11 Operations & Maintenance
11.1 Testing Strategy
Testing must validate both functional correctness and transition safety in a coexistence architecture.
11.1.1 Functional Testing
- Verify command APIs enforce business rules and return consistent error models.
- Validate event publication for relevant domain changes.
- Confirm consumer query behavior returns correct data shapes and authorization outcomes.
11.1.2 Integration and Contract Testing
- Contract tests for event envelopes and API schemas.
- Backward-compatibility tests for versioned contracts.
- End-to-end flow tests covering write -> event -> query -> consumer update.
11.1.3 Performance and Resilience Testing
- Load tests for peak event throughput and query concurrency.
- Soak tests to identify memory, connection, or retry degradation over time.
- Failure-injection tests for transient downstream outages and retry behavior.
11.1.4 Regression and Release Validation
- Automated regression suites executed for each release candidate.
- Release gates tied to critical scenario pass rates and non-functional thresholds.
- Post-deployment verification checklist for production readiness.
11.2 Monitoring, Alerting, and SLOs
11.2.1 Telemetry Model
Capture telemetry for:
- API latency, error rate, throughput, and saturation indicators.
- Event publication success rate and consumer lag.
- Data reconciliation status and drift counts.
- Security events and authorization failures.
11.2.2 Suggested SLO Categories
- Availability SLO for command and query endpoints.
- Latency SLO for core API operations.
- Freshness SLO for event-to-consumer synchronization.
- Reliability SLO for successful event processing and retries.
11.2.3 Operational Dashboards and Alerts
- Role-specific dashboards for support, engineering, and platform teams.
- Actionable alerts mapped to runbook procedures.
- Correlation-aware tracing to accelerate incident triage.
11.3 Incident and Problem Management
- Standard severity model and escalation pathway for integration incidents.
- Runbooks for common failure modes (consumer lag, contract mismatch, authorization failures).
- Problem management process to remove recurring defect classes.
11.4 Change Management
11.4.1 Release Governance
- Planned release calendar with architecture sign-off for contract changes.
- Change advisory checkpoints for high-impact modifications.
- Version lifecycle policy with clear deprecation communication.
11.4.2 Documentation Lifecycle
Maintain and regularly update:
- Architecture decision records.
- API and event contract documentation.
- Operational runbooks and support playbooks.
- Troubleshooting guides and known issue references.
11.5 Training and Enablement
11.5.1 Audience-Specific Training
- Engineering teams: event design, contract evolution, and secure API implementation.
- Operations teams: monitoring dashboards, alert response, and rollback execution.
- Product and delivery stakeholders: rollout sequencing, readiness criteria, and KPI interpretation.
11.5.2 Adoption Support
- Structured onboarding for new consuming teams.
- Office-hours model during active migration phases.
- Post-go-live knowledge transfer and continuous improvement reviews.
11.6 Continuous Improvement
- Quarterly SLO and KPI review against business outcomes.
- Recurring architecture health assessments.
- Prioritized backlog for reliability, performance, and operability enhancements.