TEST environment required or not?

Against TEST

• Account Ability do not believe we need a test environment however if the expectation is that UOE will be carrying out patching activities upgrades etc we would recommend a test environment to carry out this work on before progressing to live. It all depends on the support arrangements after go live and our involvement in subsequent work.
• If the Corporate Planner system can accept longer periods of downtime or risk during upgrade/patching activities then it may be determined that a test environment is not required.

   Actual Costs for VM Server

•  Here are the indicative 5 year costs for the 2 live VM servers. Breakdown below for your information.
  • ITI will confirm the actual costs in I130823-0594.
• App Server = £1730
  • (memory £1517, 100GB Disk £127, 100GB backup £86)
• DB Server  = £2993
  • (memory £1818, 550GB Disk £700, 550GB backup £475)  

For TEST

• The latest upgrade caused an outage on the LIVE system, this may have been avoided if this was carried out in a TEST environment first.
  • For example a test environment would allow the upgrade to be tested out, verify upgrade/patching process, calculate downtime, allow users to test the upgraded environment.
• The request for a refund on the existing machine will not be provided, details can be found in the Unidesk call I130823-0594\02 where we included the request for new VM.
  • The VM Server can be re-used for Test, which will mean no other VM Server will be needed.
  • If we go down that route an estimate will have to be reviewed ahnd included to reconfigure the Test VM Server.