Testing process instance move in a test environment

Validate process instance move in a test environment before performing production move.

1. Prepare the test environments
   1. Snapshot deployment: Identify the process application snapshot currently running in your production environment that is slated for migration. Deploy this exact snapshot to both your source and target test environments.
   2. Initial state configuration: Set the snapshot status to active in the source test environment and inactive (deactivated) in the target test environment.
   3. Do not update the Exposed Process Value (EPV) in the process admin console in the target environment before the instance move. Instead, perform this update before Go-Live, if necessary.
2. Functional testing (small volume)

   The objective of this phase is to validate that the process instances and tasks that are moved to the target environment work exactly as expected, matching their behavior in the source environment.

   1. Generate diverse test workloads: Create a representative set of test process instances in the source test environment under the target snapshot.
      • Generate process instances for all process models within the snapshot.
      • Create multiple instances per process model where possible, helping ensure that tokens are resting at different activities or events to test various stages of the workflow.
      • Avoid creating duplicate instances of the same process model with identical token locations to prevent unnecessary verification effort.
   2. Capture target baseline backup: Back up the target environment database. This clean baseline image helps you to easily restore the target environment for repeated testing cycles.
   3. Capture source baseline backup: Back up the source environment database containing your generated test workloads to ensure that you can reset the source state if needed.
   4. Execute move phase: Follow the detailed procedures documented in the Moving process instances (detailed procedure) guide, executing all steps up to (but not including) the final "Go Live" step.
   5. Go-Live phase: Apply all necessary target environment configurations in the following areas before performing the Go-Live operation.
      • Verify internal user group memberships in the target environment.
      • Ensure user attributes match between the source and target environments, if applicable.
      • Confirm that time schedules, time zones, and holiday schedules are properly configured in the target environment, if applicable.
      • Verify that the blackout calendar is configured in the target environment, if applicable.
      • Review Exposed Process Values (EPVs) in the target environment, if applicable.
      • Review environment variables and server configurations in the target environment to ensure alignment, if applicable.
   6. Verify functional completion: Confirm that the moved process instances in the target environment can continue running to completion exactly as they might have in the source environment.
3. Scale testing (high volume): Issue discovery and window planning
   This phase is required if you plan to migrate a high volume of production data. Running a full-scale simulation helps you to identify infrastructure limitations under heavy load and accurately calculate your production move time requirements.
   1. Reset testing environments: Restore the source database from the step 2.c backup and the target database from the step 2.b backup.
   2. Scale the workload: Generate a high volume of process instances in the source test environment under the target snapshot, matching the scale and complexity of your actual production database volume.
   3. Capture high-volume source backup: Perform a new backup of the source database containing this scaled workload. This helps you to re-run the high-volume simulation if needed.
   4. Execute and discover infrastructure issues: Run the full move process from start to finish to actively monitor for load-related vulnerabilities, including the following.
      • Disk space exhaustion: Verifying that the target database and storage volumes have sufficient capacity to handle the incoming data influx.
      • Network performance: Identifying latency spikes, or timeout issues between the source and target environments.
      • Resource constraints: If necessary, increase the maximum connections and maximum transactions that are allowed on the target database server. The move process requires more resources and connections to successfully move runtime data from the source environment to the target environment.
   5. Track duration for production scheduling: Record the overall elapsed time of the successful high-volume move to establish your final duration estimate. Use this metric to schedule your production cutover window.