Software Deployment Processes

One of the focuses of many corporate IT departments is the adoption of new technology. Enterprises expect their service providers to be aware of new technology developments. SPs should be able to implement new functionality for the enterprise use of their VPN services in a "leading-edge" manner. This means that the network operating system of devices within the provider network should be no more than two or three releases behind the latest available from the equipment vendor.

One question worth posing to providers is, assuming a business case exists for you to deploy a particular feature on your infrastructure, how long would it take to introduce the technology on your network from the time the equipment vendor made production releases of code available?