What is Recovery Testing and what do you need to know about it?
Recovery Testing and all you need to know
Recovery Testing is the burgeoning face of data recovery in Software Engineering! Just like how a warm, sizzling bowl of comfort food resets your mind and body after a busy day, or how grandma’s grits and hot biscuits revitalizes you, Recovery Testing goes all out to ensure software can recover important data in the face of crisis.
What is recovery testing?
Software failures are inevitable. While some software failures do not extensively affect the Operating System, others are utter disasters! To salvage disastrous effects of a software or system hitch, we use Recovery Testing. Recovery Testing is a technique for software testing which determines a software’s ability to recover from a software failure or hitch. Some of these unpleasant malfunctions include software crashes, hardware crashes and network issues.
What is the purpose of Recovery Testing?
The purpose of Recovery Testing is to identify whether a software program can continue operating after a software hitch, or loss of a software’s integrity. Recovery Testing involves returning software to the point where software failure occurred. The ability of a software or a system to recover from failure is much more important than trying to prevent all problems, with data loss being the paramount problem of them all. This guarantees precision in a software or system before using it or execution is not always possible. It is rather prudent of software engineers to recognize incorrectness in the execution process and implement good data recovery methods. You think having great data backup is cool? Recovery testing is way cooler!
The evolution of Recovery Testing
Recovery Testing has come a long way in the technological world. In spite of the fact that Recovery Testing has become popular in recent times, it has steadily evolved since its debut in the 1970s. The timeline of evolution is discussed below:
The late 1990s: This era saw an influx of digital technology in a fast-evolving world. The rise in digitization undoubtedly brought about technological failures. In times before these, all records of businesses and firms were handwritten. The boom in digital technology brought to the attention of businesses the adverse effects of technological problems. In the 1980s, regulations were introduced in the United States, regulating all national banks to put testable data backup plans in place in their respective organizations. In the 1990s, a new form of technology known as the three tier technology came into being. This technology enabled data to be made separate from applications and user interfaces.
The 2000s: Greater strides were put in place to ensure quick recovery of vital data in the face of a crisis. A typical example is the rude awakening to institute better ways of Recovery Testing that the United States experienced after the horrific 9/11 Attack.
2010s: Cloud computing was introduced from the start of this era. It allows businesses to outsource Recovery Testing needs. A firm’s cloud is scalable and helps the firm expand with ease.
What is an example of Recovery Testing?
One example of Recovery Testing is to cut off the data supply of a running software application. After some time, reconnect the data supply and observe whether the application can continue receiving data from the point of interruption.
Another example of Recovery Testing is to restart a browser when it has some opened sessions or activated running applications, and observe whether the browser would be able to recover all the sessions. In software engineering, Recovery Testing is a type of Non-functional Testing. Typically, Non-Functional Testing is an aspect of software that is not related to specific functions or any user actions.
Time taken to recover important data involves the following:
Life cycle of Recovery Testing
How to do Recovery Testing
Recovery Testing is as easy as it gets. Below are simple ways to execute the process.
- To begin, online backups can be used for smooth Recovery Testing.
- There must be proper management of outdated software and system drives, since technology is advancing at an incredibly fast pace. Also, ensure back up systems are the exact same size as the system from which the backup was taken.
- New hardware and data to be restored must undergo rigorous testing, especially when it’s being restored to a different machine.
- Lastly, testbeds must be created for the process, and should bear a closeness to the actual conditions of deployment.
Recovery Testing is fast-becoming the new face of software technology, and it comes, bearing on its wings, a paradigm shift in what data storage and back up has traditionally been. Dunk your software systems into proper Recovery testing processes, just like how you’d dunk those biscuits into gravy.
