Why Automate Software Regression Testing?

 

At the core of every digital transformation exercise is a software application, which, in consonance with the hardware, runs the system and achieves the desired objectives. However, the software application needs to be updated periodically to address the challenges of the day such as the advent of new technologies or changing customer preferences, among others. Software regression testing helps to identify and assess if the changes made to the software application have met their objectives and/or the changes have created a new issue. For example, a photo-sharing service decides to introduce video compatibility. However, when the new service/feature is implemented, the photo-sharing service takes a hit.

Regression testing is to find out such unintended change(s) and fix it before the software application is released to the customers. Thus, QA regression testing ensures the software application is updated to meet the market/technical/customer requirements and is free of any issues.

Scenarios to conduct software regression testing exercise

There can be scenarios or situations for the QA specialists to conduct regression testing to bring about stability to the software application. The below-mentioned test cases are some of the scenarios that necessitate the conduct of such testing:

·       Complex integration test cases

·       Functionalities to be frequently used by the users

·       Scenarios showing the working of a software application’s core features

·       Functionalities to have undergone some recent changes

·       Boundary value test cases

·       Samples of successful or failed test cases

Why regression testing in software testing be automated?

When changes are made to a software application prior to its release, regressions (resident glitches in a functionality or feature) can get triggered. These can negatively impact the release schedule of the software application and increase the development cost. However, there is one way to accelerate QA regression testing and meet the delivery turnaround time – automation. In fact, manually looking for the unintended changes in the application can be time-consuming and entails engaging the testers for extended periods of time. And since testing in such cases can be repeatable in nature, automated regression testing can reduce the time and effort of testing. Since regression testing checks the functioning of the existing features of a software application, it is important to have the maximum test coverage courtesy an automated regression testing strategy.

Factors to consider while deciding a regression testing strategy

QA specialists should consider the following factors while contemplating the decision to pursue automation in regression testing.

# Is test automation suitable for the project?

Test automation, including when used in regression testing, is not suitable for every project. For example, short-term and small projects such as developing small mobile apps, do not need automation to test regression as the time to write automated test scripts may exceed the total timeframe of the project. Hence, automation in regression testing should be for projects that are of large or medium scale, comprising several sub-systems such as enterprise applications and multi-user gaming software with many releases.

# When to write the automated test scripts?

It is not possible to write scripts for automated regression testing beforehand for the process depends on the manual test cases that have found bugs in the past consistently. Since such manual test cases are not available at the start, testers should proceed with automation when stable software modules are present.

# Which are the tests to be automated first?

Regression test scripts may be developed based on repeatable test cases wherein bugs were found consistently through manual testing. Such tests cover core functions and exceptions like boundary conditions or negative test cases impacting other functional areas of the application.

# Quantum of regression testing to be automated

For most software applications around 70-90% of manual test cases that have detected bugs consistently can be automated. The rest 30% are the manual cases that have detected bugs inconsistently or showed false outcomes.

Pitfalls to consider while conducting automation of software regression testing

Test automation experts should keep the following pitfalls in mind while devising an automated regression testing strategy:

·       Review and maintain regression test suites to ensure the efficiency, accuracy, and speed of testing

·       Do away with false positives generated by automated regression testing suites by verifying the results with a manual smoke test

·       The complexity of automating any regression testing process should not come in the way of its implementation

Conclusion

Since regression testing is crucial to ascertain the proper functioning of existing or old functionalities when changes are made to the application, it is crucial and should not be overlooked. Through automation, any regression testing company can maximize test coverage using a minimal number of test cases thereby saving time and cost significantly. 

Article Original Source:
https://dev.to/

How is QAOps different from DevOps in Software Testing

 

With quality being considered the prime differentiator for a software product to be accepted in the market, stakeholders (management, developers, testers, and operations) have their task cut out. They not only have to ensure the quality of the product at the time of delivery but also keep it updated even while the product is being used by the end-users. This means pursuing a cycle of continuous improvement and delivery where everyone in the ecosystem needs to be accountable for maintaining the quality of the product. This is where DevOps kicks in with its focus on reducing the time between developing a software product and the business realizing its benefits.

This calls for increased collaboration and communication between teams, namely, development (those who develop and test the product) and IT operations (those who operate the product). In such scheme of things, Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) are the vital pillars. Thus, with DevOps, business enterprises aim at the rapid and consistent delivery of high-quality products. These products, in turn, are expected to offer higher customer satisfaction, thereby guaranteeing the success of the product in the market. And given the popularity of DevOps, a few variants have emerged, with QAOps being one of them. In a QAOps framework, QA (Quality Assurance) is integrated into the CI/CD pipeline instead of existing as a silo-based process divorced from development and operations.

What is QAOps?

Since Quality Assurance (QA) plays a critical role in the development and delivery of a software application, it is logical that QA and Operations collaborate as a business practice. Thus, QAOps focuses on improving the software delivery workflow and making it stable, robust, secure, and faster. In short, it takes the critical aspects of continuous testing in DevOps such as CI and CD, and brings the siloed teams together.

Why QAOps?

Although less popular than DevOps, QAOps is fast emerging as a crucial methodology to pursue in the delivery lifecycle. In fact, in QAOps, the QA team holds a pride of place that a development team holds in the SDLC. The benefits of employing QAOps in DevOps implementation are as follows:

Better quality: With QA being integrated into the delivery workflow, the final product is of higher quality than what it would have been if traditional methodology had been used. As an integral part of the CI/CD workflow where extensive automation is used, faster results are achieved leading to higher customer satisfaction.

Better productivity: With QA getting much more involved in the development lifecycle than before, there are frequent interactions with other teams. This ensures the QA team is valued more in the organization resulting in boosting their confidence and productivity.

Increased skill level: When the QA team works with other teams (development and operations) as part of DevOps software testing, it allows them to expand their horizon and increase their skill level.

Better customer experience: As QAOps incorporates continuous testing, there is a higher degree of quality, stability, and reliability of the product. This ensures superior experiences for the end customers.

What are the differences between DevOps and QAOps?

Although QAOps is a derivative of DevOps, there are a few differences between the two.

Quality at the core: In DevOps testing services, the collaboration is mainly between the development and operations teams broadly ensuring the final product is free of glitches. Here quality or QA is part of the development process and assumes a ‘secondary’ role in the larger scheme of things. In a DevOps testing strategy, the DevOps specialists mainly comprise developers, testers in a secondary role, and members of the operations team. Thus, even though the main thrust is on quality, the QA specialists remain in the background. However, in QAOps, the operations team mainly communicates and collaborates with the QA team to ensure the continuous delivery of products. Here, QA is not subsumed by the development team but remains an equal stakeholder in the entire value chain. The ultimate result of implementing QAOps testing is to continually deliver superior customer experiences.

Cultural shift: The main thrust of DevOps is to ensure the software is deployable at any point in time with new features in place. Here, every stakeholder should act as part of a single team working toward a common goal. DevOps calls for the development and operations team to function as a single unit aimed at delivering business value across the value chain. In QAOps, the main thrust is to ensure the quality of the application in terms of its performance, scalability, functionality, security, and usability, among others. And since the singular focus in QAOps testing is on achieving the quality of the software application along with the speed of continuous delivery, the quality of the application is of the highest standard.

Conclusion

QAOps or Continuous Testing in DevOps seems to be the next logical step in the implementation of DevOps. It ensures the primacy of ‘quality’ in the SDLC and goes a step further than DevOps in ensuring the quality of the application to remain top-notch on a continual basis without compromising the speed of delivery. 

 Article original source:

https://www.softwaretestingmaterial.com/

 

How does Security Testing help in validating the Healthcare Ecosystem

 

The healthcare ecosystem’s dependence on digital technologies to deliver better services to patients and other stakeholders has made it vulnerable to security threats. If statistics are to be believed then healthcare companies across the world are going to cough up a whopping $6 trillion in damages due to security breaches in 2020 (Source: PhoenixNAP.) Modern-day healthcare applications store sensitive patients’ data, which has often led to medical identity theft necessitating the need for rigorous software application security testing. The critical patients’ data may include identity details, payment information, bank account details, history of morbidity, and insurance details, among others. The breach of any of this information can be lethal and devastating, both for the patients and the healthcare facility. 

Why is the healthcare security system important?

Cybercriminals are targeting critical patient information to steal identities using methods or tools like phishing, malware, or ransomware. To pre-empt such attacks a robust application security testing strategy needs to be put in place with the following guidelines.

•  Top-most priority to be given to ensure security for the vital facets

•  The application security testing methodology should remodel the framework for data security, verification, audit logging, and many more

• The other aspects of security testing would include business logic testing, data validation testing, session management testing, DOS testing, Ajax testing, configuration management testing, and OWASP   testing to check for vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and XSS.

What are the types of healthcare security testing?

Security testing covers a range of tests to verify and validate the robustness of the healthcare application and its ability to fend off various security threats.

Penetration testing: In this type of testing, ethical hackers try to gain entry into the healthcare application by exploiting its vulnerabilities. The process performed manually or using automated testing, gathers information about the application in terms of the possible entry points. Thereafter, the hacker attempts to break into the application and verifies its level of system protection.

Application-level testing: Also known as app-level testing, the technique ensures the software application doesn’t execute any malicious actions. Here, specific security-related scenarios are validated by conducting functional testing.

DDoS testing: In this type of interactive application security testing, simulated DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are conducted with real traffic to understand the level of protection offered by the application to thwart DDoS attacks.

Security code review: It mitigates potential security vulnerabilities in the software code early on and prevents costly and time-consuming fixes later. It serves as a final review to check the application’s safety before launch.

How does software application security testing benefit the healthcare domain

Security testing for the healthcare domain gives insight into the robustness of the healthcare application and its ability to face cyber threats. The benefits of employing software application security testing include:

Protecting PHI: This type of testing Identifies and fixes all vulnerabilities associated with Protected Health Information (PHI) and checks if PHI complies with the HIPAA standards.

Data storage validation: It checks if the data storage mechanism, in encrypted or plain-text form, is safe and secure. Besides, it analyses the security solution, encryption methods, and data management techniques and helps to detect any security issues with the application’s database.

Data transmission validation: Software applications transmit data across cloud, mobile devices, and email, which should be properly encrypted to prevent any unauthorized access at any stage.

Identity validation: Detects vulnerable access points that could be exploited by hackers, especially the areas covering identity management. The software application security testing helps to mitigate any breach of patient privacy and strengthen the mechanism for identity management.

Risk assessment before deployment: Once the application with security-related vulnerabilities is deployed, it may cause havoc in the form of security breaches. The application security testing services offer the opportunity to identify and fix all security-related vulnerabilities in the application. This ensures the application is bereft of any security issue and protects the customer from carrying out any type of financial transaction.

Builds trust and confidence: Security testing ensures the application is compliant with the HIPAA standard. This helps to build the trust of your clients in the application and boost its brand equity.

Conclusion

The cybersecurity dimension is expanding at a phenomenal rate coupled with growing incidences of security breaches. To restore customer confidence and prevent such incidences, healthcare security testing should be conducted rigorously.