Keeping Australians safe in an emergency
Case Study
About Our Client
Overview
Our client is Australia’s leading telecommunications and technology company, offering a full range of communications services. When Australians face life-threatening or time-critical situations, their infrastructure and systems are used to issue SMS and Voice Messages to the public to alert them of the impending danger from natural disasters or seeking assistance finding missing persons. This service was critical when communicating to the masses during the recent pandemic.
The Challenge
The National Emergency Response System (NERS) is a critical tool for both State and Federal Governments. It is used to alert the community to pending danger from floods, cyclones, fires and other natural disasters. It can also be used to communicate missing persons and issue mass information as was needed during the recent pandemic. Our client has responsibility for providing the service that sends the SMS or Voice Messages to the public.
Since NERS was launched there had been changes to infrastructure and parts of the solution that caused a slowing in throughput. Our client wanted to restore the service to optimum levels SMS and Voice Messages sent per second. Public visibility of the service resulted in pressure for governments to restore NERS performance to previous levels.
Our client needed to design a test approach that guaranteed changes would scale once deployed to production. The challenge was there is no test environment or harness that can simulate production. Avocado was engaged to design a test approach to solve this challenge and to validate test results proved NERS would be restored to optimum throughput performance levels.
Avocado Services provided
- Test leadership
- Quality Assurance and Governance
- Performance Testing
Sector
Telecommunications
”“This project was high-risk, in a regulated, multi-stakeholder, multi-vendor environment that needed mature leadership and technical excellence. Avocado injected testing leadership, bringing all parties to a common roadmap that successfully delivered the project."
With such a highly visible system, the confidence in the test approach had to be unshakeable. This project was high-risk, in a highly regulated, multi-stakeholder, vendor supported environment that needed mature leadership and technical excellence.
Avocado quickly understood that without a production like environment it needed to develop a “scaled model” test approach. Changes were grouped into 3 phases with each phase tested to validate the impact upon the model and results extrapolated to conclude their likely impact upon production.
Avocado worked collaboratively with the vendor to create trust between all stakeholders. Changes were tested in the vendor test environment with Avocado gaining full access and visibility of results. This avoided delays by finding issues early in the delivery pipeline where changes could be made quickly and efficiently.
Once the changes were accepted into the Client environment, Avocado undertook Performance Testing to verify the results observed in the vendor test lab were being replicated in their systems. Avocado drove the test approach across the project achieving confidence in the solution.
The Outcome
Avocado’s Test Leadership resulted in the project being delivered ahead of schedule and under budget. All parties had full confidence that the changes would result in the required uplift in SMS and Voice Message throughput.
The NERS changes exceeded expectations and delivered a throughput level that was even higher than what was required. All stakeholders: Our client, State and Federal Governments, Vendor and Project Stakeholders were delighted in the results.
Avocado’s leadership in the Testing arena and our ability to quickly overcome learning curves in a highly technical multi- stakeholder environment proved to be the required ingredient for project success.
With just 2 resources on the project, Avocado was able to make the difference that our client needed to deliver to their stakeholders. Our client gained confidence they now had a robust test approach for future enhancements of mission-critical communication systems.
Australia gained a high-quality, robust, scalable National Emergency Response Solution to support the community when they most need it.
Do you have a project that cannot simulate production like settings but requires confidence in the changes you need to make? Could you benefit from Avocado’s experienced test leadership?
Add the missing ingredient to your next project – talk to our team today
