Shadow Production System for Software Upgrade Testing
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Computer system upgrades often pose compatibility risks with un-upgraded features, leading users to avoid upgrades to ensure system stability, thus hindering the benefits of regular upgrades.
Innovation Solution
A method involving a shadow production system where test transactions are input before and after a software upgrade, allowing for comparison of results to assess potential impacts and ensure compatibility.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If users avoid implementing upgrades to ensure system stability, then system reliability is maintained, but the system cannot benefit from improved features and performance
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by performing test transactions in a shadow production system before implementing the actual software upgrade in the live production system. This allows potential compatibility issues to be detected and resolved in advance, ensuring system reliability while enabling safe adoption of upgrade benefits.
Solution Approach 2:
The shadow production system serves as an intermediary between the current production system and the upgraded system. It allows testing and validation of upgrades in a controlled environment that mirrors the production system, bridging the gap between maintaining stability and adopting improvements.
2Productivity
If software upgrades are implemented without prior testing, then upgrade implementation is fast, but compatibility risks with un-upgraded features increase
Solution Approach 1:
Test transactions are executed in the shadow production system before the actual upgrade is deployed to production. This preliminary testing phase identifies compatibility issues in advance, allowing the upgrade to be implemented quickly and safely in the live system without compromising reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
A shadow production system is created as a copy of the live production system. This copy is used for testing upgrades and validating compatibility before the upgrade is applied to the actual production system, enabling fast implementation with assured compatibility.
3Reliability
If test transactions are performed in a shadow production system before upgrade, then compatibility risks are reduced, but additional testing time and resources are required
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of extensive manual testing, a shadow production system is created as a reusable copy that automatically executes test transactions. This copying approach ensures compatibility through systematic testing while reducing the overall time investment compared to manual testing of each upgrade scenario.
Solution Approach 2:
The shadow production system automatically performs test transactions and evaluates compatibility without requiring extensive manual intervention. This self-service testing approach reduces the time and resources needed while maintaining high compatibility assurance.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, computer program products, and systems are presented. There can be provided inputting a set of test transactions into a shadow production system, wherein providing of a set of test transactions includes modifying of a set of transactions of a production system, and obtaining a result of the inputting.