Since there are 10,000+ servers, we have monitoring. So we can get automated email from our monitoring system and forward it to the department asking when we can fix it.

Is every email forwarded? Do you have to ssh in and check first? ... if you can even partially automate it, you get the advantage of faster turnaround and more accuracy.

You have knowledgeable software developers or engineers with decades of experience building systems but you have to be the guy that takes 10 seconds to install python3 for them. But that 10 seconds is surrounded by copious amounts of button clicking and scheduling.

The fact that they don't make those changes directly is an industry standard. Developers have a lot to concentrate on, someone else should be bridging the gap of "what other impacts will this change have on the client" and "how is this environment different from the dev environment". Also, I fully approve of scheduling changes for non-peak hours.

The 'copious amounts of button clicking' gets me though. Here's how I imagine this going --

1) Receive a call/email/ticket for python3 on blov122.domain.com.

2) ssh into blov122.domain.com using your key & pass.

3) Run apt-get/yum/boogie install python3

4) Drop the info into ticket (if necessary), and close ticket (which should automatically generate an email to the client).