A deployment plan's primary purpose is to orchestrate all activities required to move a service into the live environment successfully. A critical element of this orchestration is managing uncertainty and potential failure. Therefore, identifying risks (e.g., technical failures, resource unavailability, negative user impact) and defining mitigation actions is a primary objective. This ensures the deployment is executed in a controlled manner, minimizing the likelihood of incidents and achieving the intended outcomes.

A. The budget is typically defined at the project or portfolio level; the deployment plan focuses on the execution within that budget.

C. A training plan is an important component of the overall deployment plan, but it is a supporting activity, not the primary purpose.

D. Purchasing hardware and software is a procurement activity that usually precedes or runs in parallel with detailed deployment planning.

1. AXELOS. (2021). ITIL® 4 Practitioner: Deployment Management. PeopleCert. Section 4.2.1, "Deployment planning," explicitly states that the plan should include risk assessment and mitigation strategies.

2. AXELOS. (2020). ITIL® 4: High-velocity IT. TSO (The Stationery Office). Section 4.5.3 discusses planning for deployment, highlighting the need to manage risks associated with the release and deployment process.