Publisher Summary This chapter presents a detailed analysis of the practical issues that arise when deploying Grid technologies in “production” environments. The work described represents actual experiences based on specific architectural and software choices made during design and implementation. Many projects are now building production Grids to provide identified user communities with a rich, stable, and standard distributed computing environment. “Standard” Grids specifically mean Grids based on the common practice and standards defined within the Global Grid Forum (GGF), whereas “production Grids mean Grids having the same levels of reliability and maintainability as traditional large-scale production facilities. Quality-of-service metrics such as 24/7 operation, mean time among failure rates, and throughput should be defined and measurable. Acceptable values for these metrics may depend on the target virtual organization, but in general sophisticated user support, engineering support, diagnostic tools, and software release procedures are required.