TEST Magazine - October-November 2014

INNOVATION FOR SOFTWARE QUALITY VOLUME 6: ISSUE 5 OCTOBER 2014 THE EUROPEAN SOFTWARE TESTER

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GEARING UP TO BREAK WORLD RECORDS TESTING A ROLLS-ROYCE JET ENGINE...

INSIDE: TESTA 2014 AND THE FINALISTS ARE...

AUTOMOTIVE TESTING THE REALITY OF CONNECTED CARS

CONTENTS

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

NEWS 6

T he Software Testing Network’s first ever Executive Debate is a huge success

7

id you know: Most mobile apps fail D current security tests?

WORLD NEWS

12.

PROMOTING PINNACLE PERFORMANCE

9

US Navy begins testing software

TESTA 14 10

And the finalists are...

The European Software Testing Awards is pleased to announce its 2014 finalists...

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT 12

Promoting pinnacle performance

Performance engineering is a specialised software development technique that is suited to both the offshore and the agile models. Vijay Balasubramaniam and Hardeep Singh Garewal explain the benefits and challenges of this proactive approach...

COVER STORY 18

Gearing up to break world records

The BLOODHOUND Project is a global engineering adventure, using a 1,000 mph World Land Speed Record attempt to inspire the next generation about science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Sophie-Marie Odum speaks with the project’s system engineer, Joe Holdsworth who has been instrumental in writing software for the Rolls-Royce jet engine and the 1,100mph wheel spin test...

18.

GEARING UP TO BREAK WORLD RECORDS

33.

THE 20 LEADING SOFTWARE TESTING PROVIDERS 2014 GUIDE

AUTOMOTIVE TESTING

20

The reality of connected cars

Jim Smith, Vice President at Ixia, discusses how to leverage Ethernet in the testing of connected cars...

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Continuous assurance in the digital

21

world: A critical differentiator or a discretionary choice?

Siva Ganesan argues that in today’s digital age, assurance must be continuous throughout the software lifecycle…

LAST WORD 31

“Trust but verify!”

Dave Whalen explains why he usually brings up this phrase when discussing the role of test or quality assurance…

THE 20 LEADING SOFTWARE TESTING PROVIDERS 2014 GUIDE

33

TEST Magazine brings you the leading software testing providers for 2014, which we hope will help with future purchasing decisions…

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

PAGE 3

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LEADER

THE BAR CONTINUES TO RISE Hello, and welcome to the October 2014 issue of TEST Magazine.

I

t dawned on me as I was preparing for The European Software Testing Awards’ judging day how far the industry has excelled over the past 12 months.

As I was going through the entries, before sending them to the judges, it was evident that individuals and teams are dealing with the increasing complexities of software development in an innovative way, and they are managing to do more with less as budgets are under more scrutiny. The levels of professional competence was also very admirable.

Judges were equally impressed as many of the entries demonstrated a successful outcome that met the aims and targets originally set, and displayed evidence of a commitment to high quality and standards. One judge in particular commented, “judging was a pleasure. Our profession is in very safe hands and it bodes well for the future.”

Do you want to write for TEST magazine?

Please email sophie. odum@31media. co.uk

It’s clear that the bar within the industry continues to rise, and we look forward to honoring and commending the winners on 18th November at the magnificent Old Billingsgate, London. We are pleased to announce that Hal Cruttenden, one of the top comedians working in the UK today, will host this year’s ceremony, so you can be sure you will be kept entertained throughout the evening. In addition, we will be running a prize draw in aid of the Alzheimer’s Society where you could win an 128GB iPhone 6 Plus.

However, if you would like to make a donation beforehand, please visit www.justgiving. com/31-Media/ Tables are booking up fast, so be sure to book your place at the premier awards ceremony as soon as possible. For table bookings and more information, please visit: www.softwaretestingawards.com.

For the full list of finalists, please turn to page 10.

Good luck to all finalists!

Sophie-Marie Odum Editor

© 2014 31 Media Limited.

All rights reserved.

TEST Magazine is edited, designed, and published by 31 Media Limited. No part of TEST Magazine may be reproduced, transmitted, stored electronically, distributed, or copied, in whole or part without the prior written consent of the publisher. A reprint service is available.

Opinions expressed in this journal do not necessarily reflect those of the editor or TEST Magazine or its publisher, 31 Media Limited.

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OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

EDITOR Sophie-Marie Odum sophie.odum@31media.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)203 056 4599 TO ADVERTISE CONTACT: Sarah Walsh sarah.walsh@31media.co.uk Tel: +44(0)203 668 6945 PRODUCTION & DESIGN Tina Harris tina.harris@31media.co.uk

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PAGE 5

NEWS

THE SOFTWARE TESTING NETWORK’S FIRST EVER EXECUTIVE DEBATE IS A HUGE SUCCESS The first ever Executive Debate session for the Software Testing Network, which took place in September in London, was a huge success.

"Big Data: How ready is your testing team?” saw directors, heads of testing, senior test leads and test managers from various companies, come together to discuss and debate the growing trend of Big Data and how the testing team can effectively process large volumes of data.

Some delegates were advanced in their approach to Big Data, while others were premature and a few hadn’t yet implemented it, but attended the day to discover the most effective methods and practices to do so.

Sophie-Marie Odum, editor of TEST Magazine, said, “The day was a huge

success and it was clear that all attendees found the day to be extremely valuable and gained useful ideas and tips that they could take back to the office and implement.

We concluded that it's clear Big Data is still evolving, so the Software Testing Network looks forward to hosting a follow-up session in the future.”

As a greater number of organisations are adopting Big Data, this full-day session offered delegates a great opportunity to debate and discuss, as well as network with like-minded individuals. The day covered what qualifies as Big Data?; the three types of Big Data – structured, semi-

THE “DEADLY” SHELLSHOCK BUG At the time of print, Apple’s OS X operating system has a security flaw, which could be more serious than the notorious Heartbleed bug, experts have warned. According to reports, hackers could exploit a flaw in software on Unix-based operating systems such as OS X and Linux.

The vulnerable software, which is called Bash, is used to control the command prompt on many Unix computers. By exploiting the bug – known as Shellshock – hackers can take control of a targeted system. The Shellshock bug is seen as worse than Heartbleed because of the capability for overriding a user’s control of a machine.

Heartbleed allowed hackers to spy on computers – but not take control of them.

Professor Mike Jackson, cyber security expert from Birmingham City University, warns that Apple PC users are more at risk to the flaw and that millions of websites could be open to the exploitation of the shellshock bug. He said: “There are two main families of basic computer software in the world; those which are Windows based and those which are Unix based. The Unix

world has just been rocked by the news that a piece of fundamental software is flawed and has opened the gateway to hacking attacks.

Even worse news is the fact that this flaw has existed for a decade!

“Obviously everyone wants to know if they might be vulnerable to attack.

If you are an Apple PC user then the immediate answer is ‘Yes’. Apple’s OS X operating system is Unix based and therefore vulnerable.

“Even if we feel safe with the computers we own, what about those computers we use but don’t own? Every time we access a website we are effectively using someone else’s computer and we open ourselves up to their vulnerabilities. One of the major pieces of web server software called Apache is Unix-based and known to be at risk from this software fault.

“Literally millions of websites could be open to the exploitation of the Shellshock bug. The damage it could cause is as yet unknown. The only safe prediction is that given the number of computers which are at risk that it will be years before this vulnerability is completely eradicated.”

structured and unstructured; how data is a science and therefore data scientists may be needed; why outsourcing may meet this demand; how to achieve a unified process; the importance of quality data in the first place; plus lots more.

The Software Testing Network is an independent executive network specially designed for senior professionals who are responsible for software testing and quality assurance departments, business units, or software testing and/ or QA teams. Becoming a member offers you a wealth of benefits and discounts to exclusive events. For more information, please visit: www.softwaretestingnetwork.com

LPI-ACCREDITED TRAINING IN NORTH WEST ENGLAND UKFast has been named as the only provider of LPI-accredited Linux training in the North of England, thanks to its ongoing work with the Linux Professional Institute UK (LPI UK).

The Manchester-based firm is now able to provide accredited Linux training and exams to schools, colleges and its own team, as an approved Pearson VUE test centre.

UKFast CEO Lawrence Jones said, “With accredited facilities like these, we are focussed on creating the next generation of technical pioneers, as well as continually developing the knowledge of our own technical teams – equipping them with the cutting-edge skills to support our clients.”

Bill Quinn, CEO of LPI UK and Ireland added, “UKFast has recognised the need for having fully-certified Linux engineers to be able to deliver a higher quality of service to its customers (…) UKFast acts as a lighthouse in the IT industry, showing young men and women how Linux works in a real environment, and what the benefits of being a certified employee are.”

For the latest news, visit softwaretestingnews.co.uk and follow us @testmagazine

PAGE 6

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

NEWS FEWER PROMOTIONS FOR TECH WORKERS The IT sector has the leanest management structures in the UK, according to new research from Randstad Technologies.

A survey of 2,000 UK staff revealed that the average IT firm contains just 3.5 layers of management, compared to an average of 4.4 across UK companies. As a result, Randstad Technologies says IT workers are being forced to switch companies to climb the career ladder, as the number of internal incremental promotion opportunities is small compared to the wider UK average.

Mike Beresford, MD of Randstad Technologies, said, “Tech employers have been streamlining their business models since the recession, and one of the key ways of doing this has been to reduce layers of management and increase the spans of control of each strata.

“But creating leaner workforces has had a knockon effect on internal promotion opportunities. As the tiers of middle management are slowly squeezed, the opportunities to

climb the career ladder within an organisation are contracting.

Employees are being forced to move out of their company to progress their career, or face professional stagnation. At the same time, employers face losing ambitious high-flyers to their competition – and could find them hard to replace as the universal skills shortage continues to bite.”

As a result, according to the survey, the IT sector has some of the lowest rates of filling vacancies from within. The research found that 85% of IT roles were filled with external talent, compared to an average of just 42% across all UK industries.

Beresford added, “Skilled tech workers are a highly sought after breed, but most new roles are filled with talent poached from other companies. To climb the career chain and capitalise on demand, it therefore makes most sense for tech workers to look to move outside their company.

Cyber security specialists and project managers are particularly in demand at the moment.”

NATIONAL TRUSTWORTHY SOFTWARE INITIATIVE WMG’s Cyber Security Centre at the University of Warwick is to host a million pound programme designed to enhance the cyber security of many of our everyday technologies and tools by ensuring that the software that underpins them is more trustworthy.

A team in the UK Governmentfunded Trustworthy Software Initiative will work alongside WMG Cyber Security researchers at the University of Warwick over the next two years in a programme to “make software better.”

Professor Tim Watson, the director of WMG’s Cyber Security Centre, said, “Virtually every aspect of our lives is touched by information technology running a diverse range of software; from the way we listen to music, the phones we carry with us at all times, the vehicles we drive, to the computers that support the information economy. The trend to embed software in everyday items is accelerating.

However there are concerns about the quality of the software that underpins all of this, and we have not seen significant improvements.”

Tony Dyhouse, knowledge transfer director at TSI, added, “There is a pressing need to address the quality and robustness of our software – to establish its trustworthiness. This is the mission of the Trustworthy Software Initiative, which is supported and funded through the UK Government’s National Cyber Security Programme (NCSP). We have made a significant start in the UK by documenting, for first time, the overall principles for effective software trustworthiness in PAS 754:2014 Software trustworthiness – Governance and management – Specification.”

“We are looking forward to working closely with colleagues from WMG’s Cyber Security Centre to help make everyone’s expanding use of technology more reliable and secure.”

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

DID YOU KNOW: MOST MOBILE APPS FAIL CURRENT SECURITY TESTS? A new report from researcher Gartner claims that through next year, 75% of mobile apps won’t pass the most foundational of security tests. That means enterprises accommodating a mobile workforce with BYOD policies, in which employees can access sensitive information or carry out normal business activities inadvertently, may be compromising networks and exposing confidential data.

Dionisio Zumerle, a Gartner principal analyst, said, “Enterprises that embrace mobile computing and BYOD strategies are vulnerable to security breaches unless they adopt methods and technologies for mobile application security testing and risk assurance.

“Most enterprises are inexperienced in mobile application security. Even when application security testing is undertaken, it is often done casually by developers who are mostly concerned with the functionality of applications, not their security.”

In addition, testing the mobile applications’ code and graphical user interface doesn’t go far enough, Zumerle said. Enterprises must secure the servers that communicate with mobile clients to access a business’s applications and databases with static application security testing (SAST) and dynamic application security testing (DAST) technologies as well.

“Today, more than 90% of enterprises use third-party commercial applications for their mobile BYOD strategies, and this is where current major application security testing efforts should be applied,” Zumerle added.

“App stores are filled with applications that mostly prove their advertised usefulness. Nevertheless, enterprises and individuals should not use them without paying attention to their security. They should download and use only those applications that have successfully passed security tests conducted by specialised application security testing vendors.”

Gartner forecast that by 2017 most mobile hacking would be concentrated on smartphones and tablets. Mobile security as it stands now won’t keep the breaches at bay. The researcher expects that by 2017 some 75% of mobile security breaches will come from mobile application misconfigurations, such as misusing a personal cloud service together with enterprise data.

PAGE 7

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WORLD NEWS

US NAVY BEGINS TESTING SOFTWARE The US Navy has begun testing the software that eventually will control all of its maritime unmanned air vehicles, and will initially be installed in the unmanned carrier-launched surveillance and strike (UCLASS) vehicle.

US Naval Air Systems Command announced on 10th September that engineers at NAS Patuxent River had installed the latest version of the common control system (CCS) software on a simulator based on the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton control station. The common software will eventually be the baseline for navy UAS, including the Triton and MQ-8 Fire Scout rotary wing UAS. CCS is the control and connectivity leg of the three-part UCLASS programme.

The other two legs are the UCLASS air vehicle and its physical control station aboard a carrier. Integration and testing of all three systems will be done at Pax River’s laboratory.

The navy already has demonstrated

the feasibility of a stealthy, tailless carrier-based UAS with the Northrop Grumman X-47B unmanned combat air systems demonstrator (UCAS-D) programme. That aircraft in August successfully launched from the USS Theodore Roosevelt, flew in formation with a Boeing F/A-18D Hornet and returned to the ship’s deck.

“One of the premises that started CCS was not rebuilding the software that we needed for every UAS every time,” CCS team lead, Jeff Davis says in a statement. “We focused on using existing products that we have within the Navy inventory to provide that first baseline going forward for the next UAS, in this case UCLASS. As a result, this allows development investment to focus on the future — the new capabilities that you can bring to the fleet.”

The new software uses the Navy’s interoperability profile standards, which allows control stations to talk to and share data with multiple UAS, he says. Software from Triton and

SOFTWARE TESTING MARKET INDIA 2014 RESEARCH REPORT India has become the world’s preferred outsourcing destination for software testing services, according to the new report, Software Testing Market in India 2014.

Although other countries such as China and the Philippines are also providing services at a lower cost, India remains the preferred country of choice for most of the US and UK based companies, according to the report.

The United States is the key market for the big Indian software testing vendors, followed by Europe and the Middle East.

The demand for software testing services is on the rise following the rapid evolution of vendor capabilities over

the past two decades.

Recent government initiatives undertaken within the IT and ITeS (Information Technology Enabled Service) sectors also act as a major driving force behind the growth of the software testing industry in India.

However, the industry also experiences some pain points. India still lacks a focus on educational and training of software testing. An agile software development process that involves poor testing may lead to poor coding thereby escalating the risk of errors. Moreover, rising competition from other low cost nations also poses a threat to India’s dominance in the testing industry.

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

Fire Scout is being used to arrive at the baseline intended to eventually control all three and allow them to share information.

“This iteration forms the baseline for all future UCLASS control software,” said Cmdr Wade Harris, control system and connectivity lead for UCLASS. “These early lab tests will help inform us as we move forward with development and eventually test with the air vehicle.”

LAWSUIT FOR STEALING PHONETESTING ROBOT TECHNOLOGY According to reports, in a Seattle federal court on September 2nd, T-Mobile filed a lawsuit claiming that Huawei sent employees in to its Bellevue lab to photograph its phone-testing robot and smuggled components back to its own HQ in order to improve its own robot technology.

Software, specifications and a host of other secrets were allegedly taken after Huawei realised how efficient and reliable “Tappy” (the robot) was at its duties. Tappy was designed to test phones by touching phones in the same way a human would, except more frequently and in a shorter space of time. This testing has enabled T-Mobile to improve its diagnostic data and reduce the cost of testing devices, as well as helping the company retrieve more reliable handsets from suppliers.

The lawsuit claims Huawei is now: “using T-Mobile’s stolen robot technology to test nonT-Mobile handsets and improve return rates for handsets developed and sold to other carriers.”

Huawei has responded to the claims acknowledging the actions of two company employees, but rejects some of the broader claims made in the suit.

PAGE 9

TESTA 2014

THE EUROPEAN SOFTWARE TESTING AWARDS

2 0 1 4

RECOGNISING AND CELEBRATING TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE

AND THE FINALISTS ARE… The European Software Testing Awards announces its 2014 finalists…

After months of anticipation, The European Software Testing Awards is delighted to announce the finalists.

After sifting through numerous entries and hours of deliberation, the judges have chosen their finalists and winners for each category, which will be announced on the 18th November at a black-tie ceremony in Old Billingsgate, London.

Sophie-Marie Odum, Chair of the judging panel, said, “The judges had a tough choice in choosing their winner for each category, and in some categories it was so close, illustrating the high calibre within the software testing industry. Congratulations to all the finalists for your

outstanding efforts and making it through to the final round, we look forward to announcing the winners in November.”

Just like last year, but bigger, The European Software Testing Awards promises to be a great event. It provides a wonderful way to thank your team, whilst celebrating all that is best in a profession that rarely gets the full credit it deserves. Come and celebrate with peers, like-minded individuals and key opinion leaders who are keen to make a difference in the industry, as well as see what the industry has to offer.

Here is the full list of 2014 finalists: The Cigniti Technologies Best Agile Project • Mindfire Solutions • EPAM Systems • Black Pepper Software • AkBank • Leading Pharma Client in partnership with Cognizant Technologies The Neotys Best Mobile Project • Centrica in partnership with Cognizant • Virgin Media in Partnership with Accenture • Lloyds Banking Group in partnership with Cognizant Technologies • Waitrose in partnership with Cognizant Technologies • Proxama

Best Test Automation Project • Original Software • Infuse IT • BD Medication Workflow Solutions (Becton Dickinson Austria GmbH) • TIBCO Jaspersoft • HCL Technologies Ltd • Lloyds Banking Group in partnership with Cognizant Technologies Solutions The Sogeti Green Testing Team of the Year • Sage UK • Tech Mahindra • NAGE in partnership with Cognizant Technologies

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TESTA 2014 Graduate Tester of the Year • Paul Foy, Sogeti UK • Kieran Hunter, NAGE in partnership with Cognizant Technologies • Karthik Kannan, TCS • Stacey Ballance, Wincor Nixdorf • Prabhdeep Bhopal, Sopra

The Get Zephyr Testing Team of the Year • HISCOX in partnership with Cognizant Technologies • Mastek • AVEA and Ericsson • Amdocs with Mtel Bulgaria • Shop Direct • Brickendon Consulting

Testing Manager of the Year • David Firth, Sogeti UK • Thomas Bauer, Amdocs • Pankaj Kumar, Tech Mahindra • Alan Cripps, Lloyds Banking Group • Abhishek Bhol, Barclays in partnership with Cognizant Technologies

Testing Management Team of the Year • Citibank, Maveric Systems, Wipro (joint submission) • SEGA Europe QA • The IFDS Testing Management Team • Zurich Insurance in partnership with Cognizant Technologies • Prudential

Testing Innovator of the Year • Daryl Searle, Sogeti UK • Infuse IT • Neal Hardwick, Tech Mahindra

Test Champion of the Year • Ismail Intikam, AK Bank • Yogesh Rane, Mastek • Samir Sinha, Tech Mahindra • Loganathan Jayabalan, Cognizant Technologies

Best Overall Testing Project – Public Sector • Cigniti Technologies • Home Office Technology – Test Design & Consultancy Services Best Overall Testing Project – Finance Sector • Brickendon Consulting • Xbosoft • Barclays • Credit Suisse in partnership with Cognizant Technologies • Infosys Limited • IFDS Best Overall Testing Project – Retail Sector • John Lewis in partnership with Cognizant Technologies • Wincor Nixdorf • Magentys • Accenture with Connected World Services • EPAM Systems Best Overall Testing Project – Gaming Sector • King • Sogeti UK • Aditi Technologies • SEGA Europe QA Best Use of Tools • Allianz Insurance • ACI Worldwide • Lloyds Banking Group in partnership with Cognizant Technologies • HISCOX in partnership with Cognizant Technologies • William Hill in partnership with TestPlant

The Maveric Systems Best Overall Project • Barclays • Aditi Technologies • Leading Global Reinsurer in partnership with Cognizant Technology Solutions • British Gas • HISCOX in partnership with Cognizant Technologies Best Overall Use of Technology • Allen & Overy (A&O) • Tech Mahindra • Know IT • AVEA and Ericsson • TCS The Sage Most Innovative Project • King • Philips in partnership with Tech Mahindra • Allianz Insurance • Proxama • British Gas Leading Vendor • TCS • Cognizant Technology Solutions with Credit Suisse • Neotys

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PAGE 11

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT VIJAY BALASUBRAMANIAM GLOBAL HEAD OF TESTING PRACTICE ITC INFOTECH

HARDEEP GAREWAL PRESIDENT, EMEA OPERATIONS ITC INFOTECH

PROMOTING PINNACLE PERFORMANCE Performance engineering is a specialised software development technique that is suited to both the offshore and the agile models. Vijay Balasubramaniam, global head of testing practice, and Hardeep Singh Garewal, President, EMEA operations at ITC Infotech, explain the benefits and challenges of this proactive approach…

P

erformance engineering is a proactive approach to software development that ensures system performance from the earliest development stages, lying as it does somewhere between the architecting and coding phases of the application lifecycle. In the past, IT systems used to be architected, coded and built, and then performance testing would commence after system integration testing. But performance engineering can ensure that applications are scalable and perform as they should with the right response times under a range of user loads from an early stage.

PAGE 12

PERFORMANCE ENGINEERING IS A PROACTIVE METHODOLOGY THAT CAN HELP TO UNDERPIN A “SHIFT-LEFT” APPROACH AND ENSURE THAT QUALITY IS BEING BUILT IN MUCH EARLIER IN THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS. THE PROCESS IS A VERY GOOD FIT WITH AGILE BECAUSE IT PLAYS A CENTRAL ROLE IN DELIVERING AN APPLICATION IN Unlike performance SPRINTS testing, performance engineering is not a process that occurs at the end of the development lifecycle. It comes at the stage when the architecture is being designed and the coding has begun. It actually starts with the workload modelling and continues into the application code profiling stage where the code is built. Under performance engineering the code is profiled with a number of tools to get some idea about where the weakest links might be in terms of its scalability. These

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

THERE ARE CHALLENGES WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF offering huge advantages, the service issues can then be fixed during the PERFORMANCE ENGINEERING organisation also benefits through coding stage, saving effort, money ABOVE AND BEYOND THE being able to charge a premium and time.

RECRUITING OR TRAINING rate for these highly specialised and OF SPECIALISTS WITH THE DEEP valuable skills.

AGILE MODELS KNOWLEDGE AND THE BLEND As stated above, performance OF TESTER AND DEVELOPER INTRODUCING engineering is a proactive SKILLS REQUIRED HOWEVER. IT PERFORMANCE ENGINEERING methodology that can help to SERVICE ORGANISATIONS underpin a “shift-left” approach and There are challenges with the NEED TO HAVE ACCESS ensure that quality is being built in introduction of performance engineering much earlier in the development process.

TO THE CODE above and beyond the recruiting or training The process is a very good fit with agile because it plays a central role in delivering an application in sprints. Agile is all about ensuring that the end-user gets usable software in every iteration, so the ability to bring performance engineering into the design stage fits very well with its iterative design approach.

The real beauty of performance engineering though is that, unlike the traditional agile approach, it does not require collocation. Once a user story is fixed and highlighted as something that needs to be delivered in a particular sprint, performance engineering is used for code profiling which does not strictly require knowledge of the business logic or the reason for the functionality.

In agile, the hardening sprint is a final process that takes place every few iterations to check all the non-functional aspects of the software, like security, performance, and so on. Performance engineering can take place at the same time, making the process work very well as an offshore or Testing Centre of Excellence (TCoE) approach without impacting the principles of agile.

MANY DIFFERENT BENEFITS Performance engineering offers potentially vast benefits to the customer because it builds quality into applications earlier in the development process, identifying nonfunctional issues with the application that are normally found late in the development process.

The total cost of ownership is reduced hugely and you don’t get the situation where the application is built and then performance issues are identified which need costly and time consuming re-engineering at a late stage. This is because performance engineering has been woven into the development process from the very beginning. And while this is clearly good news for the customer, potentially

PAGE 14

of specialists with the deep knowledge and the blend of tester and developer skills required however. IT service organisations need to have access to the code; they need to be able to assess the internal workings of the application. If the application is strictly black box, then code profiling isn’t an option. You can’t, for example, look at the code and say how it will scale when the number of concurrent users increases, or how it will behave on different platforms and hardware options.

The kinds of customers that best suit this service offering are companies whose IT offerings are heavily used in a concurrent manner, perhaps on multiple devices. If you have a public-facing system that the whole world could potentially log on to from a range of apps, devices and operating systems, then performance becomes critical to business profitability.

Looking forward, performance engineering will inevitably become more and more critical in the SDLC. The growing number and complexity of devices, platforms and operating systems and the increasing reliance on mobile technologies and applications will ensure that performance will become ever more critical. Every system will need to be optimised to the highest possible extent from a performance engineering perspective to even stand a chance to survive in this competitive market and deliver value.

Agile is the major trend in software development and it needs seamless teams with an end to the traditional development silos if it is to deliver true value. With performance engineering offshored, developers can take advantage of the cost benefits of outsourcing without sacrificing the concept of the seamless team. All that is required is the right technical competencies and capabilities, which are now abundant offshore.

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

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BOOK YOUR PLACE TODAY www.softwaretestingawards.com

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SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT JOHN COOKE DIRECTOR, BLACK PEPPER SOFTWARE

AGILE MYTHS VS REALITY John Cooke, director at Black Pepper Software, looks at the differences between traditional and agile software development, as well as how agile can help improve the decision-making process, reduce risks, deliver greater business value quickly and increase return on investment‌

A

gile software development offers a flexible framework to help teams maintain a clear focus on the rapid delivery of business value.

In the current working environment, the pace of change has accelerated and businesses need to be able to react to this. More traditional software development methods do not support change effectively and this is where agile is well placed.

Agile software development allows organisations to prioritise what is important, respond to change and deliver results and business value early. As a result, they can significantly reduce the overall risk associated with software development.

Agile ultimately returns the control to the business through customer focus and a process of continuous planning

and feedback. Agile also allows organisations to keep a close eye on costs and adapt quickly to change.

AGILE VS WATERFALL All development goes through certain stages: conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, implementation, and maintenance. The difference between agile and waterfall development is how they approach these various stages.

Waterfall is a sequential design process, where the design and development requirements for a system are mapped out up front. By having all the requirements beforehand everyone knows exactly what they are aiming to achieve.

This means the client knows what to expect and has an idea of the time frame, size and cost of the project.

THE MINDSET OF AN AGILE DEVELOPMENT TEAM IS TO PLAN FOR AND EMBRACE CHANGE. IT IS THIS RESPONSIVENESS AND FLEXIBILITY THAT GIVES AGILE THE EDGE IN THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

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SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

The downside to this traditional approach is that the client may not get as many opportunities to feedback as they would with agile development, or have the room to change elements of the design/development. Because the process is sequential, once a stage of development has been completed you can’t easily go back to a previous stage to make changes. This is fairly risky for a business because if the initial requirements of the project change in any way, the project is almost guaranteed to fail. In turn, businesses would then incur additional costs to rectifying any issues and the project would take longer than predicted.

Agile methodology follows an incremental approach to development and has a strong focus on the delivery of what the client needs rather than what they think they want. Developers start off with a simple project design instead of a large document, and work on small modules.

As short iterations of work on the project are done (usually in weekly or fortnightly cycles) priorities of the project are reviewed, evaluated and tested. At each stage, an increasingly complete product is provided to the client, which they are able to use and provide feedback on.

The mindset of an agile development team is to plan for and embrace change. It is this responsiveness and flexibility that gives agile the edge in the business environment. Businesses are constantly changing and may have to react to external changes and agile can accommodate this. Testing is done as the product is developed, ensuring that any bugs are found early on in the process and the product can be released much more quickly. Early feedback also means that developers can create a more specific product – helping to meet the client’s needs more effectively.

Implementing agile principles in an organisation can mean significant changes in the way teams work and the introduction of new practices. Adopting a hybrid model in which agile practices, such as continuous automated testing or short iterations, are introduced within a waterfall development process can help ease this transition. Such hybrid methodologies are sometimes referred to as Wagile development.

Like all software development, if performed poorly Wagile development can be disastrous. However, the introduction of agile practices requires something of a leap of faith, and Wagile can be used to bridge the gap and realise real benefits sooner.

Each of these methodologies have their pros and cons, however, evidence shows that with the pace of change increasing, many more companies are choosing to adopt an agile software development approach.

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

ADOPTING A HYBRID MODEL IN WHICH AGILE PRACTICES, SUCH AS CONTINUOUS AUTOMATED TESTING OR SHORT ITERATIONS, ARE INTRODUCED WITHIN A WATERFALL DEVELOPMENT PROCESS CAN HELP EASE THIS TRANSITION. SUCH HYBRID METHODOLOGIES ARE SOMETIMES REFERRED FANTASY AND TO AS WAGILE FACT DEVELOPMENT Agile is a silver bullet •

There is nothing to say that an agile project will succeed. Success very much depends on those driving the project. However, because agile allows you to make changes, there is plenty of opportunity to review and refocus the project if needed. This helps to avoid any additional time and costs.

• Agile is not scalable Generally speaking, software development itself has scaling issues. The larger the project’s scope, the greater the possibility for failure; the greater the number of people involved in a project, the greater the communication risk and complexity. Agile development breaks one project down into smaller projects with shorter delivery time frames and smaller teams so the room for error is reduced and the activity is broken into small, manageable pieces.

This helps businesses keep control over a project and manage a project more effectively.

• Agile means no planning This really relates to a lack of understanding of an agile planning approach. Most agile teams spend as much, if not more time planning projects, however the planning is not all upfront much of this is spread across the lifetime of the project. Agile’s focus on delivering early and often means that planning is focused on tangible outcomes.

It allows teams to respond much more easily to changes in requirements, business demands or people issues. This gives businesses greater flexibility.

• Agile means no documentation A more accurate way of looking at this is that agile doesn’t do documentation for documentation’s sake.

Documentation, as with any other deliverable on a project, gets estimated and prioritised like any other task.

Keeping documentation to a minimum ensures that time isn’t wasted on reams of unused plans and reports.

Whilst both approaches to software development are still in use today, the last five years has seen agile development quickly become the preferred approach for many of the world’s leading technology companies.

Many industry leaders have incorporated and embraced agile development, and now both big and small companies are increasingly looking to agile solutions for their businesses and thriving as a result.

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COVER STORY JOE HOLDSWORTH SYSTEM ENGINEER BLOODHOUND PROJECT

GEARING UP TO BREAK WORLD RECORDS The BLOODHOUND Project is a global engineering adventure, using a 1,000 mph World Land Speed Record attempt to inspire the next generation about science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Sophie-Marie Odum speaks with the project’s system engineer, Joe Holdsworth who has been instrumental in writing software for the Rolls-Royce jet engine and the 1,100mph wheel spin test…

A

SuperSonic Car, designed to go faster than the speed of sound, is currently undergoing tests before it hits the track in 2015 and 2016, in Hakskeen Pan (South Africa), to set a new World Land Speed Record of 1,000mph.

BLOODHOUND SSC is a jet- and rocket-powered car designed to go at 1,000 mph (just over 1,600 kph). It has a slender body, approximately 14m in length, with two front wheels within the body, and two rear wheels mounted externally within wheel fairings. Weighing over 7.5 tonnes, the engines produce more than 135,000 thrust horsepower – more than six times the power of all the Formula 1 cars on a starting grid put together.

The car is a mix of car, space and aircraft technology, with the front half being a carbon fibre monocoque like a racing car and the back half being a metallic framework and panels like an aircraft. As well as setting new records, the project also aims to inspire the next generation about science, technology, engineering and mathematics; and share an iconic research and development programme with a global audience.

System engineer, Joe Holdsworth at the BLOODHOUND Project explained, “The BLOODHOUND Project was launched publicly in October 2008. A lot of the design work was completed in those first four years such as the shape, the dynamics and the actual sizing of the vehicle.

“The BLOODHOUND Project is THE a land speed world record BLOODHOUND attempt – the aim is to PROJECT IS A LAND create a unique, high SPEED WORLD RECORD technology project ATTEMPT – THE AIM IS TO focused around the car, and share the CREATE A UNIQUE, HIGH engineering venture TECHNOLOGY PROJECT with a global audience.

FOCUSED AROUND THE Hopefully this will inspire CAR, AND SHARE THE the next generation ENGINEERING VENTURE for bringing science, technology, engineering WITH A GLOBAL AUDIENCE

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and maths in to life, whilst using it as something real and accessible.”

TESTING THE PROJECT The BLOODHOUND SSC is made up of a rocket engine, a jet engine and a petrol engine (800 horsepower) and the testing of those components took place separately.

The testing of some of the rocket systems took place in Newquay, Cornwall; while the testing of the jet systems took place at the Rolls-Royce site in Filton; When it comes to testing the car once all the systems are together, the team is looking to test this back at Newquay on the runway.

“An EJ200 Eurofighter jet engine is used,” explained Joe. “We needed to replace the systems that are in the Eurofighter, which are responsible for allowing the pilot to control the jet engine. We had to replicate those systems.

“We are obviously putting a jet engine in a car so not everything that exists in an aircraft exists in a car so we either have to trick it into thinking that it's installed in an aircraft, or supply the sensors that it is expecting.

“In terms of testing the jet engine, we took it to Rolls-Royce and ran it through a simulated Hakskeen Pan run to check that all the functionality it has in the Eurofighter, it has in the car. So we did several tests and compared the data and results with Rolls-Royce results in terms of control of the engine.”

Going on to explain what the tests consisted of, Joe

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COVER STORY

continued, “Initially the first test was to see if we could speak to the engine. We checked that all the data coming back and forth from the engine matched what their systems are seeing.

“Then we tested for a jet start, but we didn’t use fuel so it just spun the engine and just fired the igniters. Then we went for a jet engine start, which spins up the engine as far as the igniters and supplies fuel. And the last test was the simulated run in the desert, in terms of copying the run profile. We simulated what we expect Andy Green (driver) to do with the throttle on the actual jet on the test load.

“It’s not just the control systems that need testing, we also need to test the computer models of the car, including the stress and Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) ones.

It is important to check that the computer simulations that have been performed are representative of reality.

“Rolls Royce and Bloodhound have recently tested the cars wheels, these will see enormous stresses, 50,000g at the rim. The test required highly sensitive displacement and temperature sensors to measure how much the solid Aluminium Alloy wheel stretches when subjected to the same speed they will see on the car (approximately 10,500 RPM). Test results were good and we almost saw an exact match to expected displacements, which was a superb result as now we can be confident in the wheel design and get the rest of the wheels manufactured.”

can speak to the engine and there are no errors in the communication, meaning you have full control of the engine, so everything a pilot can do in Eurofighter, you can do in the car. So, in terms of shutting the engine down, the systems are the same.

“The one challenge is that in the aircraft, if you somehow lose communication to the jet engine, it defaults in the aircraft at a certain thrust level to keep you airborne. In the event we lose communication with the engine, we want the engine to shut down for obvious reasons.

“The way we got round that was that in the worst case scenario, you just cut off the fuel for the engine and that kills it. So there is a manual cut-off, there is a computer cut-off and there is an external cut-off for the fuel. So that’s the major difference in terms of safety.

“In terms of security, the car translates some of the data and sends it over the car’s internal network but it’s not directly exposed. The data that we have on the engine, we keep in a secure place.”

The BLOODHOUND Project has gained lots of attention from the media and public alike, which is great news for the team. Joe said, “We attend lots of shows and there is always lots of interest from the public. We also made a BLOODHOUND TV film of the jet engine test that receives thousands of views on YouTube.”

SAFETY AND SECURITY

It’s an interesting time for the BLOODHOUND team as they gear up to 2015 when they are hoping to run the car, followed by attempting a world record attempt in 2016.

For a car that can travel up to 1,000mph safety is very important, equally, with news reports that cars are now susceptible to hackers, security is just as crucial.

“I am surprised about how many people know about the project, especially those outside engineering, and, as we get closer to completing, I’m sure that this will only increase,” added Joe.

“Our safety check tests the fact that you

IT’S NOT JUST THE CONTROL SYSTEMS THAT NEED TESTING, WE ALSO NEED TO TEST THE COMPUTER MODELS OF THE CAR, INCLUDING THE STRESS AND COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMIC (CFD) ONES. IT IS IMPORTANT TO CHECK THAT THE COMPUTER SIMULATIONS THAT HAVE BEEN PERFORMED ARE REPRESENTATIVE OF REALITY

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AUTOMOTIVE TESTING JIM SMITH VICE PRESIDENT IXIA

THE REALITY OF CONNECTED CARS Jim Smith, Vice President at Ixia, discusses how to leverage Ethernet in the testing of connected cars…

I

ntegrated computer systems are leading the way in helping automakers create marketable differentiation, and meet strict conformance and auto safety standards. Over time, automotive technology has changed from a simple, internal, combustion engine with wheels to an evolving combination of integrated computer systems — advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), adaptive cruise control, hybrid engines, Internet access, and bluetooth connection.

links vehicles and mobile devices to each other and to the transportation infrastructure, the equipment and applications must meet minimum conformance requirements, perform to common technical standards, and interoperate with one another. Testing the automotive Ethernet network or module/component with a solution that reproduces anything less than a realistic environment introduces risk, slower product development and deployment, and lower network service quality.

All of these growing automotive applications are driving up the bandwidth requirements. In response, automotive manufacturers are adding more and more computerbased systems, applications, and connections. Due to this complex cabling, the wiring harness is the third highest cost component in a car (behind the engine and chassis). The wiring harness is also the third heaviest component. Any technology that reduces this weight directly contributes to fuel economy, which is key for nearly all drivers.

With drivers and passengers increasingly using personal devices in their vehicles, automakers must ensure their new designs can function as another node on the network. Testing must verify connectivity within the vehicle to both onboard systems and sensors and user devices — and beyond the vehicle, to mobile data services. These include checking Wi-Fi, 3G, and LTE to ensure security in application-aware networks.

Automakers are looking to standard Ethernet technologies to provide a single, flexible, scalable, more cost-effective in-vehicle networking backbone. To ensure optimal design, functionality, performance, safety, security, and interoperability of these connected cars, automakers and their suppliers need comprehensive test solutions to validate devices, systems, applications, and even the entire in-vehicle network.

AUTOMOTIVE APPLICATIONS TESTING

The cost of these electronics – and wiring harness to support them in terms of cabling, network interfaces, and onboard computing power – is growing. Ethernet deployment can, and will, reduce these costs. Recent technology developments make Ethernet viable for use in cars.

AUTOMOTIVE ETHERNET REQUIRES ECOSYSTEM TESTING: All of these integrated systems (via Ethernet) need to be validated thoroughly before the product hits the market.

The role of testing is to verify proper functionality at each stage of system evolution. Effective testing means conducting development, integration, verification, conformance, and performance checks as efficiently and accurately as possible.

Automotive manufacturers have relied on custom and very complex solutions to perform testing as they develop and integrate new technologies. The use of an Ethernet backbone now requires open, standard solutions that deliver testing across the whole automotive ecosystem.

To be comprehensive, Ethernet test solutions should include conformance, wireless, application, and security validation.

AUTOMOTIVE CONFORMANCE TESTING To implement connected vehicle technology that

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AUTOMOTIVE WIRELESS TESTING

The connected car user will expect multimedia applications to perform optimally over any device and network. Revenues, customer loyalty, and brand reputation all depend on it. To meet tomorrow’s stringent automotive performance requirements, automakers and service providers need a means of measuring how applications and services will perform under real-world conditions, attacks, and impairments for the connected car.

AUTOMOTIVE SECURITY TESTING As the complexity of automotive electronics grows to meet user demands for more services, so does the need to ensure a vehicle’s systems are fully functional and secure. But adopting more information and communications technologies in vehicles also creates new test challenges around network and information security.

Additional testing is required for wireless connectivity, security and cyber attack mitigation, and other safetycritical systems. Any system designed to protect the invehicle network from attack should be tested to validate the ability to detect and prevent all of the thousands of known attacks and vulnerabilities.

Connected cars are no longer an idea of the future – they are a part of today’s, and tomorrow’s, reality. However, with the safety and convenience benefits of this reality, comes the challenge of ensuring these new and complex technological systems work together. Automotive Ethernet testing is increasingly becoming an integral part of the automakers process, and true testing includes comprehensive application, conformance, security and wireless testing.

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP SIVA GANESAN VICE PRESIDENT AND GLOBAL HEAD, ASSURANCE SERVICES, TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES (TCS)

CONTINUOUS ASSURANCE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD: A CRITICAL DIFFERENTIATOR OR A DISCRETIONARY CHOICE? Siva Ganesan, Vice President and Global Head, Assurance Services, Tata Consultancy Services, argues that in today’s digital age where new products and services are continuously pushed out to meet an insatiable consumer appetite, assurance must be continuous throughout the software lifecycle. Only then can you be sure that the right governance, methods and tools are in place to deliver optimum quality with the speed required in a digital age…

R

emember the days when you only checked your emails at your desktop PC and leaving the office meant finishing work for the day; when books were the most easily accessible source of information and the phone was the best way to connect with people? Those days are long gone, and you’d be right in thinking that it’s old news that they are. Sometimes, however, business processes are slow to catch up with new trends.

These days, customers demand everything, anywhere, anytime and on all devices. The old assurance methods of testing at the end of a lengthy development cycle are no longer relevant in today’s age of speed and continuous connectivity.

Consumers don’t like to wait anymore and so businesses no longer have the luxury of long development cycles behind closed doors. They are continuously releasing new products and services, and need to continuously assure

WE LIVE IN A DIGITALLY DISRUPTIVE MARKET PLACE, WHERE BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY LIVE TOGETHER IN A SEAMLESS PARTNERSHIP, DRIVEN BY FIVE FORCES

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP the error-free release of those products and services into the market to achieve not only exceptional quality, but also faster speed-to-market.

customers, it means no upfront investment in servers or software licensing, and for suppliers, costs are low compared to traditional hosting.

THE FIVE FORCES

The fact that cloud offerings are typically paid for by subscription makes them economical and moves capex to opex.

We live in a digitally disruptive market place, where business and technology live together in a seamless partnership, driven by five forces: • Social • Mobile • Cloud • Big Data • Analytics Whatever company, industry or market you are in, digital disruption will transform the way you do business, if it hasn’t already. Previously thought to be a threat to easily disrupted businesses such as newspapers and music, new digital platforms are giving organisations access to tools, which can transform the way they do business.

This has allowed them to introduce new ideas, test them efficiently and launch them, at speed. These days, it’s all about opportunity, not threat, and it’s all driven by us, the customers. Our appetite for new technology is insatiable.

Let us understand this better by looking at the five forces in more detail: • Social Social media is largely responsible for a shift in the balance of power from businesses to consumers.

It has also created a powerful, two-way constant communication between consumers and businesses.

As a tool, it has tremendous potential for both business-tobusiness and business-to-consumer engagement, building loyalty and sharing or crowdsourcing solutions among partners and customers in the ecosystem.

• Mobile Enabled by mobile communications, the anywhere, anytime imperative is pervading and transforming business. Productivity increases as workers access corporate resources from mobile devices. Business processes can be rethought, informed by mobility (dynamic rerouting of service calls for example).

Mobile apps will ultimately be the face of customer engagement. The rapid adoption, and the range, of connected devices are often referred to as The Internet of Things.

• Cloud Cloud computing offers new scalability and economy, and promotes the rise of on-demand services and applications such as SaaS (Software as a Service). For

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• Big Data Companies, customers, partners and machines are all generating more data than ever before – structured, unstructured and semi-structured. Twitter streams, social media data and more are unstructured data that do not fit into neat categories, but if assimilated, can become more valuable than structured data. The rapid expansion of Big Data would result in more data about customers in more places than ever before.

• Analytics The ability to quickly visualise data using emerging data discovery tools that can be used effectively by everyone, not just data scientists, is critical to helping businesses take advantage of the growing footprint of digital information.

The ability to quickly develop, share and interact with analytics is a key capability for all business users. Where analytics typically explored structured data to provide past performance insights, Big Data analytics is able to explore unstructured data to provide predictive insights.

CARING FOR YOUR CONSUMERS To adapt to this digital age, and to survive, companies have had to rethink how they serve their end consumer.

They have needed to transform the way IT is delivered in order to implement digital strategies that run across all business units.

They need to continuously connect with their consumers, otherwise the consumer will switch and leave them behind. Systems and processes must be built with the flexibility to change constantly and assurance must be agile and flexible enough to operate within agile development principles and act as the guardian of consumer experience, by providing continuous assurance.

Think for a moment of the water or electricity industries.

They don’t want the tap to run dry or the power to be cut.

Both are part of the fabric of our daily lives and they have to maintain a constant vigil to ensure a continuous supply of clean, pure water and a flow of electricity calibrated to the right frequency and voltage.

In this digital age where The Internet of Things is now a fabric of our daily lives, we need to apply the utilities’ philosophy to assurance services and maintain a constant vigil on the frequent release of new products and services.

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP I mentioned in an earlier article (TEST Magazine Vol. 6, Issue 3, June 2014) the importance of adopting lean business techniques in the software development cycle, a practice embraced by agile development, which propagates high frequency, low volume change. In order to continuously connect with the customer, continuously release new products and services to market and continuously assure those releases, companies need to be continuously improving their practices to achieve efficiency, quality and speed. That is the essence of lean business practises embraced by continuous assurance.

That means assurance starts with the requirements; validating and verifying requirements up front so that the right direction is set from the beginning, reducing the amount of rework further down the line. It means moving on into design and continuously testing for all the changes that are happening, applying a “right-first-time” mentality in order to reduce the effort, cost and time of getting a product or service to market.

It means doing a lot of regression automation so that any changes done are repetitively tested to make sure they don’t destabilise the system. Service virtualisation can be employed for software aspects that aren’t ready as yet. We should be aiming for 30-50% automation and instrumentation, moving beyond automation in test execution and implementing it across the entire software lifecycle.

Applying these principles will result in: • Up to 40% reduction in test cycle time • Up to 30% reduction in cost and effort of testing • Improved time-to-market These outcomes are essential if we are to provide continuous assurance and be the guardian of consumer experience.

There is another key role we see for assurance in order to maintain this constant vigil on quality and continuous service to the customer: that of the glue that binds

together app development, development operations, production support and assurance.

ADDRESSING ASSURANCE Assurance needs to be the integration layer that helps all the cogs work together in unison. There needs to be real-time communication between the functions so that there is a quick fix before an issue escalates. Think of an IT command centre: the single biggest issue in software development is often the lack of methods and governance around finding and fixing defects and bugs and managing the whole picture of quality. In fact, too often we are lost in the detail of bugs rather than orchestrating the big picture of quality.

To manage the big picture, and to fulfil the role of guardian of consumer experience requires three assurance components: • People: United from different teams to provide end consumer satisfaction • Tools: Which track and trend defect rates and change volatility. Alerts should be displayed on a command centre platform for all to see • Governance and process: Once an alert is seen and tracked, triage should be applied so that the correct function or person can proactively fix it We live in a continuously changing world where digital disruption brings speed, opportunities and continuous connection with our consumers. In order to deliver a product or service that delights those consumers, we need to maintain a constant vigil and continuously assure that what we produce meets the consumer needs, or ideally, exceeds it. Continuous assurance isn’t just about preventing or proactively fixing bugs and defects, it’s about customer centricity and agility. It’s about keeping the digital taps on.

Continuous bugs and their endless tales...

As the bugs gathered by the DevOpsTest poolside, they started discussing how dev, ops and test had neglected the basics yet again, thereby allowing them to have their ritual poolside party. The aura at the party was always the same after every release cycle. Some would break into song and some would choose to dance. Others would usher in more bugs and marvel at their good fortune. The intelligentsia would debate, dialogue and discuss their journey to “bugdom” and inevitably to “bugstardom”.

Now, this was a ritual that was made possible by sheer generosity. Donors from dev and test chose to bestow largesse on everyone in the fray. They missed checks and sidelined reviews which would abet the proceedings. This resulted in a surge in the bug population as they continued to take short cuts in unit tests, neglected static checks and hastily launched products and services at the cost of discipline.

“They keep forgetting the basics”, quipped a reveler. “Good for us, I must say”, said a fellow bug. “We can continue organising larger parties”, said an oldie-bug who seemed to have been around for quite a while.

“I got in here from requirements”, said a baby bug. “They forgot something called validation, and so here I am”, to a resounding ovation.

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

“I came in from design”, said the designer bug. “Architecture reviews, POCs, schemas, I can go on, and on!”

“Nobody asked about NFRs”, said the plumbing bug. “They chose to save the best for last; little did they realise that I would only get stronger as time passed on!”

Turned out that data and environments were forgotten and that only meant the crowd got bigger. “Well, no one thought of coverage, adequacy of data and business like data, so here am I,” said the Data Bug. EnvyBug said, “Newer techniques of virtualisation, lack of due collaboration with others to get environments setup, gave me countless escape routes to attend this party which is not virtual for sure, though I must say it’s quite surreal!”

And so the conversations flowed. The mighty bug to the nifty bug, the subtle bug to the mega bug all seemed to have a gala time.

Dev, test and ops grimaced in the din. “If only we teamed up better, albeit independently, from start to finish, we would be the ones partying instead”, they said. “But although we were too late this time lets resolve to solidify our execution and rigour of purpose the next regression around.”

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP IAN HOWLES, SENIOR DIRECTOR, QUALITY ENGINEERING AND ASSURANCE SERVICES UK&CE, COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS

SEE TESTING DIFFERENTLY: AUTOMATING COMPLEX TESTING DEMANDS Ian Howles, senior director, Quality Engineering and Assurance Services UK&CE, Cognizant Technology Solutions, explains how testers can automate complex test cases…

W

ith the growth of smartphones, tablets and new operating systems, and the need to update every day, testing and QA has become more challenging and more important than ever before. These factors are driving organisations towards the adoption of a modelbased test design approach, enhancing productivity of test case design and helping them win in the marketplace.

Testers today face a number of difficult challenges: accommodating frequent changes in requirements; the increasing effort spent manually in designing the scenarios and test cases; a lack of a scientific approach to automatically prioritise and optimise test cases; a further lack of solutions that help in early detection of faults and issues; and the difficulty identifying the right set of impacted or regression test cases. What’s more, approximately 50% of effort is spent on manual test design – taking valuable time, resource and effort.

THE FUTURE OF MODEL-BASED TESTING That’s why Cognizant, the world’s largest independent testing practice, has developed a product called ADPART (Activity Diagram-Based Path Analysis and Regression

Testing). It redefines the future of model-based testing.

With a single click, you can now automate test case design, test case optimisation and prioritisation, impact analysis, risk analysis, regression analysis, requirements traceability, improving testing quality, and saving both cost and time.

As it’s a visual modelling tool, it replaces the clumsy, confusing maze of written documents with activity diagrams through which you can easily capture each process flow. ADPART translates the requirements into a flow chart and automatically generates test cases that are easily imported into HP Quality Centre, saving up to half the time usually required for this step. It also helps you identify the most recent changes made through iterative application modelling, as well as which other system components are affected by any customisation.

But that’s not all. Cognizant has developed a solution that integrates with commercial and open source requirements and test management tools, as well as seamlessly connects with HP ALM. Its user-friendly features become very intuitive and can be used by all stakeholders, including testers, developers, subject matter experts, and managers. In today’s fast-paced workplace, business analysts, quality engineers, automation testers,

WITH A SINGLE CLICK, YOU CAN NOW AUTOMATE TEST CASE DESIGN, TEST CASE OPTIMISATION AND PRIORITISATION, IMPACT ANALYSIS, RISK ANALYSIS, REGRESSION ANALYSIS, REQUIREMENTS TRACEABILITY, IMPROVING TESTING QUALITY, AND SAVING BOTH COST AND TIME

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OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP and project managers need to be able to create, and model their test cases with efficiency and ease, making collaboration across projects easier and quicker.

WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH ADPART? • Business analysts: Draft, review, and certify functional workflows.

• Developers: Comprehend the functional workflow and conduct impact analysis of the changes in test case along with defect re-testing.

• Testers: Design test cases and test scenarios.

• Test leads and managers: Conduct estimation, test planning, and test control.

What’s possible with ADPART? • Model business flows, embed business flows to any level.

• Automated test scenario and test case generation.

• Automated test case prioritisation and optimisation.

• Automated requirement traceability.

• Automated regression analysis.

• Automated impact analysis for defects and change in requirements.

• Rule-based test case generation.

ADPART IN ACTION

• Create smart test suites based on requirements, defects and scenarios.

A well-known, Fortune 500 multinational apparel company required assistance with a highly evolving and ever-changing retail IT landscape. Which would entail considerable change management and continuous test case revamp efforts. This drove the need for a greater number of software releases in a short timespan, demanding fast track regression analysis and the need for test prioritisation. This was further complicated by the significant difference in systems and processes across regions and affiliates, leading to a myriad of process flows and test cases.

• Shared workspace and effective configuration management of test artefacts.

Compounding this was a global regression test bed with over 7,000 test cases, with a need for test optimisation and minimum path coverage, so eliminating redundancy.

Crashed timelines and changes in requirements that came late in the day led to insufficient time for test design. This dictated a need for test prioritisation – to ensure maximum risk coverage through the execution of test cases falling on the critical path of the application.

The demand for a solution that could address such a diverse set of problems meant that the team needed to move from a documented approach of test designing to a model-based approach, which could enable faster automated test creation, change management, and regression analysis. Cognizant’s ADPART ensured that these requirements were met. Plus, it guaranteed smarter test optimisation, better test coverage and effective requirement analysis – which were intuitive to use by the key stakeholders.

Using ADPART, the project team was able to set up 18 of 38 regression modules, with over 441 test cases. 18 activity diagrams were created with three test suites created for each module – master set, smoke test set, and minimum path coverage set. Test case prioritisation was achieved with the ability to accommodate both backward and forward traceability creation – the traceability matrices were created for all the regression modules set up. To date, the team has ported around 50% of manual test cases from two major projects into ADPART. Cognizant’s ADPART proved to be an effective test design solution that automated the entire test design cycle.

During the implementation, the team realised: • 27% effort reduction achieved in test design; • Improved change analysis and automatic generation of test cases; • Minimum path coverage, bringing down the number of executable test cases by 29%; • Effective test coverage, leading to the detection of five defects in the two modules that underwent changes;

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

• Import/export business models and test artefacts.

• Enables modelling in multiple languages.

• Set-up regression testing modules in a common workspace, leading to efficient test suite management; • Test suites were optimised, ensuring the test case count was brought down from 614 to 441, accounting for over 28% reduction; • 38 new test cases were added to the suite that didn’t exist earlier, increasing the overall test coverage; • Around 120 test cases were modified and 36 invalid test cases were deleted, reducing redundancy; and

Separate test suites were readily available, which were • tailored for specific testing needs.

MOVING TESTING FORWARD Given the pace of technology growth in today’s business landscape, testing – evidently – is playing a vital role.

The complexity and demands of software development and faster turnaround are putting pressures on testers – to do their job faster, to save money, to contribute to overall business and IT efficiency, all with fewer resources.

There is no “magic wand solution” to these problems.

It’s a transformational journey that enterprises across industries, are embarking upon as technology becomes more powerful and the role it plays in both business and everyday life gets bigger.

Cognizant recognises the challenges that testers today are facing. They are determined to bring innovation to the quality assurance arena, and ADPART, with its revolutionary approach, is just one way they are striving to make testing easier. Cognizant is determined to bring the efficiencies of the future to work today; to help you stay ahead of the game: in testing and in business.

SMARTER, FASTER AND MORE EFFICIENT TESTING Cognizant pioneers development in quality engineering and assurance, providing a wide range of services, solutions and products for testers and the testing industry.

Cognizant’s quality engineering and assurance group partners with you to bolster development, by providing reliable support across a range of hardware and software testing products that ensure test coverage and drive product quality.

PAGE 25

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP DR GILLI SHAMA SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR AMDOCS TESTING

CAN YOU TELL IF YOUR ACCEPTANCE TESTING WAS SUCCESSFUL? Dr Gilli Shama, Amdocs Testing scientific director, explains how to set your goals for acceptance testing in the communication software industry…

M

ajor communication service providers’ projects are mission critical, comprehensive and complex. Service providers recognise the major impact of quality on their customer experience and therefore invest in testing.

This article uses independent testing results to offer a benchmark for software projects, with a focus on the communication market.

The first step when establishing software testing metrics is deciding on business-aligned goals (Narayan and Black, 2010). This paper includes recommendations for goals (metrics and target) to measure the superiority of the testing process.

Acceptance functional testing success is typically measured by the total project quality, the testing phase effort and time. Software projects for the communication operations segment are critical to service providers, therefore requiring high quality outcome. Communication software projects are very large and complex, so their testing effort is high. In most communication software projects these days, an agile methodology is applied.

Acceptance testing time is not critical on agile projects, as total project time is addressed by performing acceptance testing in parallel to development.

In this article, we offer an independent benchmark for

testing communication projects, measuring the two major common benchmark areas that are important to service providers: quality and cost (effort). We encourage you to compare your testing results to targets proposed in this article on defined metrics.

QUALITY The communication industry requires high delivered software quality, as the software impacts revenues and critical service to end customers.

•

Defects delivered to production per function point

A project’s quality is measured by the number of defects delivered to production (found when the system is live). The number of defects is divided by software size, where the most common measure is by function points.

Jones (2013) found that quality in the telecom industry is relatively high. According to Jones, the typical software project delivers 0.46 defects per function point, whereas in telecom software only 0.13 defects per function point are delivered to production. Our experience in Amdocs Testing has been even better; only 0.04 defects per function point are delivered to production (weighted average in 125 projects of Amdocs systems with acceptance testing performed by Amdocs). These results are shown in figure 1.

WHEN DEFINING AN ACCEPTANCE TESTING PROJECT, ITS EFFORT IS SET. WE SUGGEST CONSTRUCTING YOUR ORGANISATIONAL MODEL FOR TESTING EFFORT AS A FUNCTION OF SIZE

PAGE 26

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

to production. Our experience in Amdocs Testing has been even better; only 0.04 defects per function point are delivered to production (weighted average in 125 projects of Amdocs systems THOUGHT with acceptance testing performed by Amdocs). These results are shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: Delivered defects per function point

0.46 0.13

0.04

Acceptance testing effort is typically measured by its percentage out of the total project’s effort.

Standish advisory (2013) found that acceptance testing effort percentage increases with a project’s size and complexity. In Amdocs testing projects, we found that

fast). defects leakage%

Project size is measured in function points, Figure 2: which is the most common metric today.

If Amdocs 8.3% you measure f7.2% unction 6.5% points in many defect leakage projects, but not all, you may 4.7% build your decrease organisational extrapolation of function per project points from other metrics, using regression size models.

40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0%

Project size in Men Months (MM)

Figure 3 – Acceptance test effort percentage per project size

acceptance testing effort percentage actually drops with Tip: How to measure acceptance test effort size from very small to medium projects (projects with a Acceptance = Effort (MM) total efforttest ofeffort 500MM), andfor then increases (R²=0.6) from acceptance to test large / total pprojects roject effort (see (MM) Figure 3). medium We measure acceptance test effort as the

MM devoted for acceptance functional When defining an acceptance testing project, its effort of a defined set of applications. This is testing set. We suggest constructing your organisational effort includes management, testing design model for testing effort as a function of size. You can use and execution, but excludes developers and the benchmark in Figure 3 to help with planning. Your infra support of the acceptance testing. turning pointtesting, of effort Non-­‐functional such as model may be different than our performance testing, also excluded. experience, butis most likely you will find that higher effort percentage is irequired forin the Total project effort s also measured MM. very large projects.

This effort includes management, infra

Project size (MM) Defect leakage percent

Amdocs Teseng Acceptance tesIng cost%

of defects found after production / function

The low defect leakage in the telecom industry can points be explained by the large scope of telecom projects.

Comparing Amdocs found that leakage We count the number projects, of defects we reported decreases astracking projectssize increases in the defect ystem, from (see figure 2). There are many more large scope communication projects production dtoate until industries, 45 days after compared other and this contributes to the production ( as d efect numbers ignificantly lower leakage percentage in sthe communication industry (Jones, 2013). drop later on and we want to reflect quality

Figure 3: Acceptance test effort percentage per project size

Standish Advisory -­‐ Complex projects

Defect percent Figure 1leakage – Delivered defects per function point Testing contribution to quality is measured in defect leakage percentage, which is the number of defects Tip: How to measure the defects delivered found after production, divided by the total number of to production defects found. Jones (2013) found that defect leakage in telecom operation software (2.5%) is better than the Delivered defects to production = Number general defect leakage (10%).

LEADERSHIP

work, solution definition, design, coding, SUMMARY unit and system test as well as functional

acceptance testing.

Non-­‐functional testing Large testing projects, especially in the communication and consulting services are excluded. market, require acceptance testing to assure high quality Testing to leakage quality is measured in dsize efect hich is mteasuring he number of test on effort reduction. tw hat when acceptance atNote go-live, without compromising Figure 2 –c ontribution Amdocs defect decrease per project leakage percentage, Ifdefects you are planning acceptance testing we of defects effort and total roject emeasurement ffort, the same found after pan roduction, divided by the project, total number found.

Jones (2013) Therefore, apstrict of these parameters sto cope is compared. project’s success, and low recommend defining in advance how If you are planning an aleakage cceptance project, wmany e recommend defining in advance how many is development required found that defect in testing telecom operation sdefects oftware (2.5%) is better than the gassure eneral the defect you would expect inin production.

You use Figures 1 help define thresholds defects you would expect production. You can can use Figures 1 and 2 to your

are required in the communication industry. leakage a target and 2 to(10%). help define your a target benchmark.

Defining for dbenchmark. efects delivered Defining to production, as well as a target fWhen or defect Quality andan effort metrics be whereas defining acceptance testing may project, its econflicting, ffort is set. We suggest constructing your for defects delivered to ab target leakage percentage sets a combined for tias he twell otal nas umber o efects to be nd quality for scope requires organisational model testing more effort as effort. a function of size. You can use the benchmark in Figure The low defect leakage in production, the ttarget elecom ndustry can e f edxplained bfy ound, thigher he laarge off or telecom for sets a combined target the defect number oleakage f defects to percentage be found in testing.

3 to help with planning. Your turning point of effort model may be different than our projects.

Comparing mdocs projects, e found that for leakage ametrics s project size benchmark increases The this article for the total numberAof defects to bewfound, and the decreases experience, but and most likely you will find tsuggested hat higher effort in percentage is required for the very Communication software pre rojects are m not resistant tso defects, yet high standards are r equired can help testing vendors (see f igure 2 ).

T here a m any ore l arge cope c ommunication p rojects c ompared t o o ther and communication testing large projects. number of defects to be found in testing. and achievable. If your project is of a very large scope, we recommend planning for managers a high to set their threshold for each criterion, industries, and this contributes to the alower leakage percentage in the communication industry quality on large projects, as you cannot afford high number of defects. demand for Communication software projects are not resistant to The quality measure their projects’ success, and evaluate (Jones, 2 013). large projects ay impact the testing effort/cost as shown n the next section. defects, yetmhigh standards are required and iachievable. improvement methods.

If your project is of a very large scope, we recommend We recommend that you collect the same metrics in your planning for a high quality on large projects, as you Effort testing organisation, and map the acceptance testing cannot afford a high number of defects. The quality Large software rojects projects in industries like cimpact ommunications, with some exceeding thousands of quality against the project size. Monitoring the effort and demand forplarge may the testing effort/ Men M onths ( MM), a nd a lso v ery c omplex o nes ( which i nvolve m ultiple d epartments, d ivisions actual status of your application or service may lead cost as shown in the next section. and executives, as well as numerous users, events processed and system interfaces) require

to newagoals of improving both quality and effort. Real significant acceptance testing effort, both absolute and as a percentage of the total testing project service improvement implies both high quality and EFFORT effort. Acceptance testing effort is typically measured by its percentage out of the tlow otal peffort, roject’s with no need to compromise on either one. effort. software projects in industries like communications, Large At Amdocs, we reach high testing project quality and with some exceeding thousands of Men Months (MM), increases overall Standish advisory (2013) found that acceptance testing effort percentage with a low effort, from best practices and our experience and also very (which involve project’s size and ccomplex omplexity. Iones n Amdocs testing projects, multiple we found that acceptance of testing over 30 years in the communication software testing departments, and executives, well effort percentage adivisions ctually drops with size from very as small to as medium projects (projects with a Amdocs continuously increases quality and industry. numerous events processed and system interfaces) total effort of users, 500MM), and then increases (R²=0.6) from medium to large projects (reduces see Figure effort by using new technologies like the recently require a significant acceptance testing effort, both 3). announced framework Amdocs BEAT. absolute and as a percentage of the total project effort.

References available on request.

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

PAGE 27

Software

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AN “IT LIFECYCLE ASSURANCE” PARTNER Maveric Systems tells TEST Magazine how it has become a preferred “IT Lifecycle Assurance” partner to various sectors across different countries…

M

averic Systems Limited is a preferred “IT Lifecycle Assurance” partner to leading banking, insurance and telecom corporations in UK, US, APAC and Middle East.

CURRENT PORTFOLIO The company’s Requirements Assurance, Application Assurance and Program Assurance services are aimed at eliminating quality, cost and time-to-market risks associated with large IT transformation programs. At the heart of Maveric’s value proposition is its “Assurance-only” business model aided by Domain- and IP-led integrated solutions that cater to diverse assurance requirements from Requirements to Release.

Maveric is a leader in assurance of core bank transformation and up-gradation, involving assurance of the entire application platform. Maveric has been identified as a transformation specialist serving “Transformation Focused Clients”, by NelsonHall, and was the recipient of Frost and Sullivan Product Innovation award, as well as the Banker Middle East Industry Awards for 2013 and 2014.

Maveric continuously strives to up-hold its commitment to the principles of MAVERIC independence, vertical IS A LEADER IN focus and innovation.

ASSURANCE OF CORE Maveric’s services BANK TRANSFORMATION have been enlisted by clients such as Citibank, AND UP-GRADATION, Deutsche Bank, RBS, INVOLVING ASSURANCE Tesco, MCIS Zurich OF THE ENTIRE and Ericsson. Maveric APPLICATION has also worked with

emerging leaders such as Metro Bank, Kleinworth Benson, KBL Bank of Scotland and Rabo Bank. Maveric has to its credit multiple engagements around a large number of banking, insurance and telecom products, including Temenos T24, Flex Cube, Misys Equation, Finacle, Eximbills, Trade Innovation, BankTrade, Fidessa, Sungard, Murex, Ingenium, TIA, BSCS, Siebel, TIBCO, CS5.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD? Maveric plans to be the top three assurance player in the UK, Europe and US markets within the next four years with a thrust on banking and insurance verticals. In order to realise the leadership position, Maveric has: • Invested in offering platform-led strategic solutions across digital banking, assurance, data quality assurance, payment systems, and AML. • Turned its insights across requirements definition, product configuration and acceptance testing into a licensable innovation called “AssureHawk – the first of its kind automated specifications generating platform to support Europe’s large Temenos T24 customer base.

• Specifically in the UK market Maveric, is particularly twin focused upon: 1. Providing platform-led strategic offerings to Tier 1 banks and insurance corporations.

2. To support the technological transformations of newly licensed banks, wealth management companies and operative unions.

With a workforce of 1,200 located in offices across London, Princeton, Dubai, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Chennai, Maveric assures 100% successful IT implementation to clients.

PLATFORM

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

PAGE 29

Software quality tools from design to production

Easy-to-use tools which empower designers, developers, testers and managers to reduce time to market improve quality save money

from desktop to mobile

built by THE QUEEN’S AWARDS FOR ENTERPRISE INTERNATIONAL TRADE 2013

LAST WORD DAVE WHALEN PRESIDENT AND SENIOR SOFTWARE ENTOMOLOGIST WHALEN TECHNOLOGIES HTTP://SOFTWAREENTOMOLOGIST.WORDPRESS.COM

“TRUST BUT VERIFY!”

D E I F I R VE

By Dave Whalen

T

his signature phrase was adopted by my former US President, Ronald Reagan when discussing US – Soviet relations. The President used it to emphasise “the extensive verification procedures that would enable both sides to monitor [treaty] compliance.” When discussing the role of test or quality assurance, I usually bring up this phrase.

Would a developer knowingly produce code with errors? I hope not! We trust them not to. But it still doesn’t hurt to verify.

Which brings me to this issue’s topic: Where does quality assurance belong on the organisational chart? Who should we work for to remain free of even the slightest perception of impropriety? I have a few thoughts… as usual!

closed prematurely if the manager stands behind the development staff. When it comes down to a disagreement on whether or not an issue is truly a bug, test will lose. Ugly, but reality. In my opinion, testers are tolerated and not valued as team members.

In other cases, test is a separate team under a project manager. This is probably the most common type of organisation. Is it the best? No. But it’s better in that test is not under the direct influence and control of development. In this type of organisation, there is usually an assigned test manager that leads the test team. Test and development are separate, but exist at the same organisational level.

Although, management still considers test as part of the “development” team, usually under a product We need to be part of a system of checks and balances, engineering or product development group, if the project a separation of powers if you will. A system that will ensure manager cannot see test as a completely autonomous no one person or department exerts any undue pressure and independent entity, this organisation may have or influence on another. Does undue influence happen? problems… Which brings us to the “best” organisation.

I’m sure it could, given the right amount of pressure, like release deadlines. Have I personally experienced it? No comment. But let’s be DAVE’S SOLUTION proactive and remove any doubt right We will call this the “Dave Solution”. now.

IN A PERFECT I have not seen it used anywhere, WORLD, DEVELOPMENT Usually, in most organisations, there therefore it is 100% successful. In a AND TEST ARE COMPLETELY are business analysts that determine perfect world, development and test what an application should do.

SEPARATED IN THE are completely separated in the They talk to the customer, define ORGANISATION. TEST STRADDLES organisation. Test straddles both the their needs, and then write clear business side and the development BOTH THE BUSINESS SIDE AND requirements to convey that side of the company. We would THE DEVELOPMENT SIDE OF THE information to a team of developers work independently of both groups COMPANY. WE WOULD WORK who will write the code. Then it’s and yet bridge the two. Our primary up to us testers (the essential cog in INDEPENDENTLY OF BOTH responsibility would be to serve as the machine) to make sure it works a customer advocate – we read the GROUPS AND YET BRIDGE correctly (in accordance with these business requirements and write tests to THE TWO same very clear requirements) before validate those requirements. releasing it to the customers.

Ultimately, we would run our independently In most organisations, that is the typical written tests against the independently developed arrangement. Three basic teams: business analysts, application and be the judge of compliance. If the development and test. I’m not arguing that any of requirements are vague or unclear, as they sometimes them are unnecessary – they are all necessary! But who are, we work with the business to fix them. If there is do these three teams work for? In my experience, the a conflict between the requirement and what was analysts are usually organisationally separated from produced, we would serve as the arbitrator. The ultimate development and test. Development and test, on the “check and balance”! Can we override either the other hand, there is not always a clear separation. This business and development teams? Nope! We simply is where I believe we lose our system of checks and review the case, make a recommendation for resolution, balances and, ultimately, our integrity. and then pass it on to the supreme authority for a decision – the project manager.

So, where should test/quality assurance appear on the organisational chart?

POSSIBLE SCENARIOS Looking at the absolutely worst possible scenario, test works for development. Essentially letting the fox guard the hen house. I’ve been in this situation numerous times and it is never successful. In the worst case, bugs are not prioritised correctly and, in some cases,

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

Will the Dave Solution work? I don’t know. It looks good on paper. I submitted a detailed paper on it as part of my graduate degree and got an “A”. So I’m not totally off base. If I ever get a project management job and get a chance to implement it, I’ll let you know. Until then, since there is no evidence to the contrary, I will consider it to be the ultimate organisational structure. It’s the only way to go. Trust me!

PAGE 31

the 20 LEADING software TESTING PROVIDERS

2014

ata and TCS Marks - Stacled with Tagline

Artwork provided. Please do not recreate.

or use in 2D applications Tata Consultancy Services Identity Guidelines I Jan 2007

Sponsored by X

.5X

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.5X

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2X

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London | Surrey | Perth www.magentys.io contact@magentys.io +44 (0)207 1934 850

Our highly skilled team deliver an exceptional tailored and flexible Context-Driven Managed Service for both Functional and Non-Functional Testing as well as the setup and management of your DevOps function

TESTING

DEVOPS

LEADERSHIP

Our engineers are skilled in Java, Ruby, .NET and BDD methodologies. In addition to test automation we deliver Functional, Performance, Security and Penetration, Usability and Localisation Testing

Our teams love Open Source, best-in-class technologies and innovation and use this passion to help companies implement and manage a DevOps, Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery environment

MagenTys can manage or help manage your Testing and DevOps function. This includes organisational strategies, coaching and mentoring, BDD, project planning, reporting and tool selection.

Since 2004 we have helped Retailers, Digital Agencies, Government and Financial Institutions improve software testing through Innovation, Automation, Thought Leadership and Expertise.

Whether it is onsite or from our UK and Australian Labs, our highly skilled teams are available around the clock to help you deliver exceptional software

MANAGED SERVICES Our team of Leaders, Subject Matter Experts and Engineers form our flexible Managed Service for Testing and DevOps. We solve the headache of skill shortages, management, hiring and project downtime and help businesses achieve their goals

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Our dedicated innovation As passionate innovators and team have developed thought leaders within Testing the jMCore, cMCore and and DevOps, we will help you rMCore Test Automation adopt the culture, tools and Frameworks to processes to excel project delivery with an emphasis on promote BDD, automate tests from day 1 and enable DevOps Test Automation, Open as well as DataBlaize, the ETL Source and Best of Breed testing solution technologies

20 LEADING TESTING PROVIDERS

WELCOME...

Welcome to the 2014 20 Leading Software Testing Providers guide.

12 months is a long time in the IT sector. It's a fast-paced industry and shows no sign of deceleration.

With technological developments advancing at such a rapid pace, a lot can happen in the space of a year. Many companies have enhanced or adapted their product portfolios to meet the demands of today’s software testing industry, and recognised the tools and services that will appropriately compliment a professional’s skillset.

The 2014 20 Leading Software Testing Providers guide, which has been kindly sponsored by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is aimed to help you understand the key differences between the various software testing and quality assurance products and services available from the leading providers.

We hope the insight gained will help with future purchases, which will in turn lead to improved test cases and meet complex testing demands you face on a regular basis. Over the next few pages, TEST Magazine delivers to you, all in one place, the companies that have listened to customer demands and, as a result, delivered the market what it needs to meet the challenges of today and the future.

I hope you find this guide useful and equally helpful.

Enjoy!

Sophie-Marie Odum Editor

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

PAGE 35

20 LEADING TESTING PROVIDERS

Tata and TCS Marks - Stacled with Tagline

Artwork provided. Please do not recreate.

For use in 2D applications Tata Consultancy Services Identity Guidelines I Jan 2007

TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES (TCS) GRID-TOOLS X

X

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TCS in UK and EUROPE… with a 38-year old successful track record Since 1975, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been helping UK and European businesses become more effective. TCS UK and Europe service over 350 customers across UK and the continent, including 44 of the FT Europe Top 100 companies.

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“Blending the best of British and Indian know-how and technology, TCS has developed innovative, world-beating techniques to develop high quality services that add value to business plans and efficiency to government service delivery alike.” - Tony Blair

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Every year, TCS helps deliver one of the biggest events in the Dutch sporting calendar – the TCS Amsterdam Marathon. In 2013, 1650 TCSers and clients joined forces to support the fight against cancer. €215,000 was raised for VUmc, the Amsterdam Cancer Centre.

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“TCS’ comprehensive integrated portfolio of services captures the entire value chain of IT and operations.

The combination of a full suite of services delivered in an efficient and seamless way is a compelling value proposition and makes TCS a one-stop company for many European enterprises.” - Klaus Holzhauser, Senior Vice President - IT Services Markets, PAC 2X

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TCS’ services portfolio and delivery model TCS offers a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT and ITenabled infrastructure, engineering and assurance services. This is delivered through its unique Global Network Delivery Model (GNDM), recognised as the benchmark of excellence in software development. GNDM allows clients to choose the sourcing strategy best suited to its business needs. TCS adopts a "follow-thesun" approach, meaning that no matter where client’s business is located, TCS helps keep it running 24/7, while providing a seamless experience across all operations. TCS Innovation Labs and Co-Innovation Network help clients achieve and maintain a competitive advantage, whilst TCS research-based solutions in advanced technologies support client’s business objectives.

Date : 31 I 01 I 2007 Title : Tata and TCS Marks - Stacked with Tagline Design Magger : Gargi Sharma Project Co- ordinator : Vishal Jhunjhunwala Colour : Pantone 2427 C Software Formats : CorelDraw 11, Adobe Illustrator CS2

Guide-sheet developed by Design Services, Corporate Marketing Copyright © 2007 Tata Consultancy Services Limited

Awards and recognitions • Ranked No.1 for customer satisfaction in UK IT Services – Whitelane research, 2014 and 2013.

• Ranked Britain’s Top Employer in 2014 and 2013 – Top Employers Institute.

X

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About TCS worldwide TCS is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organisation that delivers real results to global business, ensuring a level of certainty no other firm can match. TCS is a part of the Tata Group, one of the largest and most innovative industrial conglomerates with 100 companies. Building on more than 40 years of experience, TCS adds real value to global organisations through domain expertise, proven solutions and world-class service.

TCS has 300,000 plus employees, representing 118 nationalities.

TCS partners with clients across 44 countries. Repeat customers contribute to 99% of TCS’s revenue.

.75X

X

TCS is a major UK and Europe employer with over 50,000 people across 50 locations. The TCS facility in Peterborough is home to the FCA-regulated subsidiary, Diligenta, one of the UK’s largest pension policy administrators. It also hosts a TCS Innovation Centre, part of TCS’ global innovation network. In Liverpool, TCS has invested in a state of the art delivery centre dedicated to the public sector.

IMPORTANT : COLOURS USED TO CREATE THIS MECHANICAL ARE FOR VISUAL SUGGESTION ONLY. USE PANTONE COLOUR SWATCHES TO MATCH FOR CORRECT COLOURS. EVEN THOUGH THIS MECHANICAL HAS BEEN CHECKED FOR ACCURACY, PLEASE DOUBLE CHECK PRIOR TO RELEASE TO THE VENDOR. IF INSTRUCTIONS ARE FOUND DEFICIENT, PLEASE CONTACT corporate.office@tcs.com

• Awarded the Gold Award in ‘Innovation in Learning’ 2014 – Learning and Performance Institute.

“TATA has played a transformative role in the UK” - David Cameron

• Platinum Big Tick 2013 – highest possible ranking in Business in the Community’s Corporate Responsibility Index.

TCS ASSURANCE SERVICES

• TCS’ mobile agro-advisory service ‘Highly Commended’ in the Business in the Community’s Responsible Business Awards 2013.

• Largest software consultancy in the UK to qualify for Investors in People – Gold standard.

TCS, young people and technology TCS is committed to working with young people across Europe to prepare them for a successful career, with vital knowledge for a technology-driven future. Through its involvement with over 140 schools in Europe and initiatives such as the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, TCS is committed to addressing the growing skills gap by reaching out to youngsters across the continent and encouraging careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) subjects. Skills acquired have shown to be attractive for the industry and generated advanced student placements.

TCS enjoys relationships with leading educational institutions in the UK, including London Business School, London School of Economics, Imperial College London, Kings College London, Durham University, University of Hull, University of Nottingham and University of Manchester.

TCS’ social committment As part of the Tata Group (www.tata.com), TCS has developed a unique relationship with the communities in which it operates.

Around two-thirds of the equity of Tata Sons Ltd, the holding company of the Tata Group, is held by various philanthropic trusts responsible for creating and nurturing leading institutions for science and technology, medical research, social studies and the performing arts. Every year, a large part of TCS dividends (49% in 2012) fund the vital work carried out by these trusts. TCS invests millions in corporate responsibility initiatives yearly and supports initiatives of over 40 charities across Europe. TCS employees invest over 100,000 hours of their time each year, volunteering and supporting social causes and community projects.

PAGE 36

With one of the most comprehensive portfolios of independent test capabilities on offer, TCS addresses both business and quality challenges for its global clients. It empowers organisations across domains to optimise overheads, realise first mover advantage and improve customer satisfaction.

TCS offers assurance services across the testing value cycle, including test consulting and advisory, test services implementation, and managed services for test environment and test data management. We continually redefine testing and QA paradigms to help our clients stay ahead of the curve. Its library of domain-based reusable business functions and proven engagement model founded on the twin pillars of product and process quality enable TCS to deliver certainty to its clients.

Nearly 25,000 testing consultants, strategic alliances and partnerships with key product vendors, more than 50 dedicated test centers of excellence and our innovation labs power TCS’ tailor-made solutions, testing assets and accelerators. With specialised test environments and labs, TCS drives the delivery of assurance in a non-disruptive, agile, and automated manner, making the entire development lifecycle more efficient.

Contact: Ashish Babu A: 4th Floor, 33 Grosvenor Place, London, SW1X 7HY, UK T: +44 (0) 207 245 1800 E: uk.info@tcs.com global.assurance@tcs.com W: www.tcs.com

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

20 LEADING TESTING PROVIDERS

AMDOCS Amdocs Testing is the leading testing solution provider in the communication market. It became the top testing vendor by enabling its customers to deliver superior customer experience by taking their business applications to go-live with industry-low defect levels, while reducing cost and minimising time-to-market.

All this is possible due to its innovative and proprietary framework, Amdocs BEAT. It standardises and optimises the testing process based on its accumulated communication testing experience and best practices. A proprietary sophisticated analytical model is used to make recommendations, so that every testing project is much more productive and cost effective. This helps its customers achieve their business goals and deliver a better customer experience.

Amdocs Testing is an independent business unit within the Amdocs Services organisation. It offers a full range of endto-end testing services for Amdocs and non-Amdocs applications, focusing on the communication industry.

Amdocs Testing leadership is based not only on market share; its testing results are measurably superior in terms of quality (low defect level at go-live), low overall cost, and quick time-to-market.

Amdocs Testing’s market leadership is driven by their focus on innovation. Using their proprietary tools, methodologies, and best practices, all wrapped within the recently announced Amdocs BEAT framework, the testing team delivers efficiencies and value throughout the testing lifecycle. Amdocs testing offers its customers years of testing experience, extensive communication domain expertise, skilled testing resources, experience with multivendor environments, and a global presence, to ensure seamless, ongoing support, and “follow the sun” continuity.

A: 1390 Timberlake Manor Parkway, Chesterfield, MO, 63017, USA T: +1 314 212 7000 E: testing@amdocs.com W: www.amdocs.com

Amdocs Testing is part of Amdocs, a global company (NASDAQ:DOX) with revenue of $3.3 billion in fiscal year 2013. Amdocs employs a workforce of more than 22,000 serving customers in over 80 countries worldwide.

BORLAND Borland: quality in an age of change As Gartner noted when awarding Borland software a Magic Quadrant “Leader” status in its Integrated Software Quality Suites report 2014 – for the third successive year – “Testing is a key process in software development but technology changes ... and this can complicate vendor evaluation for testers and test managers.”

In other words, testing remains as important as ever, but is becoming more challenging all the time. The ongoing proliferation of platforms and devices – and the demand for greater application functionality – means that it isn’t going to get easier any time soon.

It’s a problem Borland understands and is always looking to address. By continuing to innovate the Silk Portfolio, Borland's comprehensive quality and performance tools for desktop, web, cloud and mobile is keeping its clients ahead of the curve.

With the most recent updates addressing intranet load testing through VPN, web page optimisation and cross-browser testing for web and mobile web applications, we’ve put the means to succeed in the hands of the people who need it.

Borland's commitment to a continuous stream of innovation in the software quality space aims to deliver on the ever-changing needs of its customers, where quality is about much more than functionality, right across the software supply chain.

A: The Lawn, 22-30 Old Bath Road, Newbury, RG14 1QN, UK

Its rich feature-set and wide integration capability with third party tools enables Borland's customers to validate quality across any application, running on any device. The end result is applications that work, perform and deliver a strong user experience.

T: 00 800 58 102 130 E: ebr.belfast@microfocus.com W: www.borland.com

In awarding Borland this hat-trick of appearances, Gartner noted Borland’s “ability to execute” and “completeness of vision”. It’s not been lost on its customers, either.

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

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20 LEADING TESTING PROVIDERS

CIGNITI TECHNOLOGIES Cigniti Technologies is a leader in independent testing services. Cigniti’s test offerings include TCoE, enterprise mobility testing, testing on cloud, Big Data testing, functional, automation, security and performance testing services. Over the last 15 years, Cigniti has helped enterprises and ISVs across verticals build quality software while improving time-to-market and reducing cost of quality. Cigniti has translated its R&D into SMART Tools that accelerate testing and help improve the quality of services delivered to clients.

Cigniti is the world’s first Independent Software Testing Services Company to be rated at CMMI SVC1.3 maturity level 3 and is an ISO 27001:2005 certified organisation.

With a team of over 1,400 people, Cigniti operates out of 1,40,000 sq ft of office space spread across UK, US, India, Australia and Canada. Cigniti has India’s first of its kind Robotics Test Lab, HP co-branded mobile test lab and a world class performance test lab. Cigniti has strategic alliances with the leading product, tool and technology vendors.

Technologies has been ranked as a Leader in Software Testing by NelsonHall, the leading global BPO and IT outsourcing analyst firm. NelsonHall ranked Cigniti Technologies as a Leader in all three market segments it analysed i.e. Overall, Efficiency Clients and Transformation-Focused Clients.

Gartner has recognised and listed Cigniti as a Pure-Play Testing services provider with multi-domain skills. Cigniti was also recently mentioned by Forbes in Asia’s 200 best under billion companies, and is also the recipient of the prestigious Frost and Sullivan Customer Value Leadership Award for Global Automated Software Testing Services – 2014.

Contact: Nanda Padmaraju

Cigniti’s CSR initiative Project Cignificance aims to impact 1 million+ lives through education as an enabler. As a part of this effort, Team Cigniti translates a list of topics from Khan Academy videos and into Telugu.

The narrations are then recorded and integrated into the videos. The videos cover mathematics and science topics taught in the schools run by the government.

E: nanda@cigniti.com

A: 9 Devonshire Square, London, EC2M 4YF, UK T: +44 (0) 20 3691 1385 M: +44 (0) 779 199 0506

Recognised as a leader in IP-led testing services by industry analysts, Cigniti

COGNIZANT Cognizant’s Quality Engineering & Assurance (QE&A) practice is one of the world’s largest independent testing services, with over 27,000 quality assurance professionals distributed across the globe, the largest offshore SAP test centre, serving the quality needs of more than 600 clients, spanning a number of industries.

Cognizant QE&A clientele in the UK and Europe extend across a number of industry verticals – leading banks, financial services firms, eminent insurers, healthcare providers, life sciences institutions and some of the biggest retailers, manufacturing companies, media research firms and telecoms providers.

With the growing global pace of technology and a changing business landscape, customer expectation for a test outsourcing partner has evolved from capacity augmentation to business value addition.

Clients are increasingly expecting quality assurance partners to be advisors, alongside delivering best-in-class quality software.

Cognizant, with its combination of domain and quality assurance expertise, enables clients to assess the business readiness of applications. Test automation, environment management and data management are an integral part of Cognizant’s QE&A offering, alongside other basic testing services.

Cognizant QE&A also has specialised centres of excellence around such niche areas as

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data warehouse testing, business intelligence testing, SOA testing, IVR testing, COTS products testing in the banking and insurance arena, and SAP/Enterprise products testing – to name but a few.

Cognizant has made significant investments in building boutique testing products that have transformed the way quality assurance is delivered and consumed today. Now patented, ADPART is Cognizant’s proprietary framework for test design automation. FasTest is Cognizant’s on-demand service delivery platform, which enables clients to order and consume quality assurance services online.

Cognizant also has dedicated mobile labs across the globe – from Phoenix in the United States, to Grenoble in France, Chennai in India, all the way to Sydney, Australia.

Cognizant is also dedicated to investing in the larger QE&A landscape; opening testing delivery centres around the world (including Grenoble, Budapest and Glasgow).

Cognizant’s track record shows significantly higher business benefits and improved end-user satisfaction for its clients through the implementation of its TMMi-accredited quality assurance framework. Cognizant’s engagements have achieved multiple awards around the world, including the FStech Awards and the European Software Testing Awards in the UK.

Contact: Ian Howles A: 1 Kingdom Street, Paddington Central, London, W2 6BD, UK T: +44 (0) 7884 118 332 E: Ian.Howles@cognizant.com W: www.cognizant.com

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

20 LEADING TESTING PROVIDERS

EXCEPTION Exception is an IT consultancy and services company, headquartered in Edinburgh.

It specialises in delivering change, infrastructure, testing and the provision of customer-tailored managed service solutions. It provides services to the financial services, government, police and utilities markets throughout the UK. Exception is delivery focused with an excellent reputation for quality, flexibility and customer service. It aims to work collaboratively and in partnership, never losing sight of its customer’s requirements for delivery and great service.

(e.g. SCRUM) methodologies. Exception’s framework and approach adapts to the bespoke requirements of a customer.

Exception has significant capabilities in the testing and quality assurance of largescale change programmes. Additionally, Exception specialises in the quality assurance and automated testing of self-service and payments technologies. Exception maintains a range of partnership agreements with test technology providers and specialist test providers.

Exception’s Test Consultancy Practice combines significant financial services and public sector experience and its holistic approach to infrastructure and test to support customers with the successful delivery of IT change programmes. The Test Practice leverages Exception’s Deliver Quality framework to apply a consistent, proven approach to quality assurance and testing.

Its customers include among others Lloyds Banking Group, Police Scotland, Historic Scotland, Scottish Widows, American Express and UK Power. Exception continually invests in its people to develop the competencies and skills that it believes are required to deliver its services and to set it apart from competitors. Its consultants are entrepreneurial and energetic, and bring the right skillsets to every job.

Exception provides as-required support to help customers and partners meet the demands of business change programmes and aim to recommend solutions that are pragmatic while supporting timescales and budgets.

The Delivery Quality framework does not rely on customers following any specific service delivery (e.g. ITIL), project management (e.g. PRINCE2) or software development

Exception’s aim is to deliver the highest quality services and capability to its customers.

Exception achieves this through its consulting and service delivery expertise, combined with a portfolio of services and solutions. These are underpinned by repeatable methods, core competencies, technical and professional skills, IPR and processes to ensure delivery of the required services.

A: Westpoint, 4 Redheughs Rigg, South Gyle, Edinburgh, EH12 9DQ, UK T: +44 (0) 131 313 2960 E: info@exceptionuk.com W: www.exceptionuk.com

MAGENTYS MagenTys is a UK and Australian based consultancy established in 2004. It helps retailers, digital agencies, government agencies and financial institutions improve software development and delivery through software testing, behavioural driven development and DevOps. The MagenTys experienced team of subject matter experts (SMEs) and engineers have successfully delivered solutions for enterprise data warehouses and ERP’s through to eCommerce and mobile applications for clients such as Marks & Spencer, Legal & General, Missguided, Bank of America, Thorntons, DWP (Government), ustwo and many more.

• Managed services with onshore teams - Testing – Strategy, leadership, planning, coaching, functional, performance, security, usability, accessibility, UAT, compatibility - DevOps – Management of your deployment environment in the cloud - Flexible support from ad-hoc project assistance to teams of 20+ • Automation consultancy - Deployment, Configuration, Testing, Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery.

• Technical consultancy - Java, Ruby, C#, .NET, SauceLabs, QTP,

Visual Studio, MS Dynamics, Team City, AppDynamics, BlazeMeter and more.

• Open Source Consultancy - Selenium, SpecFlow, Cucumber, Appium, jMeter, Jenkins and more.

• Strategy, Innovation and Thought Leadership - DevOps, behavioural driven development (BDD) and test process improvement (TPI).

Test automation using Selenium, Cucumber, SpecFlow, Appium, Sauce Labs…

MagenTys’ Java-based test automation framework built on Selenium and Cucumber is designed to aid BDD/Agile development and enable DevOps. Empower your teams to automate tests from day one.

A: AMP House Croydon Surrey CR0 2LX, UK T: +44 (0) 207 193 4850 E: contact@magentys.io W: www.magentys.io

Our Ruby-based test automation framework like jMCore is application agnostic and has out the box integration with Jenkins, TeamCity, Sauce Labs, Appium, Magento, Demandware, Hybris and more.

For Windows .NET environments, MagenTys has a C# based test automation framework.

Quickly integrate your Open Source technology stack with Visual Studio and enhance your testing capabilities and reporting.

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

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20 LEADING TESTING PROVIDERS

MASTEK A global, enterprise-level technology solutions provider, Mastek combines the strengths of a world-class product company with a specialist services organisation. Mastek’s Independent Testing Services (MiTS) are delivered by domain and testing experts who offer a quality service, working collaboratively to achieve outstanding business outcomes for its customers.

at working with a single service provider for several different testing services, rather than with multiple providers to source varied testing requirements. MiTS offerings enable businesses to accelerate the time-to-market for their products, and encompass:

Mastek’s tried and tested 4R approach leverages its global testing legacy of over three decades in cuttingedge technologies, tools and core domain,s including government, retail, healthcare and insurance. It utilises agile methodologies that deliver early business value and enable organisations to adapt to dynamically transforming IT environments.

Testing service offerings

•

Consulting services

•

Functional testing

•

Automation testing

•

Performance testing

•

Non-Functional testing

A: Penant House, 2 Napier Court, Napier Road, Reading, RG1 8BW, UK

Mastek’s flexible delivery model blends onsite and offshore implementation, and coupled with a collaborative culture makes it a trusted partner to its customers. With offices in six countries, Mastek operates across the UK, Europe, the US, Canada and Asia-Pacific.

T:

+44 (0) 792 018 1752

E:

Prasanna.Parthasarathy@mastek.com

W: www.mastek.co.uk

Mastek’s experience with numerous customers demonstrates its comfort level

MAVERIC SYSTEMS Maveric Systems Limited is a preferred “IT Lifecycle Assurance” partner to leading corporations in the Banking, insurance and telecom verticals in UK, Europe, APAC and Middle East.

The company’s Requirements Assurance, Application Assurance and Program Assurance services are aimed at eliminating quality, cost and time-to-market risks associated with large IT transformation programs. At the heart of Maveric’s value proposition is its “Assuranceonly” business model aided by Domain- and IP-led integrated solutions that cater to diverse assurance requirements from inception to golive.

Maveric’s best-in-class methods in requirements definition, requirements validation, project management, leading product configuration, ITIL process consulting and functional and non-functional testing have been widely recognised. Maveric was the recipient of Frost and Sullivan Product Innovation award, as well as the Banker Middle East Industry Awards for 2013 and 2014.

Maveric has been identified as a transformation specialist, serving “Transformation Focused Clients”, by NelsonHall, a leading analyst and advisory firm. In the UK and Europe, Maveric’s services have been enlisted by clients such as Citibank, Deutsche Bank, RBS, Capita, Tesco, MCIS Zurich and Ericsson. Maveric has also

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worked with emerging leaders such as Metro, Kleinworth Benson , KBL and Rabo Bank.

Maveric focuses on product implementation assurance and has, to its, credit multiple engagements around a large number of banking , insurance and telecom products, including Temenos T24, Flex Cube, Finacle, Eximbills, Trade Innovation, BankTrade, Fidessa, Sungard, Murex, Ingenium, TIA, BSCS, Siebel, TIBCO, CS5.

Maveric continuously strives to up-hold its commitment to the principles of independence, vertical focus and innovation.

Further, its “assurance only” focus, which favours depth over width, has resulted in many leading players selecting it as a niche vendor. Maveric has turned its insights across requirements definition, product configuration and acceptance testing into a licensable innovation called “AssureHawk”, which is a firstof-its kind Specifications Generating Platform for a number of applications, including Temenos T24 , Flexcube, VisionPlus and Tsys. Maveric has also introduced an integrated assurance platform that serves up a one-stop-shop for channel banking testing.

A: 5 Laybourne House, Admirals Way, London, E14 9UH, UK T: +44 (0) 207 001 0555 F: +44 (0) 207 538 3953 E: info@maveric-systems.com

jamied@maveric-systems.com W: www.maveric-systems.com

With a workforce of 1,200 located in offices across London, Princeton, Dubai, Singapore and Chennai, Maveric delivers 100% successful IT implementation to clients.

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

20 LEADING TESTING PROVIDERS

MICROSOFT Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realise their full potential.

Microsoft Visual Studio has advanced testing tools assure quality throughout the lifecycle of your application, enabling high quality software.

The testing tools in Visual Studio help you adopt testing practices such as manual, automated, exploratory, and load testing. These testing tools capture insightful information that is provided to the developer in context, within the development environment, so bugs are easier to reproduce and quality can be assured throughout the development process. In addition, testers can be more productive at planning, executing and tracking tests, both with the web-based test management tool or the rich experience provided by Microsoft Test Manager.

Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate, Premium and Test Professional include: • Comprehensive testing tools – Broad testing tools to enable manual, exploratory,

and automated testing of software, with work item planning and tracking interoperability.

• Continuous feedback loops – Rich stakeholder engagement and feedback gathering tools to enable continuous feedback loops in envisioning and building the right products.

• Visual studio team foundation server and Visual Studio Online – For full lifecycle compatibility and visibility.

• Test lab management simplified – Simple, powerful and flexible test lab management services to enable configuring and managing environments for executing tests.

To find out more visit: http://www. visualstudio.com/testing-tools-vs Download a trial of Visual Studio: www. microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/downloads

A: Microsoft Campus, Thames Valley Park, Reading, RG6 1WG, UK T: +44 (0) 118 909 4601 E: ukvs@microsoft.com W: www.microsoft.com/visualstudio

Find out about upcoming events and latest news by following our twitter @ VisualStudioUK

MINDFIRE SOLUTIONS Mindfire Solutions is one of the fastest growing companies offering software development and testing services, winning two distinguished awards in 2013 i.e., D&B Fastest Growing SME India and Deloitte Technology Fast50 India, in recognition of its performance and revenue growth rate over the years. It has the distinction of being an ISO 9001:2008 (Quality Management System) and an ISO 27001:2005 (Information Security Management System) certified company as well.

Mindfire Solutions has over 15 years of experience developing and testing software products and solutions, specialising in building offshore teams for our clients, operating from its offices in North, South and East of India – Delhi NCR, Bangalore and Bhubaneswar. With more than 650 people strength, mostly certified professionals, Mindfire Solutions serves over 300 small and mid-size clients in US, Europe and APAC regions.

Providing best-in-class testing services to its clients, Mindfire Solutions enables the delivery of high-quality software based on new as well as existing technologies. Its clients benefit from maximum coverage, faster turnaround times, greater productivity and cost-effectiveness. It has more than 100 certified testers and is one of the ISTQB Gold Partners.

Mindfire Solutions is experts in various testing skills – manual, automated, functional, nonfunctional, performance, security, regression,

enterprise, games, cloud, agile, cross platform, cross browser and cross device testing.

Over the years, Mindfire Solutions has done several projects for organisations in healthcare, publishing, media, advertising, education, insurance, realty and construction, logistics and transportation, loyalty and rewards, business intelligence, mobile and e-commerce.

Mindfire Solutions’ teams has experience with popular commercial and open source software testing tools (web, mobile and desktop) – project or test management, tracking and collaboration systems (JIRA, Agile, Confluence, Mantis), issue tracking tools, test automation tools (Selenium, QTP, Sikuli, Appium, Robotium), performance (Jmeter, Pylot) and security (Acunetix, Netsparker) testing tools.

A: 6th & 7th Floors, Assotech One, C-20/1/1A, Sector 62, Noida - 201309, India T: +1 248 686 1424 E: Sales@mindfiresolutions.com W: www.mindfiresolutions.com

Mindfire has relevant experience and shows readiness to start testing at the earliest possible or at any stage in the software development process, with or without any available documentation. It has helped its clients manage onsite and offshore team combinations, ramp up and down resources as per need, keep standby resources for production or mission-critical assignments, work in multiple shifts (different time-zones), keep isolated testing teams or setup, organise specialised teams as per domain and/or required skills.

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

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20 LEADING TESTING PROVIDERS

NEOTYS Simply powerful load and performance testing.

Neotys develops NeoLoad, a load testing software solution designed for web and mobile applications to realistically simulate user activity and monitor infrastructure behaviour. NeoLoad’s exclusive technology allows performance engineers to perform web and mobile testing more quickly, efficiently, and frequently, so they can immediately identify bottlenecks or issues and quickly get to root cause. We make it easy for our clients to assess the performance and reliability of their apps to ensure they meet business and user experience expectations.

Organisations around the globe have selected NeoLoad to test their applications because:

multiple cloud providers and geographies.

- NeoLoad has a lower Total Cost of Ownership to let our clients get better results from fewer resources.

The leader in web and mobile technologies NeoLoad enables testers to load test Internet, intranet or mobile applications whatever architecture they may use, even the newest such as WebSocket, AJAX Push, Flex, Silverlight and GWT. NeoLoad supports all web technologies, from major platforms such as PHP and HTML5 to particular web connectors like Facebook Connect.

T:

+33 442 180 830

W: www.neotys.com

Mobile and cloud testing fully integrated in one solution NeoLoad realistically tests mobile applications:

- NeoLoad is fast and automated. The scriptless GUI-based design enables clients to test 30-50% faster.

• Mobile network emulation.

- NeoLoad supports the latest web and mobile application technologies.

• Provides real device metrics under load.

- NeoLoad provides unmatched test realism event for complex application behaviours.

The Neotys Cloud Platform lets testers scale and distribute load tests geographically.

The centralised console provisions load generators from a variety of cloud providers in minutes.

- NeoLoad provides a single solution for in-house and cloud tests with on-demand cloud infrastructure fully integrated with

A: 389 av. du château de Jouques, 13420 Gemenos, France

• Record and playback all types of applications, from any device.

• Device/browser simulation.

PRACTITEST PractiTest is an innovative test management solution with a unique way of managing your QA and testing process.

Some of the system’s most noteworthy values are: the ability to simplify your team’s work; an ingenious organisation of complex testing information; and the flexibility to integrate with external systems – bug trackers (Jira, Bugzilla, Redmine, etc.), automation tools (Selenium, TestComplete, QTP, etc.) and additional development and testing platforms (e.g.

Jenkins, SVN).

As a hosted solution, you can connect and coordinate the work of your teams under a unified roof, start working quickly and without wasting time on installations and configurations, and connect from every major operating system and browser (even on tablets!).

For test managers, with the help of its dashboards and grids, PractiTest enables organisations to ensure visibility and communication at all levels. The system also helps R&D teams to streamline and define their process, while providing

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management with a clear and simple view of their project status at all times.

However, PractiTest’s strongest point is not its technical advantages, but rather its expert methodological real human support. A helpful team of testing experts available when you need them: During the deployment and training process, or even later when you want to review and improve your current configuration and setup. This human touch makes PractiTest a powerful solution at your disposal with continuous backing and resources to improve your QA process and get results.

PractiTest never rests and continues to develop its software while keeping up with trends in the world of testing and from feedback received by its users. Being a SaaS-only model on Amazon Web Services, it enables auto upgrades of the servers constantly; and uses the latest technologies such as: AngularJS, Twitter Bootstrap, Ruby on Rails, Memcached, and more to enable a fast, responsive and innovative user experience.

A: O’Hare Rosemont 5600 N River Road, Suite #800 Chicago, IL, 60018, USA T: +1 847 993 3064 E: info@practitest.com W: www.practitest.com

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

20 LEADING TESTING PROVIDERS

RANOREX Test Automation for Desktop, Web and Mobile Applications

layer. Moreover, addressing UI elements on your desktop, in the browser or on your mobile device is done by the powerful RanoreXPath, allowing your test scripts being robust against UI changes in the system under test.

What kind of application do you need to test?

Is it installed on the Windows Desktop? Does it run in a browser? Is it used on Smart Phones or Tablets? It does not matter which platform your software is developed for. Ranorex provides a cost-effective and comprehensive test automation tool to create reliable automated tests for any kind of application technology.

Due to its ease-of-use, increased testing accuracy and low cost-per-seat, Ranorex is an excellent choice for software teams of virtually any size or level of sophistication, and is now used by hundreds of enterprise and commercial software companies around the world.

Working in Teams – Not Everyone has to be an Expert!

Seriously, test automation is more than Capture&Replay, right? – You are right! At same time, we know that not everyone in a test team has the skills to implement automated test scripts. For this reason, the Ranorex tool set offers different test automation approaches making it easier to work in teams. Ranorex Studio assists testing teams working together on a test automation project. While domain testers might focus on which test cases have to be automated, automation experts concentrate on preparing reusable automation modules (key words).

Reduce Test Maintenance and become agile Not only software development teams move to agile methodologies. Also testing teams need to become agile too. Automated testing is one of the key factors to deliver in time and to ensure high software quality in today’s fast moving world. In processes like this, robust and reliable tests scripts are absolutely essential.

There is no time left to spend days for test script “reanimation”. Ranorex tools assist you in being prepared. A modern, object based test automation approach separates your logical test case structure from the technical identification

Ranorex

®

Entry Level Price: € 1,480.00 A: Strassganger Strasse 289, 8053 Graz, Austria T: +43 316 281328 E: info@ranorex.com W: www.ranorex.com

You don’t have any experts? No problem.

Ranorex Recorder is perfect to get started with Ranorex. Integrated in Ranorex Studio Ranorex Recorder is a lot more than classic Capture&Replay. It allows users to simply creating flexible and reusable automation modules without hitting the ‘Record’ button.

SOGETI UK Sogeti UK is a leading provider of local professional services, with over 20 years of experience in delivering cutting-edge, structured testing solutions that help customers achieve high quality, measurable and cost-effective results.

In the UK, Sogeti helps its clients benefit from its onshore and offshore testing solutions that include Test Process Improvement (TPI) assessments; functional and non-functional testing; performance testing; automation; agile workshops and testing; managed testing services; cloud advisory and testing services; and mobile device and application testing. Sogeti’s solutions and collaborative approach aim to increase speed to market, enhance software quality, mitigate risk and reduce costs.

Together Capgemini and Sogeti have one of the largest dedicated testing practices in the world. It operates through an enlarged network of test centres and professional test resource units worldwide, with a combined capability of 12,000 test professionals and a further 14,500 application specialists with test experience, in Europe, US, India and Asia Pacific region.

Sogeti’s many Centres of Excellence are fully equipped with state-of-the-art test processes, reusable proprietary test frameworks and templates, test tools and test solutions. Its comprehensive portfolio of innovative business-driven quality assurance (QA) and testing services combine best-inclass testing methodologies (TMap and TPI) and a global delivery model, Rightshore, to help organisations achieve their testing and QA goals.

Alongside Sogeti’s long-standing software testing services, it offers a range of non-testing solutions such as high-tech engineering and a range of services that stem from its strong alliance with Microsoft and IBM. These include application development and management; infrastructure optimisation; migration services; business intelligence; analytics and Big Data; smarter commerce; and social business.

A: 3rd Floor, 85 London Wall, London, EC2M 7AD, UK T: +44 (0) 207 014 8900 E: enquiries.uk@sogeti.com W: www.uk.sogeti.com

Sogeti is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Capgemini S.A., a global leader in consulting, technology, outsourcing and local professional services, with more than 125,000 professionals in 44 countries.

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

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20 LEADING TESTING PROVIDERS

SYSTEMS PLUS In today’s evolving economic climate, businesses across the globe are facing new challenges every day about how their company can adapt to keep themselves at the forefront of product innovation and therefore ahead of competition.

According to Systems Plus, by aligning itself with its customer’s business strategies and working alongside their team as the customer’s extended arm on a longterm basis, Systems Plus helps to achieve pioneering, yet affordable, structures that are truly unique to the business.

Systems Plus is a 700+ strong company with three delivery centres in India and sales offices in UK and USA serving customers worldwide. Its customers consider us to be large enough to deliver and small enough to care.

Systems Plus looks to optimise the testing processes through variety of services: •

Test consultancy

•

Automation testing

•

Security testing

•

Performance testing

•

Accessibility testing

Through Systems Plus’ proven assessment

model QuCheck, based on TMMi, it helps enterprise to implement TMMi framework based processes and methodologies.

Systems Plus is the partner of choice to many of our enterprise customer to establish QA practise within their organisation and enable quality driven deliverables both from within and third party service providers.

Hence, Systems Plus pride itself on the quality of our services and go the extra mile to give its customers an “Extra Byte”.

That’s why customers like Pepsi, Schneider Electric, Family Dollar, Guitar Center, Belk, Tropicana, Orangina Schweppes, Bank Mandiri trust Systems Plus to help them transform their business.

Systems Plus understands that for enterprise customers, the goals evolve with the change in the business scenario due to economic climate or competition, or both, and hence works with great flexibility with its pricing structure based on various model, albeit risk and reward, capex , fixed price or outcome based model

A: 2, Churchill Court, 58 Station Road, North Harrow, HA2 7SA, UK

T: +44 (0) 208 427 6505 E: anand.h@spluspl.com W: www.spluspl.com OR Scan QR code below

Along with Systems Plus’ testing services, it offers other services, including analytics, application development and maintenance, ecommerce solutions and system integration services

TESTING SOLUTIONS GROUP (TSG) Why is TSG different?

TSG services

• It is a pure-play testing consultancy that is fully independent and tool agnostic.

• Advisory Thought leadership, knowledge and experience that moves the boundaries.

• It has demonstrable return-on-investment models that illustrate how it can save its clients up to £4 for every £1 spent testing the TSG way.

• It mitigates its clients’ risk on their change programmes, through pragmatism and information you can rely on as factual and complete.

• Its clients can launch their systems safe in the knowledge they will both support their business and protect their brand.

TSG works with clients from executive level, to test managers, and business stakeholders through a range of services.

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• Strategic Knowledge, skills and experience to get you to the right place.

• Management Provision of test management to drive your programmes and enable decision making.

• Delivery and execution TSG gives you access to a wide range of skilled test resources to enable you to deliver your critical programmes and successful business outcomes.

• Training Developing teams with ISTQB Certified & NonCertified Test Training, test academy training to upskill teams, agile training and transition services.

A: 14-16 Dowgate Hill London, EC4R 2SU, UK

T:

+44 (0) 207 469 1500

E:

services@testing-solutions.com

W: www.testing-solutions.com

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

20 LEADING TESTING PROVIDERS

TEST PLANT The eggPlant range is a set of tools, which supports the design, development, test and management of software applications for mainframe, desktop and mobile use in any technology platform environment.

The eggPlant tools have been granted patents with several applications pending. The company’s achievements have been recognised within the software industry and by all the leading technology research firms.

The tools are relevant in agile, mobile, web and DevOps deployments. eggPlant use improves and reports on the quality and responsiveness of software systems, reduces time-to-market and lowers costs by introducing process automation.

TestPlant is also a Red Herring Global Top 100 company and was awarded a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2013.

A: 6 Snow Hill, London, EC1A 2AY, UK

PS: Have you seen TestPlant's latest product eggBox?… a test lab in a box!

T:

+44 (0) 207 002 7888

E:

marketing@testplant.com

W: www.testplant.com

TIBCO JASPERSOFT TIBCO Jaspersoft empowers millions of people every day to make better decisions faster by bringing them timely, actionable data inside their apps and business processes. Its embeddable, cost-effective visualisation, reporting and analytics platform allows anyone to quickly self-serve to get the answers they need, while scaling architecturally and economically to reach everyone. Thanks to a community that is hundreds-of-thousands strong, Jaspersoft’s commercial open source software has been downloaded millions of times and is used to create the intelligence inside hundreds of thousands of apps and business processes.

Jaspersoft BI Community is available for free download and provides reporting, analysis, and data integration functionality together with community-based support. In contrast, Jaspersoft BI Professional is a commercial license aimed at SMEs and ISVs and comes additionally with advanced functionality such as web-based design tools, integrated in-memory analysis, as well as customer support and guaranteed SLAs. Jaspersoft BI Enterprise represents a commercial packaging of tools for the most challenging of BI requirements with capabilities not included in the Professional Community editions, including audit logging, a relational OLAP server, data integration (ETL) and a multi-tenant server configuration.

Jaspersoft’s BI suite is: • Self-service focused – Provides self-service BI capabilities for all user types: interactive reporting for operational managers, interactive dashboards for executives, data exploration and analytics for analysts, data integration and data virtualisation for data architects and monitoring and diagnostics for IT. • Embeddable [for embedded] – Built to 100% web standards with comprehensive web service APIs and CSS-based UI for customisation; embeddable in any app, on-premises or in the cloud with full multitenancy, desktop or mobile.

A: The Digital Court, Rainsford Street, Dublin 8, Ireland T: +353 1 447 4300 E: sales-emea@jaspersoft.com W: www.jaspersoft.com

• Flexible – Built to 100% web standards; can be integrated into any IT stack no matter the OS, database, web app or app server; can be deployed on-premises or in a public/private cloud.

• Affordable – Economical to get started quickly with a small workgroup or to scale to thousands of users with a low-cost subscription model and no per-user fees.

• Scalable – built for the HTML5 web; scales to thousands of users, either standalone or inside an app; terabyte-scale, columnarbased in-memory engine allows analysis of Big Data.

OCTOBER 2014 | www.testmagazine.co.uk

PAGE 45

20 LEADING TESTING PROVIDERS

TRICENTIS Tricentis provides the leading enterprise software testing solutions for Global 2000 companies to accelerate business innovation. Tricentis’ unique model-based testing automation approach to software testing enables enterprises to achieve unprecedented automation rates, while minimising business-related risks.

Tricentis solutions empower organisations to systematically align software testing with business needs, so they can harness technology change while optimising cost and efficiency.

The company’s more than 400 customers include global brands Allianz, BMW, Deutsche Bank, HBO, Orange, Siemens, Swiss Re, and UBS. Its industry awards include Best in Test 2013.

Gartner recognises Tricentis as a visionary in its 2014 Magic Quadrant for Integrated Software Quality Suites Report. A fast-growing, privately held company, Tricentis has offices in the United States, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, the Netherlands, Australia and Singapore.

Tricentis benefits • Innovate faster with peace of mind – Tricentis technology identifies the most critical areas of your software, enabling business managers to quickly assess risk and manage release schedules with more accuracy, visibility, and control.

• Optimise cost and efficiency – Tricentis enables companies to avoid the maintenance trap in software test automation, delivering automation rates as a high as 90%.

• Reduce business-related risks – Tricentis’ riskbased software testing approach enables companies to align software testing with business needs in a systematic way.

• Tricentis uniquely delivers unprecedented automation rates – Tricentis helps enterprises achieve up to 90% test automation, speeding time-to-market, while enabling teams to focus on business innovation.

A: L eonard-Bernstein-Strasse 10, 1220 Vienna, Austria

• Strategic staff allocation – Tricentis enables companies to distribute testing efforts across a wider team and frees technical specialists to focus on highest-value initiatives.

E: office@tricentis.com

T: +43 (0)1 263 24 09

W: www.tricentis.com

• Minimised business risk – Tricentis enables companies to manage risk intelligently by prioritising tests with the highest business value.

• Leverage of existing testing assets – Tricentis helps companies protect and reuse testing assets, to leverage investments in tools, IT, training, and effort.

• Simplified business decision making – Tricentis gives managers an easy way to make more informed business decisions based on factors such as risk coverage, timeto-market, and resources.

• Technology change protection – Tricentis enables companies to leverage and extend existing software testing investments with minimal disruption to processes as new technologies emerge.

SOFTWARE TESTER

INNOVATION FOR SOFTWAR E QUALITY

VOLUME 6: ISSUE 4 AUGUST 2014 THE EUROPEAN SOFTWARE TESTER

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INNOVATION FOR SOFTWARE QUALITY

TEST: THE EUROPEAN SOFTWARE TESTER

TEST: THE

ON INNOVATI ARE FOR SOFTW QUALITY

www.testmagazine.co.uk

THE EUROP EAN SOFTW ARE TESTER

VOLUME 6: ISSUE 5 OCTOBER 2014 www.testmaga zine.co.uk

TESTER

R IS IT TIME FO A RETHINK? RAPID QUALITY AND MUST NT DEVELOPME ND -HA GO HAND-IN

NEW TECHNOLOGY BRINGS EMOTIONS TO LIFE

GEARING UP TO BREAK WORLD RECORDS TESTING A ROL

LS-ROYCE JET ENGINE...

THE EUROPEAN SOFTWARE TESTER VOLUME 6: ISSUE 5: OCTOBER 2014

VOLUME 5: ISSUE 4:

INNOVATION FOR SOFTWARE QUALITY

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INSIDE:

AUGUST 2013

S: WORLD NEWINSIDE: SNOWDEN EDWARD HIS LIFE DAY IN THE LIFE OF...

FEARS FOR AN SDET WS RVIE INTE EER : CARINTERVIEW: FOCUS ON TURN OFF SPYING, TURN ON FREEDOM

INSIDE: TESTA 2014 AND THE FINAL ISTS ARE...

AUTOMOTIVE TESTING THE REALITY OF CONNECTED CARS

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