What is Service validation and testing in ITIL?

Making sure that new or modified products and services adhere to predetermined requirements is the goal of the service validation and testing practice.

Based on feedback from customers, corporate goals, and industry standards, the concept of service value and the value chain activity is documented and follows regulatory criteria of transition and design.

By using these inputs, measurable quality is established. These inputs help define assurance criteria and testing requirements and establish measurable quality and performance metrics.

Service Validation

The main goal of service validation is to define deployment and release management acceptance criteria, which are tested to ensure they are met before a service can be considered production-ready. Acceptance criteria are established by comprehending consumer, regulatory, commercial, risk management, and security requirements. They might be utility or warranty-focused. The scope and focus of testing operations are determined by the service validation activities of this practice, which also establish, verify, and document utility- and warranty-focused service assurance standards.

Testing

A test strategy outlines a broad testing strategy. It may apply to a platform, an environment, a group of services, or a single service. Both internally built systems and solutions from outside developers should undergo equal testing. The test strategy is based on the service acceptance criteria, and it should be in line with the demands of the relevant stakeholders to guarantee that testing meets risk tolerance and is acceptable for the situation.

Typical types of tests include:

• Unit tests for utility/functionality A single system component is tested.
• System evaluation Overall system testing, including software and platforms
• Integration test Testing a group of dependent software modules together
• Integration examination Testing a number of interdependent software modules at the same time
• Performance and capacity evaluation Examining the speed and capacity under load
• Security check Vulnerability testing, policy compliance, penetration testing, and denial of service risk
• Compliance examination ensuring that all legal and regulatory obligations are met
• Operational evaluation Backup, event monitoring, failover, recovery, and reporting testing
• Test for warranty requirements Checking for documentation verification, training, support model definition, and knowledge transfer
• Acceptance test for users is the approval test done by users of a new or updated system.

Value chain activities

Improve Service validation and testing metrics like escaped bugs, test coverage, and service performance versus SLAs are essential success factors for improving CX and lowering risk.

Engage Involving some stakeholders in service validation and testing operations help to engage them and promote service visibility and uptake.

Transition and design service validation and testing are inextricably linked with service design, knowledge management, performance management, deployment management, and release management.

Obtain/build Service validation and testing operations that are inextricably tied to all procedures related to procuring services from third-party vendors, as well as project management and software development activities in both waterfall and Agile methodologies.

Deliver and support Known errors are captured by service validation and testing and shared with the service desk and incident management techniques to enable faster service restoration timelines. Similarly, information about service disruptions or escaped flaws is given back into service validation and testing to improve the effectiveness and coverage of acceptance criteria and testing operations.