Operational Acceptance Testing
- Ensures that the business requirement is delivered by the system
- Ensures service level agreements are being met
- Minimises risk to the business of break downs and accelerates system retrieval
- Minimises time of recovery by preventing need to re-compile lost data
- Invests control of the testing project with management
Operational Acceptance Testing usually occurs at the same time as User Acceptance Testing and after Integration Testing in the Large. OAT will provide the assurance that the system designed and implemented will actually deliver the requirement the business originally requested. The performance and reliability of the system will be tested and confirmed and the service level agreements pertaining to the project are tested and confirmed.
What is Operational Acceptance Testing?
Operational Acceptance Testing ensures that all the non-functional aspects of a system are tested to ensure that the system is within the specified parameters
The original requirements of the project are examined and testing to ensure these requirements are being met is undertaken. Load and performance tests that assess the ability of the system to operate at the desired levels are performed and results collated and presented in an easy to understand format.
The ability of the system to perform reliably and to recover from problems is also tested. Backup recovery and data integration tests are performed to test that system data is recovered properly. The contingency plan for disaster recovery is tested and implemented to test that the system can recover effectively. The supportability of the complete system is also tested.
Also within the umbrella of Operational Acceptance Testing, non-functional testing disciplines such as Soak and Penetration Tests are conducted. SQS-UK has the technical expertise and experience to fulfil these all these testing requirements.
Why choose SQS-UK for your Operational Acceptance Testing?
SQS-UK are Europe's largest specialised, independent software and systems testing company and have been actively involved in Operational Acceptance Testing projects for companies ranging from start-up to blue chip in many market sectors.
- SQS-UK has accrued a wealth of knowledge of software testing experience that is available for customers to exploit
- SQS-UK uses a structured approach to identify weaknesses in disaster recovery and backup implementation as part of OAT and can help understand which areas will cause the most defects and problems in the business application
- SQS-UK has extensive experience as acting as mediators between users, developers and third party vendors
The cost of fixing a defect increases exponentially through each and every stage of the development process, the SQS-UK methodology ensures return on investment by fault and error finding at the earliest possible stage of development. This leads to both cost and time reductions.
The benefits of OAT Testing and testing backups and implementing good maintenance processes are:
- That the business requirement is actually delivered by the system
- Ensures service level agreements are being met
- That the system performance meets agreed levels
- That the whole infrastructure performs to specification
- That backup and recovery is achieved after disaster and that fail-over and fail back and break testing happen effectively
- Minimises loss of work and amount of time spent re-doing lost work
- Saves costs and time to the business by safeguarding critical business processes
How will SQS-UK conduct your Operational Acceptance Testing?
SQS-UK have proven methodologies for Operational Acceptance Testing as shown in the diagram below:
The test team will perform all required load and performance and functional tests to assess the system as currently presented and will measure the performance of the whole infrastructure against the specification. Items of non-conformance will be identified and the level of non-conformance measured and reported.
Measurement and Metrics
SQS-UK use several methods to measure the effectiveness of Operational Acceptance Testing -
- Test Plans
- Test Script Creation and Execution
- Use of Defect Log
- Risk/Issues Log
- Recommendations to improve system efficiency
- Final Operational Acceptance Testing Report
- Test Management Control Panel
The combined use of all these reporting methods shows, in the Test Management Control Panel, easily understood reporting metrics presented in a graphical form. This ensures that control of the testing function is always retained by the business managers and provides the proof of effectiveness of the testing project.
