Page 138 - SOFTWARE TESTING & QUALITY ASSURANCE

Unit 9: Automation Testing

Hewlett Packard offers a suite of solutions called HP Quality center which
automates testing and quality assurance for client/server software and systems.
They can be used for e-business applications and enterprise resource planning
applications. The following are the different products which are part of the
suite.

Quality center – This product can be used for tests and defect tracking.
Load Runner – This product helps in enterprise load testing,
WinRunner – This product helps in test automation for the enterprise.

If a software project has many test cases to run, there may be hardly enough
time to execute them just once. Running them several times might be
impossible. In such a situation, software test tools and automation can help
solve the problem by providing a more efficient means to run the tests, when
compared to manual testing.

Did you know? Automated testing involves higher upfront costs and should be
looked at as a long-term investment, where the pay-offs come anywhere between
2-4 years down the road.

Read on how ROI on Test automation is carried out from the following link
www.keane.com/resources%2Fpdf%2FWhitePapers%2FWP_ROIforTestAutomation.p

df.

9.1.1 Test Tools
While performing automation software testing, a tester comes across various testing tools. The types to
be used are based on the type of software that a tester is testing.
The advantage of these test tools is that the tester need not be an expert on how they work or what
exactly they do in order to use the test tools.

Consider a tester testing networking software that permits a computer to
communicate with up to 1 million other computers at the same time. It can be
difficult to carry out a controlled test with 1 million real connections. But, with
a special tool that replicates those connections, the tester can adjust the number
from one to a million and perform the tests without having to set up a real-
world scenario.

It is not necessary to understand how the tool works. The only requirement to test a particular
application would be the knowledge of white box skills and awareness of the low level protocol to
effectively use this tool.
In this section, we will discuss the major classes and uses of testing tools. Some instances are based on
tools included with most programming languages, whereas others are commercial tools that are sold
individually. In many cases it is seen that a new tool has to be developed to satisfy the tester’s needs.

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