So what do you learn?

In my last blog, I talked about test setup and the value of collaborating during the early stages of test planning – even when you’re just talking about who needs to do what and when.

Clearly the setup process has a lot to do with success. But the next question – the one I actually seem to get asked the most – is “So what am I going to learn? Why should we put ourselves through this when we’ve managed the living daylights out of the project, held everyone’s feet to the fire, and the budget’s already tight – running out of time & money (and patience) due to bumps in the road along the way? What’s in it for me? And don’t be vague & give me more of that value prop stuff, give me some real examples!”

Ok. We’ve got a long list of examples to help answer that question. (Check out this webinar to learn more).

But I’m going to suggest something you might not have considered. Not the obvious stuff like un-provisioned trunks, incomplete translations & routing, under-capacity servers, incompatible standards between components from different vendors, misconfigured or under capacity VLANs, etc.

Instead…think licenses. Yep. Licenses.

I hear that more and more, especially in the BC/DR context.

It’s a tight economy and nobody wants to buy more than they need, not that they ever did. But now more than ever it matters. And with IP plus virtualization & cloud computing in the mix, it’s not just about counting trunks or ports anymore. It’s not even CPU cycles or memory. Moore’s Law’s taken care of that one.

It’s about licenses.

“If everyone’s not logged in over here, can I use their licenses over there? If I lose power in Omaha, or the pipe to Chennai, will the licenses be re-distributed & usable in the back-up location?”

Well of course you thought so when you set it up. But what I’m hearing from the folks in our test facility, issues with license configurations almost always show up – often early on – and again in the BC/DR phase of our StressTest™ performance and load testing engagements for new systems.

Don’t overlook or make assumptions about something as simple as licenses – test it & see what really happens.

Mike Burke

Red River keeps on rolling…

Red River keeps on rolling…

There’s a lot going on around the world this week – wars, tourists in space, North Korean rockets, Bear Market bounces, greed grief, and, of course, weather.

But here in the Upper Midwest there’s really only one story – the Red River of the North.

The Red’s unconventional in that it flows north, ultimately to Hudson Bay, which means it’s melting & wants to flow out before there’s anywhere for it all to go. This flood’s unprecedented – more water earlier in the year than there’s ever been before. You can prepare but you can’t really practice for a flood of these proportions. Disaster recovery planning is essential, but for an incident like this it is really hard to dry run – pun intended.

(Warning…bad segue approaching)

Fortunately, when it comes to testing your communication and contact center solutions, there really is a way to practice or to dry run that disaster or business disruption response. Around good ol’ IQ Services, business continuity and disaster recovery testing is an every day event. It is what we do. We make sure communication and contact center solutions work the way they are supposed to despite routine maintenance, accidentally pulled plugs and -- worse yet -- lightning strikes and hurricanes.

This week one of the newest members of our IQ Services family is “up nort” helping his family and others weather the storm. He is busy making sandwiches and moving special belongings to higher ground. He says things have calmed down a bit for the moment. Blizzard like weather is still in the forecast. Even when the threat is over this year, there is still next year. There will be more floods, blizzards, and tornadoes; more pulled plugs and bad cards. We’ll just keep doing our thing. The people of the Dakotas and Minnesota will keep moving, keep helping each other. The Red River will keep rolling…

Mike Burke
http://www.iq-services.com/
6601 Lyndale Ave South, #330
Minneapolis, MN 55423