• Level 1: Technical Assurance Agreements (Security Patch Management)
• Level 2: Crisis Response Technical Assurance (CRTA)
• Level 3: Major Application Upgrade Assurance (MAUA)

The Challenge of Infrastructure Maintenance

The complexity of technologies is making the maintenance of hardware and software for most companies very difficult. It’s near impossible to re-test all of a company’s applications whenever changes are made. Companies of all sizes have limited options before them:

1. Not to upgrade hardware or software because the risk of failure in production is too high and dangerous to the business. These companies are not able to take advantage of exciting new features, performance and functionality as technology evolves.
   
   
2. Upgrade hardware or software and ‘hope’ the existing applications do not break, exposing customers to significant risk.
   
   
3. Hire testers to test all existing applications for every update or security patch, a tremendous ongoing expense over several years.
   
   

Devtest’s Response to the Challenge

The Devtest Technical Assurance Agreements (TAA) enable companies to implement service packs and security patches to their operating systems and upgrade hardware systems, with confidence that their current applications and systems remain in consistent quality.

In the first stage of the TAA, we utilise our expert resources, hardware and tools to custom design end-to-end automated test scenarios which cover the client’s mission-critical applications and systems.

In the second stage, a Devtest specialist will schedule up to one week per month over the two year contract, in which they will be on the client’s site to run the automated testing suite across the applications to identify and analyse the impact of any planned changes.

If a company would like additional support with implementing the rollout of any patches or changes, Devtest can arrange for one of their partners to assist.

Cost Effective

Because Devtest shares the expense of the testing software licenses, tools and resources over its client base, we are able to offer the service at a significantly lower price to what it would cost for each client to maintain the same service internally year after year.

Instant Issue Identification

By running the test scenarios designed in Stage 1, our automated testing can provide an instant indication of any changes or issues that the hardware upgrades, security patches or service packs may cause.

Implement Changes with Assurance and Confidence

When the automated test scenarios are run with a clear pass (ie. all the test cases passed), your company can be assured that the risk of failure to existing applications and third-party software is significantly lowered.

Regular Scheduled Visits

Devtest’s regularly scheduled visits enable a company to plan when they will make changes and install upgrades or patches.

Expert Analysis Onsite of Test Case Failures and Recommended Fixes

If one or more test case fails, Devtest conducts an analysis on the failure which produces specific feedback on which areas of a product have broken. This indicates exactly which areas of your mission critical software will need to be updated to enable it to continue working. Thus, your employees are able to focus their efforts on fixing the issues, rather than finding them.

Expert Knowledge Base

Your Devtest TAA provides you with access to our expert knowledge base in the field of automated testing of information, security patch changes and service upgrade risks.

Examples of Changes

The Devtest TAA team tests changes in the backend platform hardware and configuration. Generally these include “Infrastructure” enhancements, such as:

• Service Pack Upgrades
• Tuning and performance enhancements.
• Data modelling changes
• Hardware upgrades
• Hardware changes
• Configuration impacts
• Security patches

Additional Services

While the following types of changes are not included in the Level 1, Devtest can also provide these services which will be quoted separately on request.

Level 2: Crisis Response Technical Assurance (CRTA)

Level 3: Major Application Upgrade Assurance (MAUA)