Service transition is the phase between building something and running it live. It covers planning the release, testing it, preparing support teams, and handling the cutover. Operations begins once the service is live: monitoring, incident response, and daily upkeep. The two overlap, but confusing them causes releases that nobody is ready to support.
What transition work actually includes
- Release planning: what ships, in what order, and what happens if a step fails.
- Knowledge transfer: support teams learn the service, its known issues, and its escalation paths before go-live.
- Acceptance checks: agreed criteria that must pass before the service is declared live.
- Early life support: a period of closer monitoring right after launch, when problems are most likely.
NaukriSala runs a track covering this area. In interviews, describe one release from planning to early life support, and you will sound like someone who has done the work, not just read about it.