T 2.26 Lack of, or inadequate software test and release procedures

If new hardware or software is inadequately tested or not tested at all, and released without installation instructions, errors in the hardware or software may either not be identified or essential installation parameters may not be recognised or considered. These hardware, software or installation errors resulting from software and release procedures that are inadequate or lacking altogether, can result in a considerable threat to IT operation.

In the confidence that you will be able to install new hardware or software without difficulty, it is often not considered that the potential damage is completely out of proportion to the costs of carrying out a proper test- and release procedure. Programs or IT systems that have been inadequately tested and that still contain errors are integrated in the production environment. These errors then have a disruptive effect on programs that had until then been working satisfactorily.

Examples of such damage are listed below:

• Programs or program updates cannot be used effectively because more resources (e.g. RAM, disk space) than expected are needed to achieve a reasonable processing speed.. If this is not detected during test runs it can lead to considerable amounts of unusable investments. Decisions against further investments often lead to the result that a software product, which was ordered and paid for regularly, could never be used.

• Routine procedures can be badly held up after the installation of new software. The benefit originally envisaged when the program was installed only becomes apparent much later, as the key staff were not trained or informed about the new program functions.

• If a new, updated DBMS software version containing bugs is loaded, the database will no longer be available, and a loss of data might occur