DEV Community: Bethany Wilson

Top 10 QA and Software Testing Trends in 2023

Bethany Wilson — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 11:45:35 +0000

Software testing trends depict the valuation of software testing activities from a credibility and demand standpoint. It tries to educate all those members connected with software testing activities to equip themselves with the necessary skills and expertise. The objective of projecting these trends is to only provide knowledge and information that is highly valuable. In this article, you will get to know the top 10 QA and Software testing trends in 2023.

Following are the top 10 QA and software testing trends:

1. The rise of IoT testing: The market for IoT (Internet of Things) devices is gradually developing. IoT relies on software for its efficient functioning. There is a marked increase and hence the QA teams must put in the required efforts to gain in-depth knowledge about the performance, usability and security of IoT devices.

2. The tactical importance of performance engineering: Performance testing-based test scripts are executed. Various areas of system performance that include software, hardware, user experience, security and configuration to verify the system functionality are focused and worked upon by testers. Customer expectations are also fulfilled by performance engineering.

3. The strategic relevance of test automation: Automated processes are an important component of software testing activities. A portion of code and automatic verification of lots of processes are changed visibly by the test automation platform. Robotic process automation, agile and codeless automation are some of the important aspects of automation testing.

4. The sheer power of Agile and DevOps: Agile and DevOps are continuously proving to be a game-changer and helping organization scale up their software development activities. It is again going to be one of the major software testing trends. Rapidly changing requirements are quickly adopted by agile methodologies and quality output is delivered with speed through the platform of DevOps.

5. Testing Centers of Excellence (TCoE): The market for TCoE is steadily growing and is proving to be one of the major software testing trends. It provides a specific structure through which various methods of high-quality standard testing are integrated. The TCoE structure enables businesses to incorporate a new tester into any random testing team.

6. The prominence of AI/ML: The platform of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) is growing at a rapid pace. This means that the market opportunities for AI/ML testing will only increase based on the amount of data that is available. Better test scripts, test reports, test data and test cases are generated by AI/ML algorithms.

7. The value of Shift left testing: This type of testing is performed in the early stages of the software development life cycle process. If we try to understand the setup of the traditional software development life cycle then you will witness that on the left side, the requirements are written and on the right side of the workflow testing is placed. This will in turn result in negative results as there is a delay in bug detection. Hence, the Shift Left approach is used wherein the time-to-market is reduced and bugs are detected early.

8. The genuine advantage of Scriptless test automation: Test cases can be automated by testers and business users, without worrying about the coding part. The time taken to understand the code is reduced by scriptless test automation thus helping businesses to achieve faster results.

9. The strategic significance of Blockchain testing: Distributed ledger technology is used by Blockchain testing. Several use cases are provided right from improving security to providing secure transactions.

10. Big data testing: Organizations as of today are relying on huge amounts of data along with having colossal amounts of business-specific data. The unstructured data needs to be converted into actionable business insights for creating a strategic roadmap for businesses to thrive. For this specific purpose, big data testing is used.

Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing software testing for your specific project, then do get connected with a reliable software testing services company that will provide you with effective testing strategies that are in line with your project specific requirements.

About the author: I am a technical content writer focused on writing technology specific articles. I strive to provide well-researched information on the leading market savvy technologies.

What is functional testing and the best open source tools for functional testing?

Bethany Wilson — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 07:30:01 +0000

Functional testing is a testing method that makes sure the functionality (or) features of an application are thoroughly tested. It provides a well-defined strategic platform to carry out testing activities efficiently. There are many open-source and commercially available functional testing tools that help in enhancing the overall effectiveness of the software testing process. In this article, you will get to know about functional testing and the best open-source tools available.

What is functional testing?

It is a testing method that verifies whether each of the application’s features works as per the specific software functional requirements. There is a comparison between each function and the corresponding requirement to determine whether the output is consistent with the end user’s expectations.

The software system is validated against the functional specifications/requirements. Each function of the software application is tested by providing input and then the output is verified against the functional requirements.

The following are the best open-source tools for functional testing:

1. Selenium: It is one of the most popular open-source automation testing tools used exclusively for testing web applications. Selenium scripts can be easily written in popular programming languages such as Java, PHP, Perl, C#, Ruby etc. It has become a core framework for other open-source automation testing tools such as Robot framework, Protractor, Watir, Katalon studio etc. It supports various browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc.,) and multiple system environments (Linux, Mac, Windows etc.)

2. Appium: It is an open-source test automation testing tool exclusively used for testing web applications. It tests all kinds of hybrid, native and web apps. It supports automated tests on simulators and emulators. It requires a little amount of memory for the test process. Standard automation APIs are offered by this tool which can be used on all platform types. It supports various languages such as Python, Node, PHP, Ruby, Java etc.

3. Testlink: It is a web-based open-source testing tool that synchronizes both the test specification and requirements specification together. A test project is created by users and then test cases are documented using this tool. An account for multiple users can be created and different user roles can be assigned. Test cases can be exported and imported with ease. It can be easily integrated with multiple defect management tools and test cases can be quickly assigned to multiple users.

4. TestNG (Next Generation): End-to-end testing is made easier using this tool. Test reports and test plans are generated by this tool quickly in various formats. Test cases can be easily exported and imported. Test cases can be easily filtered with test case ID, keywords, version etc. Test cases can be assigned to multiple users. Credentials are provided to multiple users and specific roles are assigned to them.

5. Open Test: This tool is used for testing mobile apps, web application and API testing. There is no need for any specific coding skills required and any type of functional project can be virtually handled. It supports JavaScript and web testing can be performed using Selenium. The test can run more than one time and it is best suited for source control systems like Git. It can be tested just once and can run on multiple environments.

6. Watir: This tool can perform web automation testing based on Ruby libraries. It supports cross-browser testing including Opera, Firefox, IE etc. It supports data-driven testing and can be easily integrated with BDD tools like Cucumber, RSpec and Test/Unit.

Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing functional testing for your specific project then do get connected with a globally renowned software testing services company that will provide you with tactical testing strategies that are in line with your project specific requirements.

About the author: I am a technical content writer focused on writing technology specific articles. I strive to provide well-researched information on the leading market savvy technologies.

How Outsourcing QA Testing Helps Your Business

Bethany Wilson — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 15:09:32 +0000

Outsourcing QA testing can prove to be really beneficial to those organizations that do not have the necessary expertise and team to carry out the QA testing process efficiently and rewardingly. QA testing provider has a strategic plan of action coupled with a competent and skilled QA team that can undertake both small and large-scale projects, regardless of complexity and execute them as per the required specifications. This in turn ensures that the company that has outsourced QA testing gets the best of services that help them to scale their business efficiently. In this article, you will get to know the key reasons that justify as to why outsourcing QA testing can help businesses grow.

What is QA testing?

It is a specific process to assess the system or its components to verify whether it meets the quality-specific requirements or not. It ensures that a product, system or application is built according to standard quality protocols.

Following are the five reasons that justify as to why outsourcing QA testing can prove to be a game-changer:

1. Ensures efficiency and productivity: If the software needs to be evaluated in an unbiased manner, businesses must make a tactical move by assigning the testing and development activities to different teams that are in line with testing and development. There can be a lack of objectivity if a single team is involved in both coding and testing activities. There will also be a problem of discovering issues and bugs in the software.

When the same set of developers carries out testing and development activities, then the errors may be overlooked. Hence, outsourcing QA activities assure that experts with in-depth knowledge are involved to carry out the testing work.

2. A systematic approach is followed: As the automation and technological spectrum is getting advanced, QA activities can also be automated for optimal results. QA automation service providers have an in-depth understanding of the tools and techniques required to enrich and optimize the testing process. Outsourcing QA activities ensure that the QA process can be effectively automated to provide the best results as desired by the client, thereby justifying the worth of the QA service provider.

3. Early identification of risks: When an organization outsources its QA activities to an expert QA provider, then possible bugs or issues can be easily detected right in the early stages of the development process saving cost and time. As the project progresses, the increase in costs to find defects will also scale up. Hence, it will be a wise move to bring in a specialized QA provider to detect risks at the initial stages.

4. Code is protected: One of the key benefits of outsourcing QA testing activities is that the coding details need not be shared with the outsourcing provider. The QA provider is concerned with working on test-related works, coming up with unique testing scripts and thus ensuring flawless software is delivered. Those organizations that have outsourced their QA works need not also worry about breach of Intellectual Property rights.

5. Testing results are delivered faster: When QA testing works are outsourced then the turnaround time for detecting defects also diminishes, thereby making the testing process even more effective and faster. There are different models that can be followed for optimal productivity.

Follow the Sun is considered to be one of the most effective models. In this model, if the customer is located at a different geographic location with a different time zone, the QA provider will make sure that the issue with time zone differences does not obstruct the productivity of the testing process.

Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing QA testing for your specific project, then do get connected with a professionally acclaimed automation testing services company that will provide you with feasible testing solutions that are in line with your project specific requirements.

About the author: I am a technical content writer focused on writing technology specific articles. I strive to provide well-researched information on the leading market savvy technologies

What is Smoke Testing & Why is it So Important in Software Testing?

Bethany Wilson — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 07:14:53 +0000

Smoke testing plays a crucial role, especially when it comes to testing every build and thus finding defects in the early stages of the software development process. It is considered to be the final step before the build is passed on to the system stage. The test effort can be minimized and the quality of the application can be improved through the strategic implementation of the smoke testing process. In this article, you will get to know about smoke testing along with its significant benefits.

What is Smoke testing?

It is a testing method that verifies the stability of a software build that has been deployed. On every single new build, smoke testing is performed. This is because developers can ascertain the features that have been included in the new build are working as per the expectations or it needs to be fixed before performing further testing.

The strategic importance of smoke testing:

Time and resources are wasted if other tests do not take smoke tests into consideration. Smoke testing can be done quickly and easily and is carried out in the earlier stages of the software development process to identify bugs and issues. It works as an indicator that indicates whether the build is ready for further levels of software testing. Without performing this testing method, major issues can slip away and stay within a build for a longer amount of time.

The overall quality of builds is improved. If smoke testing is not conducted first, then it would be inappropriate to perform functional testing, which means the build would not be able to progress. This testing method plays an integral role in various other stages of the software testing process. For example, smoke testing can be used during system testing, so that the build can be validated quickly and easily across all the testing types.

Following are a few more points that depict the strategic importance of smoke testing:

• The correction and detection of major defects can be simplified
• Identifying all the show stoppers in the build
• The major severity defects can be found during this testing
• The application functionality defects can be found by the QA team that may have surfaced by the new code
• The major severity defects can be found by this testing method.

The significance of manual and automated smoke testing:
Manual smoke testing:

Generally, smoke testing is conducted manually. The approach may vary from organization to organization. It is carried out to make sure that critical paths are navigated as expected and do not obstruct the functionality. Once the QA receives the build, testing of high-priority functional test cases takes place to find crucial defects in the system. If the test passes, functional testing is continued.

If the test fails, then the build is rejected and then sent back for correction to the development team. The smoke testing is again initiated by the QA.

Automated smoke testing:

A set of automated test cases can be used to run against a smoke test. The build can be immediately checked by developers through the help of automated tests, whenever a new build is ready to be deployed. Whenever there is a deployment of a new software build, smoke test cases that are recorded can be executed against the build. The major functionalities are verified to know whether it is able to function as expected.

If the test fails, then the build can be corrected and redeployed immediately. A test engineer uses an automated tool to record all the manual steps that are conducted in the software build.

Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing smoke testing for your specific project, then do get connected with a leading software testing services company that will provide you with structured testing solutions that are in line with your project specific requirements.

About the author: I am a technical content writer focused on writing technology specific articles. I strive to provide well-researched information on the leading market savvy technologies.

How does Security Testing Perform Vulnerability Assessments for your Business?

Bethany Wilson — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 07:11:37 +0000

Vulnerability assessments can identify vulnerabilities ranging from simple misconfigurations to critical design flaws. The vulnerabilities are documented so that developers can find and reproduce the findings. Proper guidance is provided to assist developers in remediating the vulnerabilities that have been identified. In this article, you will get to know the specific steps required to perform vulnerability assessments with security testing.

What is a Vulnerability assessment?

It is a testing process where severity levels are identified and assigned to as many security defects as possible in a given timeframe. This process may involve an emphasis on comprehensive coverage and also involve manual and automated techniques with varying degrees of rigor. A different layer of technology may be targeted by vulnerability assessments, using a risk-based approach and the most common being application layer assessments and host networks.

Vulnerabilities can be identified by organizations in their supporting and software infrastructure through the implementation of vulnerability testing.

Vulnerability can be defined in two aspects as follows:

A weakness in internal controls or gap in security procedures that when exploited can result in a breach of security
A flaw in software design or bug in a code that can be exploited to cause harm. Exploitation may occur via an unauthenticated or authentic attacker.

The following are the four steps required to perform a vulnerability assessment:

The scope of security testing needs to be defined and planned: Before a vulnerability assessment is conducted, a proper methodology needs to be established:

• Identify the most sensitive data that needs to be stored
• The hidden sources of data need to be uncovered
• The specific servers that run mission-critical applications need to be identified
• The networks and systems to access need to be identified
• All the processes and ports need to be reviewed so that misconfigurations can be checked
• The devices used, digital assets and the entire IT infrastructure need to be mapped out.

2. Identifying Vulnerabilities: A vulnerability scan should be conducted of the IT infrastructure and then a detailed list of the underlying security threats need to be made. Manual penetration test and automated vulnerability scan need to be done to reduce false positives and validate findings.

3. Analyzing the vulnerability activity progress: A detailed report can be provided by a scanning tool that will help in determining scores for vulnerabilities and different risk ratings.
CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) is used by many tools for the purpose of assigning a numerical score. These scores need to be carefully analyzed to know which vulnerabilities need to be dealt with first. You can prioritize them based on factors such as risk, potential damage urgency and severity.

4. Remediate the vulnerability process: Once the vulnerabilities are properly identified and analyzed, the next step is to know how to fix them. Remediation and Mitigation are two ways to fix the vulnerabilities.

When a vulnerability needs to be fully fixed to prevent any exploitation, then remediation is involved. A product update or security tools can be used to achieve it. The vulnerability remediation process takes place based on the priorities that are set during the analysis phase and also requires stakeholders’ participation.

When there’s no proper patch or fix for a vulnerability that has been identified, the prospect of the attack can be reduced through the medium of mitigation.

Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing security testing for your specific project, then do get connected with a competent and credible software testing services company that will provide you with strategic testing solutions that are in line with your project specific requirements.

About the author: I am a technical content writer focused on writing technology specific articles. I strive to provide well-researched information on the leading market savvy technologies.

How To Carry Out Effective User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

Bethany Wilson — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 06:07:03 +0000

User acceptance testing ensures that a software product or application works as per the business and user-specific requirements. Gaining strategic inputs from users about the overall working of the product in terms of user experience, functionality and performance will in turn help the team to build a better quality product. The product can be fine-tuned, which will in turn make the product more reliable and scalable. In this article, you will get to know the five steps required to carry out effective user acceptance testing.

What is User Acceptance testing (UAT)?

It is a testing method that is performed in a real-world scenario by end-users. The worth of a software product or an application that has been developed is judged by the end user. It is usually the last phase of the Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC) process and is conducted at the final stages of software development, just before the product is going to be released.

This testing method evaluates whether the software product matches with real-world expectations and business requirements. User feedback is another key component of UAT, as it helps the testing and development team to make strategic decisions to further improve the overall quality of the software product and equate it with user and business-specific requirements.

Following are the five simple steps required to carry out effective User acceptance testing:

1. A well-defined plan: The strategies, time frame and business requirements are outlined in the plan. If the plan is prepared in a meticulous manner, then the testing can be carried out more effectively and smoothly.

2. The real-world test scenarios should be identified and created: As many as possible functional test cases should be covered in these test scenarios that end-users may work upon

3. Selecting the participants: The development team can decide whether a software application has to be tested by a huge number of participants by offering a free trial or only by a select few end-users who are qualified for testing. These qualified users have the required knowledge about the business and product and hence are able to detect and report issues.

4. Document the tests: The software is tested by end-users and hence potential bugs or other issues are logged. A bug tracker should be used to record the bugs with specific notes on how the errors can be reproduced.

5. The code should be updated and retested: Based on the test results, the development team will adjust the code to ensure that bugs and necessary changes are resolved and then retest it again. Once the software product or application is able to meet the user’s expectations, then the tester will sign off.

User acceptance testing best practices:

1. Information should be gathered appropriately: The correct data must be collected, which includes testing the process, the specific actions taken for tests and selecting test data based on a set of guidelines.

2. The target audience should be properly identified: UAT users are identified who know what needs to be done to some extent and provide insightful feedback.

3. The project scope needs to be clearly understood: Specific processes need to be tested, so that collection of data can be done from only the specific processes

4. The design phase: Different users can be assigned different testing steps. Test cases need to specify procedures and should be detailed along with providing expected conditions and results a tester may need to verify.

Conclusion:

If you are looking forward to implementing UAT for your specific project, then do get connected with a leading software testing services company that will provide you with a tactical testing blueprint that is in line with your project specific requirements.
About the author: I am a technical content writer focused on writing technology specific articles. I strive to provide well-researched information on the leading market savvy technologies.

What is the difference between user testing and beta testing?

Bethany Wilson — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 10:44:37 +0000

User testing is performed to ensure whether the business and user-specific requirements are properly met or not. End-users are involved to test the product. The testing and development team observes how the user interacts with the product. The product design is also evaluated through this testing method. Beta testing is conducted when a product is almost developed. Beta tests are carried out by beta testers to obtain feedback from beta testers. This feedback will help the team know where the product or application stands in terms of user experience, performance and functionality and how it can be refined for optimal results.

In this article, you will get to know the differences between user testing and beta testing.

What is User testing?

It is a testing method where the functions and interface of a service, product, application or website are tested by users in a real-time environment. The application‘s or website’s usability is evaluated to ascertain whether the software product or application is ready to be used by users. For optimal results, testers should interact with the application or website and get to know the level of intuitiveness of a website or application.

It is used in the design process to evaluate a prototype, feature or product with real users. The design team can also get to know the issues related to user experience so that ultimately the user’s experience can be enhanced before the software product or application is launched.

What is Beta testing?

It is a testing method where a beta version (which is 80% to 95% completed) of a software product or application is tested by beta testers (users) in a real-time production environment. Beta testing is performed in the final stages of the software development process, just before the product’s launch. It is considered as “pre-release testing.”

The software product’s robustness, reliability, security and user experience are checked in this testing method. It is a black-box testing technique. It is performed after alpha testing and is also focused on testing applications, operating systems, utilities etc.

The purpose of user testing:

The objective of this testing method is to provide a platform that is easy to use and learn. Representative tasks are performed by representative users that report the sequence of actions and the time taken to complete those actions. It is performed on any artifact that supports the testing tasks you are involved in, and thus it can be done before the design freezes.

Following are a few key points that need to be pondered upon:

The specific sequence used by users to complete the tasks
The way users feel while using the product
The flow, layout, wording etc., that users find helpful or misleading
The specific user requirements in terms of further improvising the product or application.

The purpose of beta testing:

This testing method ascertains the product’s behavior in a real-world scenario, as opposed to testing servers. An almost completely developed product wherein all the features have been completed, but, a few changes or modifications need to be done.

Following are a few key points that need to be pondered upon:

The specific questions that need to be answered when the product is being installed, configured and used
The specific issues faced by users while they are testing the product in a real-time production environment
The specific problems that people encounter when they use them without any formal test cases
Beta testers report on usability problems and missing features that need to be addressed.

Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing beta testing or user testing or both for your specific project, then do get connected with the finest software testing services company that will provide you with a methodical testing blueprint that is in line with your project specific requirements.

About the author: I am a technical content writer focused on writing technology specific articles. I strive to provide well-researched information on the leading market savvy technologies.

Understanding Functional Testing Best Practices in an Agile environment from an Expert’s perspective

Bethany Wilson — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 07:13:23 +0000

Software testing makes sure that the quality of a software product or application is not compromised at any cost. Functional testing is one of the crucial software testing types that test the system users on one side and the interface between the application on another side. Functional testing ensures that the product or application is working as per the business requirements. Functional testing is carried out through a sequence of steps for optimal outcomes.

In this article, you will know the functional testing best practices that are applied in an agile environment.

What is Functional testing?

It is a testing method that verifies whether each of the application’s features and functions is developed as per the software requirements. Each function of the software application is tested by providing appropriate input and then the output is verified against the functional requirements.

Following are the key steps carried out for the functional testing process in an agile environment explained through the medium of suggestive best practices:

1. Gathering of test requirements The business team should arrange for product feature presentations. Through this, the communication gap is minimized between the team developing a specific application and the market requirements. A traceability matrix should be prepared that helps in showing the relationship from features to requirements up to issues. Traceability matrices should be maintained for any requirement changes.

2. Planning the test activities: The traceability matrix should be reviewed/approved. The functional gaps are reduced to a minimum in test plans due to the completeness of traceability matrices. The test plan should be reviewed with the development team.

3. Develop a test strategy: A consolidated functional test coverage matrix is prepared for various test cases that need to be executed. An extensive decision model can be utilized while deciding on each testing cycle and the test matrix. The test cases can be prioritized in the test plans to reduce the risk factors. The test strategy should be reviewed with the development team.

4. Executing tests: A process should be set up to obtain intermediate product builds before the formal QA handover. A knowledge repository should be established of various problems that may be encountered during test execution/test environment setup and their possible solutions.
The execution process should be carried out in a flexible manner. The development and other relevant teams should work collaboratively to make sure that the installation and configuration instructions are detailed enough.

5. Managing defects: Standard templates should be used for defect verification and defect filing. Clear-cut criteria should be established for defining priority and defect severity and also train the trainers on the same. The suspicious defects should be strategically discussed before filing them. High-quality functional defects should be filed by testers rather than focusing on filing a large quantity of cosmetic defects.
The high-impact defects should be made visible so that the development team can work on the important priority defects. Also, collaborate with the development team.

6. Reporting of test results: Prepare a comprehensive test results report template in a spreadsheet format. The effort that has been spent during the testing for each feature and stage and the overall summary of the test cases executed is properly listed in the summary report sheet.

7. Collecting the test metrics: A set of product/process metrics need to be identified so that it can be tracked on a continuous basis. Dashboards should be developed and shared for these metrics. Regression defects, re-opened defects, number of S1 and S2 bugs should be collected.

Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing functional testing for your agile project, then do get connected with a premium software testing services company that will provide you with a pragmatic testing blueprint in line with your project specific requirements.

About the author: I am a technical content writer focused on writing technology specific articles. I strive to provide well-researched information on the leading market savvy technologies.

What is the role of test automation in CI/CD pipeline?

Bethany Wilson — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 06:32:56 +0000

The principle of Continuous Integration (CI)/ Continuous Delivery (CD) is to “build fast, test fast, fail fast.” Automation testing acts as a perfect enabler for justifying the principle of CI/CD. Constant performance metrics and faster feedback time is provided through the test automation platform. Immediate feedback can be expected by developers using the test automation platform to know how their code is performing. The value of CI/CD is enhanced through the strategic use of a test automation platform. The code changes can be pushed from staging environments to production by using automation testing in CI/CD process. In this article, you will get to know the role of test automation in the CI/CD pipeline.

The significance of Continuous Integration (CI) / Continuous Delivery (CD):
Organizations can sustain and thrive in this competitive corporate scenario only when the right approaches and right technologies are adopted according to the ever-changing market demands. Through the strategic implementation of CI/CD, companies will be able to leverage agile methodologies to survive customer expectations and rapidly changing market requirements.

CI/CD is a specific methodology that bridges the gap between the testing team, development team and Operations team via the DevOps platform. The work is continuously integrated by the developers, followed by testers who will test it rigorously so that the operations team can release updates and products more often.
Release cycles are accelerated, which, in turn, leads to happier customers and Time-to-market. CI/CD not only plays a crucial role in customer satisfaction but also, contributes to developing a more secure, resilient and robust product.

The strategic role of test automation in the CI/CD pipeline:
CI/CD can be tactfully and effectively implemented through the automation testing platform. Test automation plays a pivotal role in CI/CD, simply because the notion of CI/CD is “build fast, test fast and fail fast.” This specific notion suits with the automation process.

If feedback should reach to the tester quickly and early, then the tests must run at a rapid pace. Bugs can also be detected early. As a result, the product that is going to be released will be bug-free and accurate. This can be made possible when test suites are automated.

Following are the key benefits offered by test automation in line with the CI/CD pipeline:
• Immediate feedback is provided, accurate tests can be expected and more test cases can be covered
• Multiple test results can be generated and compared thereby confirming product consistency
• It becomes a key part of the CI/CD pipeline and thus abides by the “build fast, fail fast” concept.

All the automated tests in the CI/CD pipeline must be tested on devices and real browsers. Emulators and simulators should not be used for testing as real user conditions cannot be replicated in their entirety.

The need to automate testing in CI/CD:

The iteration approach is closely followed by agile teams to deliver products at a faster pace, but, this may jeopardize quality. As completion is huge at a global level, there will be low tolerance for defects and this will in turn make the agile team for faster iterations of software delivery. To solve these issues in a strategic and streamlined manner, DevOps is considered to be a feasible solution.

DevOps can be made more efficient by using the CI/CD pipeline. A continuous cycle of improvement is designed through a pipeline of software development that can in turn lead to new testing opportunities.

For testers, this means that:
• They can test earlier and more often with automation testing
• The “real-world” workflows (automated and manual) can be continually tested.

Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing test automation in CI/CD pipeline, then do get connected with a competent and reliable software testing services company that will provide you with an exhaustive testing strategy that is in line with your project specific requirements.

About the author: I am a technical content writer focused on writing technology specific articles. I strive to provide well-researched information on the leading market savvy technologies.

How to do performance testing for a web application?

Bethany Wilson — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 08:10:52 +0000

Performance testing is considered to be one of the most significant and challenging aspects of web application testing. The reliability of a web application relies on how well it can perform on various devices and platforms. The product or application behavior and user’s response can be analyzed through the tactical implementation of performance testing. The team must put in efforts to lay down a well-defined and methodical performance testing strategy that is aligned with the project.

In this article, you will get to know the steps required to perform performance testing for a web application.

Following are the seven steps required to perform performance testing for a web application:

1. The test environment needs to be properly set up: In this step, analyze the specific conditions that an application may confront during the production phase. The production phase should be simulated by a fully functional testing environment as precisely as possible. The testing environments include:

• Software tools
• Hardware and
• Network configurations.

A functional test environment should be established so that the quality of planning and running tests is significantly improved. Both testers and developers should be involved in the creation of the performance testing environment.

2. The performance criteria should be identified: The performance criteria that are evaluated for all web applications generally include resource utilization, throughput and response time. Additional metrics might be captured and measured based on the business requirements.

3. Creating a plan for tests: Developing a testing plan requires the team to research thoroughly. The key scenarios to test are identified for all use cases by the tester. The cause of low performance should be known from a user’s standpoint for knowing what the users are doing and whether they need any help from the team.

Once a range of cases is collected by testers, they should come up with a workable strategy to simulate needed interactions. Metrics are also defined that will be captured during the testing process.

4. The environment should be configured: In this step, a toolkit of performance monitoring and load generation tools is created by the QA team. A bank of IP addresses are created by testers that can be used during sessions. During the project testing process, the web server performance testing toolkit should be modified or expanded to provide an expanded view of the web application’s performance.

5. Initiate test execution: The team should know the process in-depth to carry out the test execution process successfully. Following are the practices that can be followed while executing performance tests:

• Monitoring activity should be carried out by an expert
• Systems, test data and scripts involved should be regularly validated
• All the test results should be reviewed properly
• A test log needs to be maintained.

6. Scrutinize results: Once the testing of the web application’s performance has been done, the test results can be analyzed by the team using reports and graphs generated during scenario execution. Based on the findings (that can be shared), solutions can be offered to any of the issues that have been identified. The app is fine-tuned and after the problems have been fixed, the tests are rerun using the same and different parameters to measure improvement.

7. Repeat: Optimal results can be attained through performance testing when the tests are repeated. Whenever there is a change in the code, other metrics may get affected. For this reason, repeat testing is a core aspect of performance testing. A detailed schedule can be developed to include re-runs so that the system can be re-validated.

Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing performance testing for your specific project, then do get connected with a well-established software testing services company that will provide professional consultation and support in developing a high-end and in detail testing strategy that can meet your project specific requirements.

About the author: I am a technical content writer focused on writing technology specific articles. I strive to provide well-researched information on the leading market savvy technologies.

What is selenium webdriver and how it works?

Bethany Wilson — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 08:41:57 +0000

Selenium WebDriver is one of the most important components of the “Selenium tool suite.” Selenium WebDriver is considered to be an advanced version of Selenium RC (Remote Control). The Selenium WebDriver architecture consists of four important components namely Selenium Client Library, JSON wire protocol over HTTP, Browser Drivers and Browsers. It is a set of open-source APIs through which it can easily interact with different web browsers and upon that the user actions can also be automated based on the browser that is being used. WebDriver has become a sort of de-facto standard for web automation. It provides multi-language support, multi-browser compatibility, faster execution etc., because of which it is considered to be in demand. In this article, you will get a brief idea about the working of Selenium WebDriver.

What is Selenium WebDriver?

It is a web framework through which cross-browser tests are executed. Web-based application testing is automated using this tool to verify whether it is performing as expected. Test scripts can be created by choosing a specific programming language. It can easily work with open-source APIs. The framework operates through accepting commands, then those commands are sent to a browser and finally the applications interact. Selenium WebDriver supports browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Edge.

How Selenium WebDriver works?

There are three important steps that are required for making a Selenium WebDriver work effectively:

JSON wire protocol is used to convert test commands into an HTTP request
Before any test cases are executed, there is a driver which initializes the server
The request is received by the browser through its driver.

Following is a simple example that explains the working of Selenium Webdriver:

Below is a code snippet:

WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver ();
driver.get (https://www.anycompanyname.com)
As soon as the code has been written, the program is executed. Through the above code, the Chrome browser will be launched, which will in turn help navigate to the anycompanyname website.
Following is an explanation of what happens when you run the above code until the Chrome browser has been launched. After the execution of the program, each and every line of the code/snippet is transformed into a URL. This is made possible by JSON wire protocol over HTTP. Then, passing the URL to the browser drivers (in this example, it is ChromeDriver). At this point, the code is translated by the client library (Python in this example) into JSON format and then interacts with the ChromeDriver.

After JSON conversion, the URL looks like this:

https://localhost:8080/{“URL”:https://www.anycompanyname.com”}
In order to receive the HTTP requests, the HTTP server is used by every Browser Driver. Once the URL is received by the browser driver, the request is processed by passing it to the real browser over HTTP. Then, execution of all the commands in the Selenium scripts takes place.

Types of requests:

GET and POST are the two important types of requests.
If it’s a GET request, then it will result in generating a response at the browser end and it will be sent over to the browser driver over the HTTP platform. Eventually, with the help of JSON wire protocol, the browser driver is sent to the UI.

Following are the benefits of Selenium WebDriver:

• It supports various operating systems such as Mac, Windows, Linux, Unix etc.,
• It is compatible with various languages such as Perl, Java, Python, Ruby etc.,
• The execution of test scripts is carried out at a rapid pace
• It provides a more concise API (Application Programming Interface)
• It provides compatibility with AndroidDriver, HtmlUnitDriver and iPhoneDriver.

Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing Selenium automation testing services for your specific project, then do get connected with a remarkable software testing services company that will provide you with a solid testing approach that is in line with your project specific requirements.

About the author: I am a technical content writer focused on writing technology specific articles. I strive to provide well-researched information on the leading market savvy technologies.

How to Perform Application Security Testing Services?

Bethany Wilson — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 07:12:24 +0000

Application security testing provides a strategic platform to test the vulnerabilities and security related aspects of an application. It provides a comprehensive solution to develop a robust and foolproof software or web application. A measured approach and a strategic plan should be implemented by the security testing team for optimal results. Upon that, security testing tools can also be used to enhance the overall security testing process. In this article, you will get to know the steps required to perform application security testing.

What is application security testing?

It is a testing method where vulnerabilities and security weaknesses in source code are identified in order to prevent application security threats. Due to large number of threat vectors and known vulnerabilities, the huge number of open source components, and growing modularity of enterprise software, it is recommended to automate the application security testing tools. There are a number of application security testing tools available.

Following are the nine steps required to perform application security testing:

1. Analyze the business requirements: The business and security goals need to be properly understood by the security testing team in order to perform testing. The major vulnerabilities that need to be avoided within the application and the security needs of the organization should be considered. The team can also recheck if the company has missed out on any specific security needs.

2. Collect system and data requirements: If an accurate test needs to be created for the application, then system setup related information needs to be gathered. The specific requirements for developing the application should be noted down by the team, as well as the hardware and technology being used along with the specifications related to the network operating system should be taken into consideration.

3. A test plan and threat list need to be developed accordingly: In this step, all possible risks and vulnerabilities need to be identified and then written down in the form of a list. The threat profile must be prepared using the list, so that the critical nature of each test can be evaluated. After that, a test plan needs to be created and all the vulnerabilities within the system need to be addressed.

4. A traceability Matrix should be created: The relationship between two or more entities is defined by a software document referred to as the “Traceability Matrix.” Each expected vulnerability and risk in the application needs to be tracked in order to create an effective test plan. Each risk can be assessed in detail by creating a traceability matrix.

5. Select the right tools: Manual security testing cannot be used in every case. Automated testing needs to be incorporated to test the applications effectively. The team needs to decide from the list of tools as to which security testing tools best suit their project requirements.

6. The security tests case document should be created: The software security document needs to be finalized in this step. This document should be accurately filled out to address every vulnerability and weakness within the application. This task should be completed before the test execution begins.

7. Security test cases execution: All the test cases that have been prepared are executed in this step. The objective of this step is that all the vulnerabilities that have been identified should be checked and fixed accordingly, and then again, retesting should be done by the security testing team.

8. Regression test cases are executed: This step makes sure that any new changes or updates that have been introduced do not introduce any new bugs.

9. An in-depth report is prepared: All the vulnerabilities and security related issues that have been detected and fixed by the application security testing method are systematically documented in a report.

Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing application security testing for your specific project, then do get connected with a top-notch software testing services company that will provide you with a tactical testing roadmap that is in line with your project specific requirements.

About the author: I am a technical content writer focused on writing technology specific articles. I strive to provide well-researched information on the leading market savvy technologies.