Testing is a vital phase in your assessment. Many suggest that more than 50 percent of your effort must be dedicated to testing. Everything must be tested, including equipment that was thought to be Y2K ready. Start small and move to the large. Start with the single unit or component and test it by itself. Then slowly integrate the unit back into the network. Test the unit integrated back into its immediate environment and then test the entire system. Part of the reason for this is that one solution may not work with other solutions. Different methods of patching the problem may be employed and their methods may not be compatible. In addition, according to some sources, for every 4.5 fixes, one additional error is introduced. Testing is the only way to know if everything will work together, what additional problems you have inflicted on yourself, and what problems remained unforeseen.
Test carefully. Improperly devised tests can fail to properly determine whether systems are in fact working or they can even harm the systems. If you simply move the clock forward on your computer, it is possible that you will be confronted with two immediate problems: your passwords and licenses may expire. Thus, testing needs to be conducted with care.
Of course, you may also face the problem of having a 24x7 network. It is always on and thus very difficult to take down to test. But test you must. The solution is to test everything that is testable. For those components that cannot be pulled off line, look to sharing information as much as possible. U.S. telephone companies that face the same problem are jointly conducting simulated tests in the lab environment. This may be hard to replicate as the Internet is far more varied than the telephone network. However, cooperative efforts and the sharing of information is what must compensate for the inability to pull networks offline. Also, where testing cannot be done, realize that critical dates like January 1, 2000 and February 29, 2000 therefore become live tests; prepare to be responsive to the eventualities that you encounter.
Types of test to consider:
- Unit
- Systems
- Intergrated or interoperability testing (ensuring that equipment works as it interacts with other "fixed" systems)
- Baseline
- String (sorting of data)
- Acceptance
- Parallel
- Regression (testing of remediated software and equipment to ensure that new errors have not been introduced)
FCC Y2K Souvenirs
