by Pat Neary
The way in which organizations “consume” enterprise software has changed dramatically since the advent of cloud computing and the widespread adoption of SaaS propositions. Instead of a major, disruptive upgrade project every three to five years, software updates are released (and deployed) on a much more regular basis.
With its Cloud Applications, Oracle delivers new updates every quarter. This means every three months you’ll receive new functionality to help you efficiently and effectively manage your business. The subtext here is that anyone responsible for managing and supporting an Oracle Cloud Application running within a business needs be switched on.
Whether you’re an end-customer or a systems integrator you have to understand what’s new each quarter; what features are delivered enabled, and what features you might want to “turn on” that are now available, but disabled.
Whether you choose to enable anything every quarter or not, our experience tells us that you still need to test. Regression testing every quarter will ensure Oracle has not inadvertently introduced bugs or code-changes that will negatively impact on system performance or user experience.
With enterprise application software it’s not prudent to simply trust without testing. If you’ve chosen to turn on a new feature, you need to consider how that feature is going to impact current processes and procedures. Downstream problems could have major implications for operational efficiency, so even small changes need to be tested.
With Oracle Cloud Applications, more frequent updates mean more frequent testing. If you’re responsible for the functional testing of Oracle Cloud Applications, we’d like to hear from you. Specifically, we’d like to know how you’re tackling the testing challenge. We’d welcome the opportunity to share our own experiences and discuss how test automation can help ease the burden of more frequent testing.
If you’re happy to share your thoughts and experiences, please comment below. Alternatively you can email me directly at patrick.neary@dws-global.com, or give me a call on +44 (0) 7747 443421.
