Who: Operations team - specialists with expertise in system operation, deployment, infrastructure, automating tests and simulating real-world scenarios.
When: Operational readiness testing occurs before the system is deployed to the production environment, it is crucial to ensure that the system is fully prepared for operation and meets the necessary criteria before it goes live.
Purpose: Operational readiness testing aims to verify that the system is fully prepared for deployment and can operate effectively in the production environment. It ensures the system is stable, reliable, and performs as expected when subjected to operational scenarios.
Tools/Technology:
qTest
- A test management tool to organize and track operational readiness test cases and their results. It helps streamline the testing process and provides visibility into the testing progress.
JIRA:
- A project management and issue-tracking tool that can be leveraged for managing operational readiness testing tasks, tracking test cases, and reporting any defects or issues encountered during testing.
UTAF/Selenium:
- This tool combination allows for the automation of operational readiness tests, enabling the simulation of user interactions and scenarios to ensure the system functions correctly in a real-world context.
Apache JMeter/Blazemeter:
- Although primarily utilized for performance and load testing, it can also be utilized for operational readiness testing. It assesses system response and stability under realistic user traffic, ensuring the system can handle the anticipated workload.
Operational readiness testing typically includes a combination of the following testing types:
Smoke Testing: This initial test ensures that the basic functionalities of the system are working correctly. It involves executing a set of critical tests to check if the system can start up, log in, and perform critical operations without encountering significant issues.
Performance Testing: Operational readiness testing may include testing to assess the system's response time, throughput, and scalability under expected load conditions. For example, Apache JMeter can simulate many concurrent users to evaluate system performance.
Rollback Testing: Rollback testing verifies the system's ability to revert to a previous version or configuration in case of issues or failures encountered during deployment or operation. It ensures that the rollback process is reliable and consistent and minimizes any adverse impact on the system and its data.
Disaster Recovery Testing: This testing evaluates the system's ability to recover from various failure scenarios, such as hardware failures or natural disasters. It verifies that the system can restore data and resume operation without significant downtime.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) Testing: This testing evaluates the system's ability to meet the defined recovery objectives regarding data loss and downtime. It measures the time it takes to recover the system and determines whether the recovery objectives align with business needs and expectations.
Monitoring and Alerting Testing: Operational readiness includes verifying that monitoring and alerting systems are correctly set up and functioning. This testing ensures that system health metrics, logs, and alerts are correctly configured and that the operations team can effectively monitor and respond to system issues.
Operational readiness testing involves close collaboration between the testing, development, and operations teams. The team works together to address any identified issues or risks, fine-tune the system for optimal performance, and meet all operational requirements.
