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Software testing is getting important more than
ever what with IT systems getting more and more
distributed and complex and companies e-enabling
internal and customer processes.
On the technology front, companies are grappling
with multiple issues like shorter time to market,
cost pressures in the case of new products and
need to reduce sustenance cost, shorter cycle
time for product revisions in the case of mature
products. On the enterprise front, the key challenges
include testing on multi-various hardware and
software platforms, ensuring robustness of applications
thereby reducing the risk of failure and consequent
revenue loss, localization, globalization, performance
and load testing etc.
Testing phase could take as much as 40% of a typical
release life cycle, this combined with the fact
that testing activity peaks up at the fag end, there
is a great deal of pressure on the management to
squeeze timelines during this phase. Moreover Verification
and Validation has some additional challenges as
follows:
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Defect prediction
and effort planning |
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Role of an
independent testing team as the ‘voice
of customer’ |
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Effective return
on investment in test environment |
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Cyclic nature
of verification effort |
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Parallel or
overlapping product releases |
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Optimizing test effort
while at the same time maximizing test coverage |
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Detecting major issues
during the early phase of testing |
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Maximizing defect find
while at the same time minimizing ‘false’
bug reports |
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Customer scenario based
testing |
Many companies have realized a great deal of
value in outsourcing testing to a competent third
party service provider. Testing done by an independent
party not only enhances the company’s ability
to tap into a vast pool of talent but also hence
reduces the risk of critical failures post deployment.
The testing partner company will be able to leverage
its vast experience from multiple projects in
order to provide these benefits.
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