What Do You Mean By Alpha Testing? Today, we are going to study about alpha testing in this article. It is a very important phase in the software testing process. A software testing course can help you prepare for a career in this field. If you are based in Pune, a software institute in Pune will offer you various testing related courses. Now, Let's come back to discussing alpha testing. Alpha testing is amongst the most widely practiced software testing strategy utilized as a part of software development. Its especially utilized by the product development companies. Alpha testing can be termed as a kind of acceptance testing; performed to distinguish every single conceivable issue/bugs before releasing the software product to end users or public. The main of this testing is to recreate genuine users by utilizing blackbox and whitebox techniques. The point is to execute all the tasks that a run of the mill user may perform. Alpha testing is done in a lab scenario and generally the testers are in house representatives of the company. To put it as straightforward as could be possible, this sort of testing is called alpha simply because it is done at an early time, close to the end of the development of the product, and prior to beta testing. Some characteristics of Alpha testing:
Alpha testing is simulated or real time environment testing by potential clients/end users or an independent test team at the developers' site. Alpha testing is regularly utilized for off-the-rack software as a type of internal acceptance testing, before the software product goes to the beta testing phase. Alpha testing is nothing but testing of an application when the development phase is going to end. Small design related changes can even now be executed on account of alpha testing. Alpha testing is normally carried out by a team that is not a part of the design team, yet at the same time, within the organization, e.g. in-house software testing engineers, or software QA engineers. This test is conducted at the developers location. Developers keep an eye on the users and note down the issues observed by them. Alpha testing is the final round of testing before the product is released to the end user. It has two stages: ◦ In the first phase of alpha testing, the software product is tested by the in-house team of developers. They utilize either debugger software, or hardware based debuggers. The objective is to discover the bugs really fast. ◦ In the second phase of the alpha testing process, the product is given over to the software QA team, for additional testing in an environment that is identical to the proposed use.
Alpha testing makes use of both the black box and white box testing techniques. Security testing and reliability testing are not a part of the in-depth alpha testing.
A lengthy execution cycle can be required in case of alpha testing. Critical bugs or fixes can be tended to by developers promptly in Alpha testing.
Advantages of alpha testing:
Clear perspective of the reliability pf the product is given at an early stage. It helps in reproducing the real time user conduct and his environment. It helps in recognizing genuine threats or bugs and permits quick action towards their resolution.
Disadvantages of alpha testing: It is not possible to test the software with in depth functionality being covered, as it still lies in the development phase. That was regarding alpha testing and the various aspects related to it. Doing a software course is what is recommended, if you want to enter the field of software development or software testing.