CentraSite provides a lifecycle model for policies that applies to both design/change-time policies and run-time policies. The lifecycle model has associated policies that CentraSite uses to validate, activate and deactivate policies. Because of the complex nature of this lifecycle model, we recommend that you use the lifecycle model as installed. Do not attempt to customize this lifecycle model. (You can associate additional policies with its state changes, however.)

If you are operating in a multi-stage deployment, this means that you will use the same lifecycle model on all stages in your environment. You will not define a multi-stage lifecycle model for policies as you would for an asset.

When you develop a run-time policy on the creation CentraSite, that policy will enter the New state. It will transition between the Productive and Suspended states as it undergoes development and testing. When the run-time policy is considered to be ready for production, you will promote it to the consumption CentraSite. Here it will also enter the lifecycle in the New state. When you are ready to activate the policy in the consumption CentraSite, you switch it to the Productive state.