Design – Build – Run: Applied Practices and Principles for Production-Ready Software Development

6.2. Testing in the "Production" Environments

This section discusses some of the production environments and the types of testing that could be carried out in them. In addition, it discusses some of the challenges once the system is in live service; some of these environments are no longer available for testing activities. The production environments discussed in this section include:

• The primary site environment — The primary production environment is where the live service will be hosted. In the run-up to go-live, the production environment can be used to perform various testing and proving activities. However, as mentioned earlier, once the system is in live service, this environment is out-of-bounds for any testing activities. This section lists the types of activities that can be performed in the primary production environment.

• The secondary site environment — In an active/passive primary and secondary site configuration, the secondary production environment is essentially a "hot standby" environment where various tests can be carried out. However, in the event of a primary site disaster, the secondary site would be running the live service and no testing could be performed. In an active/active primary and secondary site configuration, both sites are being used for the live service, so no testing can be performed in either environment once the system is in live service. This section lists the types of activities that can be performed in the secondary site production environment ...