Testing Requirements

You must test systems and processes to ensure proper operation before rolling them into production environments. Consider the following test requirements:

• Implement a staging area for testing the environment of highly available services.

• Use test or staging systems for training operators and systems administrators for production systems. Test systems management processes before implementing them on production systems.

• Maintain a comprehensive set of tests and automated test suites. Extend this test suite to cover problems that have been encountered in previous outages to help prevent them from recurring.

• Implement an interoperability testing system to detect problems with integrating equipment or software.