Term to describe deployment test

Question

We are currently creating a test-plan for one of our new systems. As such we are looking for the right term to describe the following

The <xxx> test takes place immediate after the deployment on production. It covers the vital functions of the system and the new release. But it will only skim these functions, as they have been thoroughly tested before during internal test and UAT phase.

Aim of this test is to assure that

• the new features are available
• old core features did not break

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We are considering

Smoke Test

In computer programming and software testing, smoke testing (also confidence testing, sanity testing) is preliminary testing to reveal simple failures severe enough to reject a prospective software release. A subset of test cases that cover the most important functionality of a component or system is selected and run, to ascertain if crucial functions of a program correctly work. When used to determine if a computer program should be subjected to further, more fine-grained testing, a smoke test may be called an intake test.

I have set the part that matches our scenario to bold. What hinders us to use this term is that this kind of test shall take place before the actual release on production.

Operational Qualification

The Operational Qualification Protocol is a collection of test cases used to verify the proper functioning of a system. The operational qualification test requirements are defined in the Functional Requirements Specification. Operational Qualification is usually performed before the system is released for use.

We are not sure if this is the right term either. For one as it is taken from the validation aligned with 21 CFR Part 11 and for the other that it lacks the character of a rough test.

Production Test

The Production Test takes place immediate after the deployment on production. It covers the vital functions of the system and the new release. But it will only skim these functions, as they have been thoroughly tested before during internal test and UAT phase.

This would be to roll our own definition. As we have not found a source that defines this kind of test ... or probably our google-fu just was not good.

Answer 1

Smoke testing is the term teams I've been on used to describe the initial quick pass on brand new code (or at least a new build) to make sure nothing major is broken in a major way (that will block you from the majority of testing). This is the first step before you get into regression and rigorous new feature testing.

You may consider Sanity Testing. Usually smoke testing is one of the first stages of testing, sanity testing happens throughout to make sure major functionality is still working properly, and that new features are working as intended. I usually do one final sweep of sanity right before deploying to prod, and then one ON prod right after deploying.

For the term you are looking for, that is, a post-deploy check on production, I usually just call that a Prod Pass, or much like the Production Test you described. I say "Prod Pass" because each one can be a little different depending on the type of release, and the name lets it be a little more vague.

A good "Prod Pass" consists of: 1. All main functionality still works, all pages load, etc. 2. New features work as intended. 3. No spike in error logs, load times or irregular server or site behavior.

If you've set up good logging and an alert system (I love Splunk for this), then a huge part of this job is done for you automatically and it will be easy to quickly see if there's a problem.