CALL WAITING….. ??? – Costly Miss Costly Fix

On Jan. 15, 1990, around 60,000 AT & T long-distance customers tried to place long-distance calls as usual — and got nothing. Behind the scenes, the company’s 4ESS long-distance switches, all 114 of them, kept rebooting in sequence. AT&T assumed it was being hacked, and for nine hours, the company and law enforcement tried to work out what was happening. In the end, AT&T uncovered the culprit: an obscure fault in its new Oracle Software.

Here’s how the switches were supposed to work: If one switch gets congested, it sends a “do not disturb” message to the next switch, which picks up its traffic. The second switch resets itself to keep from disturbing the first switch. Switch 2 checks back on Switch 1, and if it detects activity, it does another reset to reflect that Switch 1 is back online. So far, so simple.

The month before the crash, AT & T Tweaked the code to speed up the process. The trouble was, things were too fast. The first server to overload sent two messages, one of which hit the second server just as it was resetting. The second server assumed that there was a fault in its CCS7 internal logic and reset itself. It put up its own “do not disturb” sign and passed the problem on to a third switch.

The third switch also got overwhelmed and reset itself, and so the problem cascaded through the whole system. All 114 switches in the system kept resetting themselves, until engineers reduced the message load on the whole system and the wave of resets finally broke.

In the meantime, AT&T lost an estimated $60 million in long-distance charges from calls that didn’t go through. The company took a further financial hit a few weeks later when it knocked a third off its regular long-distance rates on Valentine’s Day to make amends with customers

Thanks For Reading This Blog. Know More: About Call Waiting

HP SiteScope – Monitoring Made Easy

HP SiteScope software monitors the availability and performance of distributed IT infrastructures including servers, operating systems, network and Internet services, applications and application components.

HP SiteScope continually monitors more than 75 types of IT infrastructure through Web‑based architecture that is lightweight and highly customizable. With HP SiteScope, you gain the real‑time information you need to verify infrastructure operations, stay apprised of problems, and solve bottlenecks before they become critical. HP SiteScope is an important component of both the HP Operations Center software and the HP Business Availability Center software, providing agentless availability and performance monitoring and management.

How HP SiteScope works

• HP SiteScope provides a centralized, scalable architecture.
• HP SiteScope is implemented as a Java™ server application and runs on a single, central system as a daemon process.
• HP SiteScope Java server supports three key functions: data collection, alerting, and reporting.
• HP SiteScope enables system administrators to monitor your IT infrastructure remotely from a central installation without the need for agents on the monitored systems.
• HP SiteScope accomplishes remote monitoring by logging into systems as a user from its central server, which can run on Windows®, UNIX®, and Linux® platforms.
• HP SiteScope offers optional failover support to give you added redundancy and automatic failover protection in the event that an HP SiteScope server fails.

Advantages of HP SiteScope

• Features an agentless, enterprise ready architecture that lowers Total Cost of Ownership
• Monitors more than 75 different target types for critical health and performance characteristics
• Generates daily, weekly, and monthly summaries of single and multiple monitor readings with built-in management server‑based reports
• Serves as an integrated component of HP Operations Center and the monitoring foundation for HP Business Availability Center and HP LoadRunner
• With HP Operations Manager, can deliver a combined agentless and agent-based monitoring
• solution to deliver the breadth and depth you require
• Gathers detailed performance data for IT infrastructure using agentless technology installed on your managed server or device
• Enables the easy installation and monitoring of IT infrastructure monitoring in less than one hour
• Reduces the time and cost of maintenance by consolidating all maintenance to one central server
• Reduces the time to make administrative and configuration changes by providing templates and global change capabilities
• Enables quick and efficient operations management with automated actions initiated upon monitor status change alerts
• Offers solution templates that include specialized monitors, default metrics, proactive tests, and best practices
• Supports easy customization to provide standard monitoring of previously unmanaged or hard-to-manage systems and devices

 Read About: HP SiteScope

Ensuring Accuracy in Performance Testing

Most of the time applications may face performance issues even after rigorous performance validation. This is primarily because of improper performance test environment setup and model. It is a common issue across the industry that the testing tool might not have performed correctly during the load testing. So it is always a best practice and a mandate to validate that the testing tool simulates the network traffic as expected genuinely and to ensure the test environment is also accurate. Here is an idea, how Queuing theory Laws can be applied in validating the Performance test accuracy and to ensure that the application has a smooth accessibility in production without performance issues.

Little’s Law
The long-term average number of customers in a stable system L is equal to the long-term average effective arrival rate, λ, multiplied by the average time a customer spends in the system, W and it is expressed algebraically,
L = λW


Applying Little’s Law in Performance Testing
The Average number of (virtual) users N in the system (server) at any instance is equal to the product of average throughput X and average response time Z. It is expressed algebraically,

N= X * (Z + R), where R=think time
Demonstration of Little’s Law to ensure Performance Testing
From the results obtained from the performance testing tool, we can find how many actual users have been generated to test the application using Little’s Law. A sample load test done on a sample application with 10 users has obtained following test results.

Average Transactions/sec=1.7, Average transaction response time=0.5 sec, Average Think time=5sec


By Little’s Law, Number of virtual users emulated by the performance testing tool is, N=X*(Z+R) =1.7*(0.5+5)
N=9.35≈10 virtual users have been emulated during load test

If the actual virtual users used in the system is equal to the Little’s Law result, then neither the tool nor the server has undergone any problem. If the Little’s Law result is less than the actual virtual users, then it means remaining users were idle throughout the test.

* It is understood that the throughput data above has been extracted from the tool but it is always preferred and a best practice to use the throughput data from the server.

ARIS FOR SAP NETWEAVER

Business process management (BPM) allows you to continuously adapt your business processes to new business strategies – modeling processes with different users performing different roles and tasks, and optimizing communication between process owners and IT experts. SAP and IDS Scheer offer a comprehensive BPM solution – SAP NetWeaver and ARIS for SAP NetWeaver. This joint application provides essential elements of a closed-loop BPM solution, from design and configuration, to implementation and execution, to evaluation of the overall process.
There are lots of BPM tools available in market, then why should we choose ARIS for modeling our business processes. Here are some of the features and benefits of ARIS which make this tool different from others.

• ARIS Platform is Highly Scalable and hence complete solution for the Entire Business Process Management – From Web Based Description, analysis, and optimization of Business processes and software engineering to SAP Netweaver integration and continuous process controlling.
• ARIS is not just for SAP NetWeaver. ARIS can be used for all SAP initiatives — to design, implement, and monitor SAP, non-SAP and manual processes in an organization.
• The system architecture of the ARIS Platform allows globally active companies to set up distributed scenarios for designing, analyzing and optimizing process, IT and software architectures.
• Business Process Management with SAP NetWeaver and ARIS for SAP NetWeaver provides procedure models, methods, technologies and reference content for modeling, configuring, executing and monitoring these business processes.
• With ARIS Implementation Platform, gap between business and IT is closed. ARIS for SAP Netweaver helps design the process architecture for SAP Solutions that have been optimally adapted to the company’s business process.
• Adds functions to SAP NetWeaver for graphically modeling processes at various levels. At the highest level (Process Architecture Model), the process architecture of a company is built from a purely business perspective, that is, without technical details.
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User-Friendly Functionality:

ARIS Business Architect and ARIS Business Designer Web Based Solution enable shared, company wide modeling, analysis, and optimization of business processes, as well as IT Architecture set up via the Internet. With its user-friendly functionality that allows even unskilled occasional users to perform modeling. ARIS Business designer quickly paves the path to professional BPM.

Synchronization between ARIS for SAP Netweaver and SAP Solution Manager:

You can use ARIS for SAP NetWeaver as a modeling environment to import predefined process models as reference content from SAP Solution Manager. You can enhance these models and synchronize them with SAP Solution Manager.
Process models and other configuration elements can be exchanged (synchronized) between ARIS for SAP NetWeaver and SAP Solution Manager. In addition to scope information, structural information is also transferred.
The SAP Solution Manager provides you with the relevant SAP reference models. You can create an implementation project using ARIS for SAP NetWeaver and then synchronize it using the SAP Solution Manager. This enables you, for example, to make SAP reference models available in ARIS for SAP NetWeaver, and adapt and enhance them as required. Finally, you can make the implementation project available again in the SAP Solution Manager, where you can then configure the processes and adapt them to your specific system landscape. The SAP Solution Manager also provides you with an extensive range of functions for monitoring your solutions.

Upload of ARIS Processes to SAP XI:

With the ARIS BPEL export, ARIS BPEL models can be transferred to SAP XI. The elements to be exported must be exported from ARIS Business architect for SAP Netweaver. ARIS creates ZIP files, which can be imported into SAP XI.

Interfaces and development of Add-ons:

ARIS UML Designer is included in the Implementation Platform as a tool for;
Developing add-on functions and interfaces during the implementation. With the addition of classic UML methodology to ARIS, a consistent and uniform visual representation of the requirements of the business world can be obtained. The UML models created in ARIS can be sent via XML to other development tools integrated in Eclipse, which are then available as source code or as J2EE software components from ARIS. This means that software developers can work with (UML) data from ARIS directly in the development environment.

Globally Distributed Process Design with ARIS:

The system architecture of the ARIS platform allows globally active companies to set up distributed scenarios for designing, analyzing and optimizing process, IT and software architectures.
Web-based products such as ARIS Business Architect, ARIS Business Designer and ARIS UML Designer access a centrally set up and managed ARIS Business Server from locations around the world via three-tier architecture. These products are designed for use beyond firewall limits, with a very low bandwidth (e.g. ISDN).

Next Generation of BPM: ARIS embedded in SAP NetWeaver:

In the next SAP NetweaverTM release, the design, modeling and model based configuration will take place in a technically integrated solution, a unified modeling environment as part of the ESR in SAP NetWeaver. There, on the basis of a unified metamodel, users will be able to perform various different role-specific tasks in a unified modeling environment.
SAP AG and IDS Scheer AG leverage the strength of their technologies together to cover the whole business process lifecycle. SAP NetWeaver today offers a comprehensive BPM solution that will be enhanced in future releases providing a unified modeling environment and a powerful combination of Business Process Management and Business Activity Monitoring.

ARIS for NetWeaver contains a consistent description of the process architecture-from enterprise process models to implementation of the processes by SAP Solution Manager, the integration of executable processes in SAP XI, and the applications with SAP Business Workflow.

Some of the key benefits of using ARIS at a glance would be :-

• Get a clear understanding of your process architecture as a starting point for SAP ESA.
• Alignment of business, configuration and service process in one common repository.
• Intuitive and user friendly user interface
• Decentralized Design For centralized optimization
• Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and in all locations due to the Web Based Front end.
• Proven , extendable methods for various areas of application
• Highly scalable architecture.

Test Consulting: How to Improve a Quality Assurance Area

Is your client having difficulty to measure QA performance? Is your client undecided on what test strategy to follow for new application implementation? Is your client looking for testing tool recommendations or need to improve the usage of the existing ones?

Hexaware has a dedicated Strategic Consulting practice where testing experts are involved in providing test consulting services to clients. During the consulting engagements, Hexaware assesses and evaluates the Approach, People and Technology and fill in the gaps by bringing in our domain experience, best practices, frameworks, tools experience, etc. The consulting services also include tools selection, tools optimization and TCoE Creation and/or optimization.

If you want to learn more about test strategy, the next information will help you to execute a test strategy engagement.

Test Strategy Approach
The first step is to identify the problem(s) that the client is facing and define the strategy objectives. After that, I recommend to follow this approach to execute a test strategy project:

Assessment Areas
As part of the information gathering phase, we leverage its proprietary ATPTM (Approach, People, and Technology) methodology to focus on the right areas and meet the strategy objectives. Hexaware’s APT™ Methodology is the foundation of all of our QA service offerings, below is the description of each component:
• The Approach component is designed to lay the foundation for the processes that each client use as part of testing
• People is the component of the IT organization with focus on testing, Hexaware analyze the groups, roles and responsibilities involved in QA and testing
• The Technology component includes the use of QA and automation testing tools for efficiency to optimize technology and lower costs.


At the end of the project, we provide to the client the following component:
•Current State: An analysis of the current state with regard to the testing objectives
•Gaps: The gaps found between the current state and the best practices and the desired state
•Recommendations: Our recommendations to close the gaps and meet the organization objectives
•Implementation Road Map: A recommended path to follow in order to implement the recommendations.
As a result of the analysis phase, we show to our clients the current state in a quantitative graph. This graph evaluates all relevant aspects of an IT organization and prioritizes each category according to the testing objectives. One example of this graph is showed below.



This was an assessment provided as part of a test strategy we created for a leading bank in Mexico for a T24 product implementation. The benefits showed in this strategy was to reduce testing cycles by 30%, automate at least 50% of the manual test cases and have a defect free implementation using robust and repeatable testing processes.
Other examples of metrics commonly used as part of the strategy objectives are the increment of automation coverage by 30%, increase productivity by 25%, reduce overall testing cost by 15%, etc.

A test consulting practice is an area full of innovation, industry best practices and shared experiences. Now with Hexaware blogs all of us will be able to formally share our experience and our colleagues can leverage them for future assignments.

To know More: Visit Quality Assurance Area