Individual Practice test inaccessible
- Robert Adach
Individual Practice test inaccessible
Issue Summary
A number of candidates were unable to access their Individual practice test when the ASWBSQL2 server was taken offline in preparation for the equipment move to the new ASWB building. When logging into the ASWBCentral site, if the Candidates ASWBCentral record has a Candidate ID number, the system will attempt to connect to the ASWBSQL2 server to determine if the individual may be eligible to purchase practice tests or score transfers. When the ASWBSQL2 was not available, the system encountered a specific type of connection error which was not handled by the underlying system code. This resulted in the user being presented with an error message and unable to proceed to the ASWBCentral dashboard.
As we could not take the ASWBSQL2 server offline prior to the shutdown for testing purposes, we “simulated” a shutdown on the ASWBCentral Test instance by redirecting the connection for ASWBSQL2 to a non-existent server. In these tests the system functioned as expected and it was determined that no additional testing would be necessary. A further review of the accounts used for testing revealed that the accounts did not contain a candidate ID number, and as such never underwent the initial check at login.
Issue Raised by:
MARCOMM based on social network posts by Candidates
Issue Resolved by:
Robert Adach
Impact:
Start Dare/Time (Estimated): May 29, 2020 16:45 ET
End Date/Time (Actual): May 31, 2020 21:11 ET
Duration: 50 hours and 26 minutes
Impacted Candidates: Based on access logs, 54 Candidates experienced an issue during this impacted time of this disruption, and 34 did not.
Resolution
Access for the affected candidates was restored by deploying the backup of the ASWB database taken prior to shutdown to the ASWBData server and redirecting the connection to this copy of the database
Mitigation Actions and Next Steps
Item | Description | Due Date | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
Add additional error handling to all external databases | When connecting to a database other than the ASWBCentral database, we need to ensure that all connections are fault-tolerant and will either 1) passively fail and allow the user to continue or 2) create an escalated alert to IT to identify possible connection issues | 6/15/2020 | Robert Adach |
Reconcile accounts without Candidate IDs | For accounts which we can identify a Candidate ID for, update the ASWBCentral record | 6/15/2020 | Robert Adach |
Update test account list to cover ASWBCentral users with and without CandidateIDs | Ensure that we have documented test accounts that include all combinations of CandidateID and ACTNo id | 7/1/2020 | Robert Adach |