Emulated cutover and user experience testing

When you have completed all customizations and have a validated migration pack, you can proceed with the emulated cutover and user acceptance testing. The aim of the cutover emulation is to practice the method that will be used for the production cutover as closely as possible, without affecting the source or target production systems. This process should include all the technical resources who will be involved in the real cutover. This includes the data migration engineers, network and database administrators, integration support teams, and account management and testing resources.

Step 1—Prepare for emulated cutover

Fully document all steps and all resources involved in the cutover.
Review the cutover plan with the involved resources.
Ensure all target AR System servers are disabled.
Restore the target database to the appropriate state for the cutover methodology being used. This may mean taking a copy from the target production system.
Prepare the BMC Helix Data Manager migration job to migrate a similar quantity of data that will be migrated for the go-live cutover. For example, if you plan to perform multiple delta data migrations, make sure this delta matches the data volume of the go-live delta. This might require a pre-emulation delta migration into the target to ensure there is no missing data. Delta data migration is rarely appropriate for consolidation migrations due to the impact of holding live data in a target system that is in active use.

Step 2—Perform emulated cutover

The emulated cutover should not include any impact to of the current production systems, so do not extract data directly from the source production system or import into the target production system, even if this is the approach for your real cutover.
Perform emulated cutover as per the documented plan. Record the actual timings for all activities and any issues encountered.

Step 3—Perform user acceptance testing

Perform user acceptance testing according to the documented test scripts.
Record and mitigate or resolve reported defects.
Correct any data migration issues in the migration pack ready for the next migration test.
When all test scripts are executed, review defects and agree on those that must be resolved before go live.

Step 4—Final emulated cutover

Update the detailed cutover plan with the timings and changes identified from the last emulation, and any manual defect fixes that must be applied.
Disable all target AR System servers.
Restore the target database to the appropriate state for the cutover methodology being used. This might mean taking a copy from the target production system.
Perform emulated cutover as per the documented plan. Record the actual timings for all activities.

Step 5—User acceptance testing and signoff

Validate that all defects have been resolved.
Perform basic validation testing to ensure no new defects were introduced.
Obtain formal sign-off from all stakeholders that they accept the system as ready to go live.