Data Needs Testing Too

SPEAKER

Ron Ballard, FBCS,

AGENDA

19:00 Presentation begins

Q&A at the end of the presentation

SYNOPSIS

Application developers typically test their code, often with large suites of automated tests, before each new release. But, when the application is running live, it will be receiving data from multiple sources, over which we may have little control, and that data will sometimes be unexpected and invalid in some way.

The impact of this can be dramatic, as with the faulty flight plan that brought Gatwick to a standstill on 28 August 2023. Several days of chaos were caused by one bad flight plan breaking a system that had been running reliably for years.

The impact was estimated at £100 million. In this talk we look at: the various ways in which data can enter your application what can be done to defend against bad data in each case practical techniques for profiling and cleaning data sources monitoring the quality of data in your systems.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

Ron Ballard, FBCS, has over 50 years of experience in Information Technology, mostly involving database systems. He is passionate about economy, efficiency, and describing technical topics in plain English, to help produce effective, reliable and safe systems.

Ron has now retired (from paid work) and provides support as a volunteer to some UK charities and the wider community of database developers. He has published one book - Relational Databases For Agile Developers - and is now working on a book about modern data warehouses.

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Nottingham and Derby

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