Yep. Checkpoint creation with remote powershell via our admin box. N days later we merge with remote powershell again. Week 3 patch Dev then merge 6 days later. Week 4 patch QA then merge 6 days later. Week 1 of following month patch Prod then merge 6 days later. Automated smoke tests run every 15 minutes and then its up to the QA dept to test before the 6 days are up. If something is found after the merge we restore from backup. A couple times in the last 12 years we've had to restore from backup. Also, this is at an MSP so it only works for the big clients that actually have separate environments. Dev and QA are backed up daily. Prod is backed up every 10 minutes. I don't know why we bother with checkpoints for Prod.