Develop Failure Scenarios Test Plan

Use

To determine scenarios that can cause all or part of your SAP system to fail

To develop a test plan for simulating failure situations in order to develop recovery procedures that minimize the impact on your system

Procedure

1.       List causes and results of hardware failure scenarios. Include external reasons for failures.
This list must include all hardware in your system, for example:

-         Machine components

·         Disks

·         Controllers

·         CPU board

·         Memory

-         Network hardware

·         Cables

·         Routers

-         Other hardware

·         Frontends (desktop and laptop)

·         Printers

·         Backup devices and media

 

2.       Plan for all possible types of failure:

-         Normal failure of devices

-         Fire and flood

-         Other natural or human disaster

3.       After listing failures and the reasons for failures, determine the impact of each failure.

-         How does the failure impact the whole system?

-         How does the failure impact the development system?

-         How does the failure impact the production system?

4.       Check all functional areas in your SAP implementation. Determine other errors that can make it necessary to restore the database to an earlier state, such as:

-         User errors

-         Import of corrupted data during data transfer

-         Errors during data reorganization

-         Archiving of business objects, month closing, …

5.       List all failure scenarios. Use the following list to group failure scenarios into functional areas. To help create appropriate procedures, include them in your operation manual and assign persons to monitor and resolve failures.

-         Application

·         Reset and restart procedures for critical and interrupted business procedures (application log)

·         Interfaces used in the application

-         Technical

·         Frontend

·         Application server

·         Database server

·         Network layer (LAN and WAN)

·         Transporting SAP customizing

·         Operational security of the computer center

·         Operational security of computer resources in the computer center

·         Off-site backup of the SAP system

6.       Develop a failure test plan. The plan must contain the following:

-         Detailed list of failure test tasks

-         Technical dependencies and necessary preparation

-         Test owner

-         Expected results

-         Ability of the system to:

·         Recover from the failure

·         Isolate the error

·         Report the error effectively with appropriate urgency

·         Restart from the point of error

7.       Organize a uniform reporting system for the enterprise. Address the following questions:

-         How are failures reported?

-         Who processes and escalates a failure?

-         Who decides when there is a failure, and with what information?

Result

List of failure scenarios and their impact

Failure scenarios test plan