Pilot and PoC Quick Start Guide

Introduction

Over the years of his work in the field of IT, and especially in sales of IT, he saw many pilot projects, but most of them ended with nothing at a significant investment of time.



At the same time, if we are talking about testing iron solutions, such as storage, for each demo system, there is usually also a queue for almost a year in advance. And each test in the schedule can bring a sale, or, on the contrary, screw up a sale. It does not make sense to consider a situation in which testing does not affect the sale, since testing does not make sense - this is a waste of time and occupation of the demo system.



So, how to do everything wisely and make it happen?

Training

Pilot goals

Where does the pilot begin? Not by connecting equipment to the rack, not at all. Before starting any work with the equipment, work with documents is in progress. And we start by defining the goals of the pilot.

The pilot's goal is to eliminate objections from the end customer. No objection - no pilot needed. Yes Yes exactly.

But what are the main classes of objections we can see?

* We doubt the reliability

* We doubt performance

* We doubt scalability

* We doubt compatibility and ability to work with our systems

* We do not believe in your slides and want to make sure in practice that your system really knows how to do this

* It will be very difficult, our engineers are already busy and it will be difficult for them



In total, in the end we get three main types of pilot testing and, as a special case of the pilot, proof of concept (PoC - proof of concept):

* Load testing (+ scalability)

* Functional testing

* Failover testing



In a particular case, depending on the doubts of a particular customer, different goals can be combined in the pilot, or, on the contrary, only one of them can be present.



The pilot begins with a document describing the Russian language in white - why this testing is carried out. A mandatory set of measurable criteria is included there, which makes it possible to unequivocally say whether the pilot passed successfully or what specifically was not passed. Measurable criteria are numerical (such as delays in ms, IOPS) or binary (yes / no). If your pilot has an unmeasured value as a criterion - there is no sense in the pilot, this is an exclusively manipulation tool.

Equipment

The pilot can be carried out on the demo equipment of the vendor / distributor / partner or on the equipment of the customer. Strictly speaking, the difference is small, the general approach is the same.



The main question on equipment BEFORE the pilot starts - is there a complete set of equipment (including switches, data cables, power cables)? Is the equipment ready for testing (correct firmware versions, everything is on support, all bulbs are green)?



The correct sequence of actions after determining the goals of testing is the complete preparation of the equipment for testing BEFORE its transfer to the customer. Of course, there are loyal customers without haste, but this is rather the exception. Those. A complete set must be assembled at the partner site, everything is checked and assembled. Without fail, the system must be running and you must make sure that everything works, the software spills without errors, and so on. It would seem nothing complicated, but 3 out of 4 pilots start with finding cables or SFP transceivers.

Separately, it must be emphasized that as part of the verification of the demo system, you must make sure that it is clean. All data from previous testing must be deleted from the system without fail before transfer. It is possible that testing was carried out on real data, and there could be anything, commercial secrets and personal data.

Testing program

Prior to the transfer of equipment to the customer, a testing program must be prepared that meets the objectives of the test. Each test should have a measurable result and clear success criteria.

The testing program can be prepared by the vendor, partner, customer or jointly - but always BEFORE the tests begin. And without fail, the customer must subscribe that he is satisfied with this program.

People

In preparation for the pilot, it is necessary to agree on the dates of the pilot and the presence of all necessary persons and their willingness to test, both from the vendor / partner and from the customer. Oh, how many pilots began with the departure of the main person in the pilot at the customer on vacation the day after installation of the equipment!

Responsibility / Access Areas

The pilot program should be clearly understood and ideally described the responsibilities of all involved. If necessary, remote or physical access of the vendor / partner engineers to the customer’s systems and data is agreed with the customer’s security service.

Pilot

If we have completed all the previous points, then the most boring part is the pilot himself. But he has to go like on rails. If not, it means constipation was part of the preparation.

Pilot completion

At the end of the pilot, a document on the testing is prepared. Ideally, with all the tests in the program with a green tick, PASS. It is possible to prepare a presentation for senior management to make a positive decision about the purchase or to list the systems allowed for purchase.

If you don’t have a document in your hands at the end of the pilot with a list of completed tests and grades passed, the pilot failed and he did not have to start at all.