Design – Build – Run: Applied Practices and Principles for Production-Ready Software Development

6.1. The Types of Testing

This section takes a look at the different types of testing activities that are performed to ensure that the system is fit for purpose, including:

• Acceptance testing — Acceptance testing is performed by business users and is generally referred to as user acceptance testing (UAT). UAT primarily focuses on the functional aspects of the system. Acceptance testing, however, can also include operational acceptance testing (OAT). OAT typically involves the operations team, the service delivery team, and the application maintenance team. The tests focus on the core operational aspects of the system to ensure that the live service processes and procedures are in place, such as monitoring, backup and restore testing, and disaster recovery testing. OAT also encompasses end user training, routine maintenance, and fix-on-fail. Some issues may simply require process changes; however, when issues require updates to the solution, the system needs to be fully tested prior to releasing a fix into the production environment which can involve a number of different test activities.

• Technical testing — Technical testing typically encompasses performance tests, failure and recovery tests, and operability tests. There's a clear overlap between technical testing and OAT when it comes to operability testing. It depends on how the project and organization is structured as to who is responsible for the various testing activities. However, it is not unusual for a project team to ...