system testing

Conference Presentations

Quality Assurance as a Service Organization

"QA is the bottleneck” ... "Why does QA take so long?" ... "You need to test faster." Often, key project stakeholders either do not understand QA or have difficulty quantifying the effects that increasing or decreasing test time will have on the project. First American CREDCO found the solution was to turn QA into a full service organization, complete with a "Quality Rainbow" menu of options to be purchased. Want it quicker and willing to accept a higher risk? Then select from Column 1. Want low risk and willing to take the time to ensure the product is pristine? Then select from Column 5. Whether your test team is small or large, you can learn to "in-source" QA services, set time and efforts expectations up front, and measure the value of QA activities so that QA does not become a roadblock to project success.

  • A method to specify and quantify the services provided by a QA group
Sandi Oswalt, First American Credco
Design Testability and Service Level Measurements into Software

Design and architecture decisions made early in the project have a profound influence on the testability of an application. Although testing is a necessary and integral part of application development, architecture and design considerations rarely include the impacts of development design decisions on testability. In addition, build vs. buy, third party controls, open source vs. proprietary, and other similar questions can affect greatly the ability of an organization to carry out automated functional and performance testing-both positively and negatively. If the software or service is delivered to a separate set of end-users who then need to perform testing activities, the problems compound. Join Jay Weiser to find out about the important design and architecture decisions that will ensure more efficient and effective testability of your applications.

Jay Weiser, WorkSoft
Customer Focused Business Metrics throughout the SDLC

Focusing on the customer throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC) is difficult to do. Teams often can become mired in technical problems, internal resource limitations, or other issues. Following the customer mantra of "Faster! Better! Cheaper!" Steve Wrenn offers measurement and process techniques that he has used to deliver projects on time, on budget, and, most importantly, meeting customers needs. By focusing on the development cycle from the outside in, his organization provides business-based metrics dashboards to monitor and adjust the project plan throughout the development project. Find out how their performance dashboard helps the team and the customer stay on course and drive directly to the targeted results. Discover an approach to determine what customers really want and match product development to customer expectations.

Steve Wrenn, Liberty Mutual Insurance Information Systems
Application Performance and Reliability Management - 24x7

Managing system performance and reliability has never been as significantx0151or as challengingx0151as it is now. These days, most organizations have multi-technology, multi-vendor, multi-tier environments. In other words, it’s a world rife with 24-hour, alwaysx0151on complexity. Add to this the need for continual changes to react to shifts in business conditions, technology advances, and mixes of demands and you have a recipe that calls for the highest level of performance and reliability possible. But getting there is next to impossible. However, new concepts emerging from research labs are delivering usable products such as flexible computing, autonomous computing, and self-tuning systems. These possibilities have revolutionary potential for performance management.

  • Examine recommended suites of tools and their limitations
  • Look at the major innovations and trends, such as self-tuning systems
Ross Collard, Collard and Company
Testing Toolkit for J2EE Systems: A Case Study

Taking a test team from a client/server environment to J2EE-based Web technologies and implementing test automation at the same time is a challenge. Introducing an agile test methodology into a traditionally waterfall-oriented organization at the same time is even bigger. In this case study, share Clay Coleman's successes and challenges as he mentored and supported a test group throughout this project. Walk with Clay from the days of early analysis and design; through test strategy development and planning; on to test case design and automation efforts; during all stages of test execution; past system rollout; and, finally, completion of an initial regression test suite. If you think you may go through such an experience, you'll learn some lessons Clay will never forget.

  • Integrate test automation into the construction phase of a development project
Clay Coleman, CapTech Ventures
Beyond GUI: What You Need to Know about Database Testing

Today's complex software systems access heterogeneous data from a variety of back-end databases. The intricate mix of client-server and Web-enabled database applications are extremely difficult to test productively. Testing at the data access layer is the point at which your application
communicates with the database. Tests at this level are vital to improve not only your overall test strategy, but also your product's quality. Mary Sweeney explains what you need to know to test the SQL database engine, stored procedures, and data views. Find out how to design effective automated tests that exercise the complete database layer of your applications. You'll learn about the most common and vexing defects related to SQL databases and the best tools available to support your testing efforts.

Mary Sweeney, Exceed Training
Performance Testing E-Commerce Web Systems

Performance testing of e-commerce Web systems is critical to the effectiveness of Web sites. Michael Hagen describes how Vanguard went through extensive load testing in preparation for the Y2K weekend. Discover how to develop performance requirements, set up a performance testing environment, and execute the actual testing. Gain invaluable insight into what makes a Web system--from browser to mainframe-perform or not perform.

Michael Hagen, The Vanguard Group
Applying Development Best Practices to Automated Testing

Test automation is a specialized form of software development where executable code is produced for the validation and testing process. Many best practices have been identified to allow developers to code more quickly, efficiently, and correctly, but few test automators have adopted these practices. Learn about several of these "best practices"-including code reviews and coding standards-that can be applied to automated test development. Discover how you, as an automated test developer, can capitalize on the benefits provided by these practices.

Andy Tinkham, Spherion Technology Architects
Software Code Inspection for Defect Prevention

Thousands of hours are spent testing, but most software professionals find that traditional testing simply isn't enough to ensure code quality. This presentation gives software professionals a complementary approach: software inspection. Learn how software inspection differs from traditional testing, and gain an understanding of principal inspection techniques.

Jasper Kamperman, Reasoning
Is Quality Negotiable? Experiences of an eXtreme Programming Tester

If you want a higher quality product in an eXtreme Programming (XP) project, you must be prepared to pay a higher price. We make decisions and compromises based on quality versus cost every day. Extreme programming teams are driven to do their best work, but customers have the right to specify and pay for only the level of quality they require. This presentation explores ways to resolve these two potentially conflicting points of view.

Lisa Crispin, BoldTech Systems

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