Software Testing Archives

Great Products – Are Developers or Testers Responsible

by admin | Apr 21, 2019 | Software Testing, Blog | 0 comments

For creating great products, developers and testers need to learn from each other. Developers can help testers in understanding the code base and related test code. Testers, on the other hand, can help developers in understanding the test suite and the reasons for using related test techniques. Effective communication between these different teams can enable testers to look for areas of potential breakage and build better tests for writing even better test code that would create more robust products. Any top software testing company would have expert teams that work cohesively to ensure their clients have the best products.

Software development is becoming increasingly complex these days since developers are required to create codes with interconnected parts that can easily render themselves to iterations. Given this complexity in developing software, the process of testing the software is being integrated into the process of development. Expert testers conduct the testing of software alongside the development process using automation testing and other testing methods. Advanced testing methods are an important quality assurance mechanism to ensure fast and continuous delivery of bug-free products.

The launch of quality software products is possible only if the speed of testing of new releases or updates keeps pace with the pace of development. Quality product development requires collaborative team efforts since great products are always an outcome of the combined skills of developers and testers. The key objective of both developers and testers is to create exceptional products that generate value for the users, and hence it is apparent that the development of great software products involves the expertise of great developers as well as great testers. Connect with us to experience the best of both teams.

Monitoring Makes for Better Testing

by admin | May 13, 2019 | Software Testing, Blog | 0 comments

Monitoring is important in testing because it allows the person in charge to monitor the complete testing process, by getting regular feedback from the testing teams. The Manager monitoring the tests can guide the testers towards achieving the goal of an organization – that of top quality software. In addition, monitoring also provides for increased test coverage and a broader understanding of the status of testing at different stages. A well-supervised testing process gives the project team clear direction and vision of the test results.

Test monitoring allows Quality Assurance (QA) teams to analyze the impact of a change or feature on the final quality of software. Since testing is linked to the quality of a product, monitoring of tests holds great significance when features, fixes, and changes are deployed frequently. Test monitoring is also necessary for determining the response of users to the ever-changing production systems and ensuring a high-quality product compatible with the pre-established standards. It, thus, gives QA teams a chance to add immense value to the business.

The process of test monitoring is essentially a management-level practice that oversees the software testing efforts. It encompasses a continuous observation of the testing process, with the central idea of enhancing the design and functionality of the software. Monitoring can greatly augment testing because it enables the Test Manager to observe the core elements of an application closely, and ensure the effective working of the key user journeys. Our team consists of top experts in this realm and more – connect with us to augment the software of your company.

Importance of Continuous Testing in DevOps

by admin | May 7, 2019 | Software Testing, Blog | 1 comment

The inclusion of Continuous Testing in the DevOps process can ensure continuity throughout the SDLC. Continuous Testing encourages different teams in the development value chain to coordinate effectively with one another. Since there is, generally, an overlapping of roles in a DevOps scenario, Continuous Testing allows everyone involved in the software development process to contribute across the value chain as and when required. Hence, there is continuity in development, and quality becomes a joint responsibility.

With Continuous Testing, the evaluation of the quality of the software is possible along the entire line of development. The key objective of Continuous Testing is ‘test early and test often, (shift left), with the various stakeholders in the process being the developers, DevOps, Quality Assurance (QA), and Operational system. The improvement in product quality from Continuous Testing is a result of finding and addressing risks effectively, and gaining instant feedback at the different phases of development.

Continuous Testing holds great significance for organizations using DevOps for the regular deployment of software into production. The use of Continuous Testing in DevOps essentially interweaves testing efforts into all stages of designing, developing and deploying the software. When Continuous Testing is implemented properly, an organization can get a constant insight into the robustness of the latest software build and ensure speedy delivery of high-quality software. Leave the worry of Continuous Testing to the professionals and experts – connect with us.

Technology Behemoths Know Best

by admin | Mar 18, 2019 | Software Testing, Blog | 0 comments

With the amount of technology in use today, customers expect the highest performance of software from any company, and are quick to shift to a competing company if they do not get what they want in the first instance. Top software development does not suffice today – stringent testing for QA for seamlessly working products has become quintessential to success.

It is no surprise then that there are several software testing companies today, but it would be helpful to learn about software testing services and QA from the behemoths of technology – the likes of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Spotify. Their success does not have one ‘recipe’ but it certainly involves their laser like focus on ensuring the best quality software before ‘taking it’ to the end users.

With more than 25,000 engineers working on more than 2 billion lines of code, it would seem near impossible to maintain top quality. Right? Wrong. As the company continues to grow, their QA strategy has transformed as well. Their mammoth size does not translate to ‘big’ – instead the company prefers brief and clear tests, coupled with frequent releases, which allows them to have a better control on any changes that their users may experience and resolve any issues quickly and effectively.

The automated testing is driven by a code coverage tool that obtains the large amounts of data for them. The code coverage is always at maximum using some different techniques, which depend on the language of the code. They use PHPUnit to test PHP, forming a massive part of the framework for Facebook. Developers, dedicated testers, and the software itself, are responsible for running tests. Developers instantly receive a notification of any failed tests, and these notifications are logged into a database to which developers have instant access.

The great part about Facebook is their approach and mindset towards QA and the testing process – they accept their flaws and empower employees to write tests for their code. This means code ownership and responsibility, which in turn ensures top quality of software. To accelerate these efforts, the line of code written by one employee is reviewed by another. This not only encourages the employees to write top quality code, but ensures that the reviewer is able to objectively check defects and or suggest any changes and improvements. Best coding practices and new code therefore, permeate the company without any extra effort.

While Amazon’s lack of QA infrastructure and number of QA professionals has been questioned and even criticized, the company remains unshaken. Their stance is that their ratio of testers to developers is not an input but rather an output variable. When they notice changes in customer behavior in terms of decrease in customers due to website issues, the company accelerates their testing efforts. Given that the company’s development and deployment processes are so advanced and established – they are known for installing software every 11.6 seconds – they do not see the need for elaborate testing processes. Their whole approach is towards making software easy to use and adopt, and in the event of a failure the software easy to recall.

Testers and developers are treated at par here, with equality of pay. Their higher ratio of testers to developers is due to the fact that a major portion of their revenue is from products that can be shipped to be installed on the computers of their customers. The company therefore would rather spend time and money on ensuring that their products are top quality before they are shipped to customers – this is better than ramping up the products later in case they are found with bugs or issues.

For Spotify the priority remains product stability and the ability to test the product over time. Looking at quick fixes is not part of the culture at Spotify, as they aim to maintain quality and coverage at all times. The software development teams are termed as tribes and squads, responsible for certain areas. This ‘division’ helps not only to meet the objectives of quality assurance, but also keeps a synergy between the product and development teams. The company’s ability to scale development comes from testing automation, but they are careful not to use this as a ‘treatment’ or solution for every issue with quality. Test automation is used as a tool to help QA engineers become more effective, and to keep their focus on the goal of holistic product quality.

The increasing emphasis on quality comes from the need of all businesses to deliver software to their clients / customers. Depending on the quality of software, a company can either reach its business goals or cause itself major problems. While the behemoths of technology can provide guidance, each business must find its own unique approach to QA and software testing. The good news is that it is easy to choose from the many testing companies offering software testing services. You just need a partner with expertise, experience, and knowledge about the tools and platforms, and the pertinent approach to QA for your company – connect with us!

Is your Website Ready for Peak Traffic on Open Enrollment?

by admin | Mar 16, 2019 | Software Testing, Blog | 0 comments

With so many companies, products, and services the consumer is spoiled for choices, and it has therefore, also become exceedingly tough to decide instantly in favor of a particular offering. People now take time to research, gather information, check customer reviews, and do whatever is required to make an informed decision. However, this in-depth scrutiny bodes well for companies – it gives them the opportunity to draw more traffic to their websites, but the spike in traffic is something that they must be prepared to face. When open enrollment for products such as insurance offerings, it is critical for a company to ensure that their website is ready to manage the load.

Load testing and performance testing play a critical role in ensuring that the apps, APIs (application programming interfaces) and websites are running at optimum ability. These tests conducted only by a top performance testing services company will prevent memory leaks, low response times, and poor user experience. The busy customer of today is eager to work with companies offering seamless user experience during open enrollment, top quality products, and efficient service, and are unforgiving of companies unable to live up to their expectations.

Any top class QA testing company will tell you that testing for peak traffic can never be enough or too early. Preparing for open enrollment for example, it would make business sense to plan sufficiently and test regularly. The aim of performance testing and load testing is to discover bugs, errors, and to know the peak load that the apps and websites can manage. Finding these issues obviously will not suffice, and hence time and resources would be required to fix the problems and make improvements where necessary. Post fixing the issues, tests would need to be conducted once more to ensure that the systems are performing at their optimum.

As you ramp up the tests, ensure that your performance testing service partner, monitors the results and provides proper documentation for each level before ramping up to the next level. An expert performance testing company, will run a functional test to ensure that functionality of the apps and websites are running as required, followed by a calibration test to ascertain the performance of the platform and any problems associated with its functioning. Once these tests are done with satisfactory results, running a performance test would make sense.

The next step would be to run a stress test / load test. This will ascertain how well the site will perform under added ‘pressure’ / load especially during times of open enrollment when traffic increases significantly. If your company has such periods of peak traffic / open enrollment times, stress testing will ensure that issues with respect to capacity, limitations, stability, and usability are resolved before the apps and websites are hit by high loads.

It is important to note that normal performance and performance testing are necessary and must replicate the actual traffic scenarios as closely as is possible. Guesswork or predictions of performance could prove costly, and it is highly recommended to work with an experienced partner who can test the limits and capacity of your apps and websites regularly and provide round the clock support.

Experts in the realm of performance testing will understand the importance of not only criteria for success, but for failure as well during the testing phase. By setting the failure criteria, there would be transparency in the communication and your business would have upfront answers on whether the system failed to perform as per the service level agreement or from the business perspective. The experienced team of professionals working with your service partner would be able to lay down the criteria which would need to be the threshold during testing. They would also have the right testing tools, methodologies, and technologies to run the tests required to ensure that your company’s systems work smoothly under both normal and stress conditions such as open enrollment.

Scaling quickly from a few to millions of users is no mean task. Open enrollment, holiday seasons, and other such times can prove extremely stressful and even risky for a business if the applications and websites do not run as per the user expectations. The good news is that it does not require your business to hire extra personnel or learn new technologies to combat these high traffic scenarios. Connect with us for ongoing commitment, support, and in-depth know how of all such situations and more, and get ready to rake in the ‘spoils’ of the business that seamlessly working apps and websites would bring.

The Saga of Quality Assurance and Software Testing

by admin | Mar 14, 2019 | Software Testing, Blog | 0 comments

If we look at ancient constructions and architecture, we can see how people began to raise the standards of what they did. Most of those structures continue to stand tall and beautiful even today. Before the industrial era, Guilds monopolized the markets – they were a union of craftsmen. They took on the responsibility of ascertaining the quality of good and services offered by the members – the masters of the guild would perform inspections in a bid to ensure that quality was maintained. This meant that quality was dependent on the view and mindset of a person or a group of persons. However, slowly specialization became the order of day, thereby taking quality from being focused on a person to being process oriented.

It is also necessary to understand how the failures, challenges, and successes of the past affect our view of quality as we know it today. Quality Assurance, Testing, and Quality Control are terms often used in the realm of quality, but it is incorrect to use them as analogous terms, since there are some significant differentiations. However, using these terms interchangeably has its roots in the origin and the fact that the implementation of each, intersect in the realm of software development.

Any top quality QA company will tell you that QA is a proactive process, aimed at preventing problems and issues. The emphasis for QA companies therefore would be to include meticulous planning, diligent documentation, and close attention to the guidelines required to ensure top quality software. In order to gain full understanding of the business requirements of the client and the project, QA as a process must begin at the start of the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The next step would be developing a structured and robust plan to meet the required expectations and criteria. Of course, QA must continue through the SDLC to ensure quality does not fall.

QA testing companies will tell you that software quality is about the level that a system meets the specified criteria and the needs of the users. Quality of software is also about the design quality, and can be determined by scrutinizing several variables – both internal and external. External quality would be user experience, while the quality of coding would deal with the internal quality. Software testing is an integral and critical component in the process of software development because this is what maintains quality. Software testing too has undergone several and major changes during its evolution, and the evolution has been segregated into various phases based on time.

Avoid ConfusionAs mentioned earlier, QA, QC, and testing must not be used interchangeably, and to make matters simple it would suffice to look at the three as a grading of processes. While QA cements the process to build a product and assess its quality, quality control ensures that the QA process is implemented right, and testing is one component of the QC process. Software testing has seen a rather evolutionary process, resulting in its advanced form today – that of end to end framework based testing. Studies conducted on the subject discuss the evolution of this realm based on time and based on usage of tools, methodologies, and processes.

Looking Ahead and In ConclusionQA and software testing constitute important components of software development, and with companies working with limited resources in terms of personnel, time, and money, it would make sense to partner with an expert QA Outsourcing company. Not only would these professionals work within these limitations, they would also provide value added services and support. They would also be able to guide your business with regard to which process require manual testing, and which ones need automated tests. With knowledge of tools, such experienced testers would ensure that projects are completed faster and with laser like precision. The skills and knowledge of such QA and software testing companies is becoming indispensable. To gain the benefits of top class QA and software testing, connect with us today, and leave it to us to uncover the countless possibilities for your business.

Category Selected: Software Testing

People also read

Categories

Subscribe

Talk to our Experts

Amazing clients who trust us

Changes in Software Development Landscape

New Development Methodologies

Checking for Areas of Potential Breakage

Focus on Perfecting Product Releases

Complex Software Development

Competitive Marketplace

Delivery of Quality Software

Emphasis on a Test-first Approach

In Conclusion:

Comprehensive Assessment of System Performance

Effective Supervision of the Testing Process

Proper Appraisal of the Progress of the Project

Efficient Test Control

Faster Release Cycles

Collaboration among Different Teams

Prompt Analysis of the Effect of New Change on Quality

Complementary to Continuous Delivery

In Conclusion:

Facilitates the Continuous Delivery Process

Ensures Continuity in the Software Development Life Cycle

Enables Comprehensive Test Coverage

Enables Quality Assessment at Every Step

Helps Upgrade the Delivery Pipeline for Feedback

Integrates Seamlessly into DevOps Process

Allows Faster Software Delivery to the End User

Helps Organizations Cater to the Needs of Dynamic Markets

In Conclusion:

Google

Facebook

Amazon

Microsoft

Spotify

In Conclusion

In Conclusion:

Quality Assurance in the Realm of Software Testing

Defining Quality Assurance

Recent Posts

Amazing clients who
trust us