Operational acceptance testing (OAT) is used to conduct operational readiness (pre-release) of a product, service, or system as part of a

quality management system A quality management system (QMS) is a collection of business processes focused on consistently meeting customer requirements and enhancing their satisfaction. It is aligned with an organization's purpose and strategic direction ( ISO 9001:2015). ...

. OAT is a common type of non-functional

software testing Software testing is the act of checking whether software satisfies expectations. Software testing can provide objective, independent information about the Quality (business), quality of software and the risk of its failure to a User (computin ...

, used mainly in

software development Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

and

software maintenance Software maintenance is the modification of software after delivery. Software maintenance is often considered lower skilled and less rewarding than new development. As such, it is a common target for outsourcing or offshoring. Usually, the tea ...

projects. This type of testing focuses on the operational readiness of the system to be supported, and/or to become part of the production environment. Hence, it is also known as operational readiness testing (ORT) or operations readiness and assurance testing (OR&A). Functional testing within OAT is limited to those tests which are required to verify the ''non-functional'' aspects of the system. OAT elaborates upon and compartmentalises operational aspects of acceptance testing. According to the International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB), OAT may include checking the

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/restore facilities, IT

disaster recovery IT disaster recovery (also, simply disaster recovery (DR)) is the process of maintaining or reestablishing vital infrastructure and systems following a natural or human-induced disaster, such as a storm or battle. DR employs policies, tools, ...

procedures, maintenance tasks and periodic check of security vulnerabilities., and whitepapers on ISO 29119 and Operational Acceptance by Anthony Woods, and ISO 25000 and Operational Acceptance Testing by Dirk Dach et al., OAT generally includes:White Paper: Operational Acceptance Testing, Business Continuity Assurance. December 2012 Dirk Dach, Dr Kai-Uwe Gawlik, Mark Mevert * Component Testing * Failover (Within the same data centre) :* Component fail-over :* Network fail-over * Functional Stability :* Accessibility :* Conversion :* Stability :* Usability * IT Service Management (Supportability) * Monitoring and Alerts (to ensure proper alerts are configured in the system if something goes wrong) * Portability :* Compatibility :* Interoperability :* Installation and Backout :* Localization * Recovery (across data centres) :* Application/system recovery :* Data recovery * Reliability :* Backup and Restoration (Recovery) :* Disaster Recovery :* Maintainability :* Performance, Stress and Volume, :* Procedures (Operability) and Supporting Documentation (Supportability) :* Security and Penetration During OAT changes may be made to environmental parameters which the application uses to run smoothly. For example, with

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applications with a mixed or hybrid architecture, this may include:

Windows service In Windows NT operating systems, a Windows service is a computer program that operates in the background. It is similar in concept to a Unix daemon. A Windows service must conform to the interface rules and protocols of the Service Control Manag ...

configuration file A configuration file, a.k.a. config file, is a computer file, file that stores computer data, data used to configure a software system such as an application software, application, a server (computing), server or an operating system. Some applic ...

web services A web service (WS) is either: * a service offered by an electronic device to another electronic device, communicating with each other via the Internet, or * a server running on a computer device, listening for requests at a particular port over a n ...

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files, COM+ components, web services, IIS, stored procedures in databases, etc. Typically OAT should occur after each main phase of the development life cycle: design, build, and functional testing. In sequential projects it is often viewed as a ''final'' verification before a system is released; where in agile and iterative projects, a more frequent execution of OAT occurs providing stakeholders with assurance of continued stability of the system and its operating environment. An approach used in OAT may follow these steps: * Design the system, * Assess the design, * Build the system, * Confirm if built to design, * Evaluate the system addresses business functional requirements, * Assess the system for compliance with non-functional requirements, * Deploy the system, * Assess operability and supportability of the system. For running the OAT

test case In software engineering, a test case is a specification of the inputs, execution conditions, testing procedure, and expected results that define a single test to be executed to achieve a particular software testing objective, such as to exercise ...

s, the tester normally has exclusive access to the system or environment. This means that a single tester would be executing the test cases at a single point of time. For OAT the exact Operational Readiness quality gates are defined: both entry and exit gates. The primary emphasis of OAT should be on the operational stability, portability and reliability of the system.

References

{{reflist Software testing