Why Do Testing Matters Much?

I’m sure most of us are still talking about lastest "global IT outage." Many of us felt its impact, whether directly or indirectly. I faced the inconvenience of not being able to withdraw cash from an ATM, and my wife’s flight was delayed for hours. While these were manageable disruptions, others were hit much harder. The CrowdStrike incident will undoubtedly be remembered for some time.

I doubt CrowdStrike ever envisioned something like this happening. They likely viewed their past releases as low-risk. But in this case, the outcome was different, wasn’t it? Social media is buzzing with comments like, "This is what happens when you skip testing," "Why wasn’t this tested?" and "QA jobs are going to see a surge now." While these reactions might be justified, they tend to oversimplify the situation. My intention isn’t to criticize CrowdStrike but to discuss the concept of risk.

Why do we test? Is it to guarantee quality? No, because quality can’t be guaranteed. Is it to find bugs? While discovering and reporting bugs is indeed valuable, that’s not the sole purpose. We test to provide crucial information to decision-makers—the ones who determine if the software is ready for release with an acceptable level of risk. As testers, we communicate what we have tested and, just as critically, what we haven’t tested, including real-world scenarios we couldn’t replicate. We also report what we observed during testing, such as issues, potential concerns, unexpected changes, and risks that could affect the quality of our software systems.

Accursed we all here about the popular brand Starbucks' that also faced the outage issues in pay features. the company said in a statement. "We continue to welcome and serve customers in the vast majority of our stores and drive-thrus and are doing everything we can to bring all systems online as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience." So, that when till the solving the issue that brand serve coffee for customer without any online payment.

To address and prevent the type of error described in the "global IT outage" scenario, the following types of testing would be crucial:

1. End-to-End (E2E) Testing

• Importance: End-to-End testing involves testing the entire software system, including all integrated components and interactions with external systems. This helps ensure that the application works as expected in a production-like environment and can handle real-world use cases.
• Solution: By conducting thorough End-to-End testing, potential issues like the one that led to the IT outage could have been detected earlier. It would have tested the software's behavior under various scenarios, including high traffic, data flow between services, and integration points, preventing such a large-scale failure.

2. Load and Stress Testing

• Importance: Load testing simulates a high number of concurrent users or transactions to determine how the system performs under expected conditions. Stress testing pushes the system beyond normal operational capacity to see how it handles extreme situations.
• Solution: Had the software undergone rigorous load and stress testing, any weaknesses under heavy usage or unexpected spikes in demand could have been identified and addressed. This would have ensured that the system could handle the real-world load without causing an outage.

3. Regression Testing

• Importance: Regression testing checks whether new code changes have inadvertently affected existing functionality. It's crucial for maintaining the integrity of the software over time.
• Solution: If proper regression testing had been performed after every update or change, any issues caused by new code could have been caught before they reached production, thus preventing the type of failure that occurred.

4. User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

• Importance: UAT involves testing the software from the user's perspective to ensure it meets their needs and expectations in real-world scenarios.
• Solution: If UAT had been thoroughly conducted, real-world user scenarios that might cause issues could have been identified, allowing the development team to address them before the software was deployed.

Ensuring Previous Testing to Avoid Errors

To prevent such errors from occurring in the first place, it’s essential to establish a robust testing process that includes all the above types of testing. Let's test your software!! Take 30 min free consultant now!! A few strategies to enhance the effectiveness of the testing process include:

• Comprehensive Test Planning: Develop a detailed test plan that includes all relevant types of testing, ensuring no critical areas are overlooked.
• Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD): Implement CI/CD pipelines that automatically run tests with every code change, ensuring that issues are caught early.
• Realistic Test Environments: Use environments that closely mimic production, including real-world data and network conditions, to catch issues that might only occur in a live setting.
• Regular Reviews and Updates: Continuously review and update the testing strategy to incorporate lessons learned from past incidents and adapt to new risks.

By incorporating these testing practices, software teams can significantly reduce the risk of encountering large-scale issues like the "global IT outage," ensuring a more resilient and reliable system. For that I want to say all the major software development player to test your whole software without missing out of software testing. Alphabin offering you a best software testing services which is ensure your software give a better user experience.