10. Testing, acceptance and production operation

The first successful production run should be unspectacular. For this to happen, the interesting errors must have already occurred in the test.

The interface as a product

An integration acceptance includes more than API responses: technical sums, freedom from duplicates, authorization limits, performance, alerting, secret rotation, restart and behavior in the event of partial availability.

This makes the connection robust

1. Create test matrix of normal, limit, authorization, load, conflict and failure cases.
2. Use a representative test company database and known target values.
3. Test expired session, 403, invalid data, timeout after write and parallel update.
4. Execute load and long-term testing within agreed limits.
5. Practice stop, secret rotation, restart and reversal.
6. Obtain technical, security and operational clearance; start with close monitoring.

Prove production readiness

• Target values and control totals are correct.
• Negative tests prove minimal rights.
• Timeout/Retry does not create a double effect.
• Alarm, runbook and standby are working.
• Shutdown stops data flow without corruption.

Mistakes that only become expensive during operation

• Only Happy Path and small test data are checked.
• Production secret is used for testing.
• After go-live, owners and service levels are missing.

This is what you take with you

The integration is not just developed, but adopted as a reliable part of X-ERP operations.

Further information / source

Related topics

1. For integration specialists – connecting APIs and external systems › 01. Integration architecture and release limits
2. For integration specialists – connecting APIs and external systems › 08. Writing, idempotence and parallelism
3. For integration specialists – connecting APIs and external systems › 09. Error diagnosis, logging and restart

Frequently asked questions