U.S. Food and Administration: Operations and Maintenance (O&M) and System Testing for FDA Newly Developed and Legacy Applications

Published Aprill 2011

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Challenge

The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) required operations and maintenance (O&M) and system performance testing support for its newly developed and legacy applications. The FDA Information Systems model the Health and Human Services (HHS’s) Enterprise Performance Life Cycle (EPLC) management process – a process-driven IT life cycle management approach emphasizing enterprise integration based on development of sound business and technical requirements. Some of the FDA legacy applications did not have appropriate documented artifacts and therefore, required experienced systems development personnel to analyze the design and implementation of these applications and prepare the appropriate documentation to align these systems with the EPLC. Additionally, the FDA needed to develop and implement a performance testing methodology and a performance testing environment.

Solution

Federal Management Systems, Inc. (FMS) worked closely with the FDA IT project managers, consultants, subject matter experts and user groups in developing a project plan with a structured and targeted approach to delivering the project objectives. FMS established and executed two distinct project activities for: (1) ongoing operations and maintenance; and (2) performance testing infrastructure implementation and test execution. FMS provided the software maintenance and lifecycle documentation support for the O&M solution by consistently delivering products which met and exceeded customer satisfaction. FMS provided technical support to the QA and test team and participated in systems migration planning activities. In addition, FMS played a major role in test tool acquisition and the implementation of the test environment. FMS also took the leadership role in conducting the performance testing of applications which were targeted for migration to the FDA’s Contractor Hosted Data Center (CHDC). To ensure continuity and institutionalize best practices, our IT staff mentored and trained FDA systems staff on testing methodologies and automated testing to FDA.

Results

FMS met the FDA’s goals of maintaining and sustaining the legacy applications and documenting the artifacts for the Enterprise Performance Life Cycle (EPLC) initiative. FMS was the major contractor in performance testing activities and analysis for the FDA applications which were targeted for Information Computing Technologies for the 21st Century (ICT21) migration. FMS project team successfully managed the FDA project within budget, mitigated risk to the O&M operations, and planned and performed ongoing maintenance. FDA Information System is fully operational and compliant with the HHS Enterprise Performance Life Cycle management process.