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Client overview
The client is a US-based enterprise in operation since the late 1990s. Their desktop and server-side virtualisation products and services drive the business, in addition to their backup and Cloud management offerings. They employ nearly 20,000 staff, boast an annual revenue of over $6 billion, and are a virtualisation solution trailblazer known for their products’ usability and robustness.
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Business Assurance & Testing of financial and order fulfilment systems using the BA360 Automated Test Design and Business Assurance Accelerator
Business Problem
The Client provides IT solutions and options to a broad market, so it is imperative to their customers that operations run smoothly and reliably. Their existing, third-party testing solution was at an end, requiring them to identify an alternative.
Test Design previously required a relatively high number of expert staff to manually implement the necessary
processes, which, unfortunately, were not reusable for later testing. This resulted in a higher-than-ideal cost of ownership. Despite the man-hours required, test cycles still took longer than was ideal for growing business demands. The Client sought to improve their ability to deliver a quality product in a secure, timely and cost-effective manner - an outcome the replacement solution would need to address. An end-to-end testing strategy was called-for to provide both quality improvements and better coverage.
Remaining competitive in the Client's market means doing more than keeping pace; it required consistently driving new opportunities and course correction to fit this goal. As such, the new, innovative solution would have to serve the same needs and demands its predecessor fulfilled, and also improve upon and surpass previous benchmarks.
The process of switching from the Client’s previous testing solution to our more efficient and effective Business Assurance methodology faced a critical challenge of an immutable deadline that was three weeks shorter than originally scoped. Despite having less time than originally planned, it remained imperative that Prolifics Testing complete the transition successfully and smoothly.
The typical concerns of manual Test Design and lack of awareness of business outcome needs were among the obstacles our team had to surmount. These conditions prevented lessons learned during testing from being integrated into real-time Test Design processes. The need to account for the Client’s multiple Cloud and custom, in-house systems posed yet another challenge we would need to innovate an answer for.
Solution
We prepared a solution that met the Client’s quality and Business Assurance needs and could be rolled out within the presented timeline. Within this window, we had to automate the test life cycle, prepare the Test Design, and test the data, execution, and validation of the affected systems. In fact, our team delivered two weeks ahead of the already shortened deadline due to the Test Design and Test Automation implemented with the BA360 toolkit.
The deadline was not the only challenge posed by the Client, however. Our Test Design and Test Automation experts had to implement the new solution while still meeting the Client’s defined performance and quality objectives. To do so, we worked with the Client's QA Management team to determine what these goals were and how the provided solution could match (and surpass) them effectively.
Our innovative implementation of the BA360 Accelerator and Business Assurance methodology met and exceeded the Client's testing requirements. The solution matched the immediate IT specification, but also took a Business Assurance approach that aligned testing to the Client’s overall business objectives and was capable of adjusting to these goals during development.
BA360 Accelerator Streamlines, Informs & Enables
The Business Assurance methodology incorporates a dashboard and heads-up display within BA360 to provide insight into the solution’s ability to adapt to the Client’s continually changing needs and requirements. This enabled BA360 to learn from previous test cycles, making future testing more effective by presenting relevant, real-time data, in a format that is both current and understandable.
Immediate access to crucial data during testing enables improvements and adjustments on the fly to avoid previous mistakes, enhancing the solution design and implementation in the process.
Additionally, BA360 links the business processes and applications, outputting an insightful heat map of the Client’s systems, to align their business outcomes and testing approach. This produced more extensive, higher quality testing coverage compared to their previous solution’s results and the overall market expectations.
The BA360 layer of the Business Assurance framework provided automated Test Design capability - the first of its kind - essential to this outcome. Furthermore, BA360 served as a central repository for all testing and application information. This enables the Client to use the acquired knowledge and capacity for predictive analysis to compensate for on-going changes to deployed technologies and further integration mandates, while continuing to learn.
Reduces Expenses & Boosts Effectiveness
Because our Business Assurance methodology can be implemented faster, more intuitively and evolves with testing requirements, it has reduced the number of subject matter experts (SMEs) and other resources required for future testing. This has resulted in improved confidence in the Client's capabilities, a Business Assurance outcome that passes savings on to customers, and increasing staff morale.
The Client now enjoys a valuable advantage in the market with the ability to reuse data from previous test cycles. In just four days, they can now generate 1,500 test cases aligned with their business objectives. Previously, they required between 750 to 1,500 hours to develop 1,500 test cases, and these test cases did not have the same coverage as is now possible. The scope of testing has improved significantly to 99% system coverage, contributing to 99%+ in defect removal efficiency (DRE).
This resulted in zero post-production defects, whereas 5% to 10% is typical of other testing solutions, including the solution the Client previously deployed.
Our Business Assurance Solution Keeps Improving
One of BA360’s greatest strengths in the Business Assurance methodology is its ability to evolve to deliver better automated Business Assurance and testing processes. By continuing to support the Client’s need to adapt to hardware and market changes, the BA360 toolkit is itself adapting. This process enables it to demonstrate its value to the company and, inclusive of the Prolifics Testing Business Assurance Managed Services, deliver measurable results.
Moving forward, we continue to provide on-going support for the Client’s Business Assurance and Managed Services Testing solution. There is also an on-going dialog between us and the Client regarding requests for new features within the BA360 toolkit.
This exchange will help the Client stay ahead of the competition, as they continue to realise the business benefits gained through the Prolifics Testing Business Assurance Managed Testing service.
