members. Sometimes processes are isolated to a division, but more often than not, processes span across divisions leading to the creation of cross divisional groups. We extract more glossary definitions: Group: A set of distinctly identifiable entities which are categorically alike within an organization, organizational unit or with respect to some organizational process.
