Testing operational procedures

The following activities are suitable during the system test phase:

• You can test preliminary versions of the MTO procedures, the run book, and the incident report forms. The MTO can perform system startup, connect a subset of the terminals and nodes, and practice the restart actions.
• You can hold an informal audit of command use and discuss any misunderstandings to help you refine the content of the operator instructions.
• During online execution, you can arrange other events that require MTO intervention to take place, such as taking image copies, invoking the IMS Monitor and traces, and responding to application program abnormal termination.
• You should also test the recovery procedures. Have the operations staff carry out a database recovery and verify the correct use of system logging control and recovery utilities. You can build a test RECON data set for DBRC and follow through the GENJCL step to recover to a given checkpoint position.

If the test system is used for checkout of changes to the application package, any significant operational changes should also be exercised, possibly with MTO observers.