Suspension criteria specify the criteria to be used to suspend all or a portion of the testing activities while resumption criteria specify when testing can resume after it has been suspended.
Unavailability of external dependent systems during execution.
When a defect is introduced that cannot allow any further testing.
Critical path deadline is missed so that the client will not accept delivery even if all testing is completed.
A specific holiday shuts down both development and testing.
System Integration Testing in the Integration environment may be resumed under the following circumstances:
When the external dependent systems become available again.
When a fix is successfully implemented and the Testing Team is notified to continue testing.
The contract is renegotiated with the client to extend delivery.
The holiday period ends.
Suspension criteria assumes that testing cannot go forward and that going backward is also not possible. A failed build would not suffice as you could generally continue to use the previous build. Most major or critical defects would also not constituted suspension criteria as other areas of the system could continue to be tested.
