SiliconIndia's SoftTec Probes Deep into IT Testing Date:   Friday , December 03, 2010 The testing community today, and test managers in particular, are facing a number of new problems such as increasing complexity, ever-increasing demands to reduce time-to-market & the need for testers to take on more varied roles in the organization. The challenges in the testing arena often fumble the smartest of the professionals. SiliconIndia’s SoftTec event helps address the issues and concerns related to testing. The latest edition of the event that took place in Pune met with overwhelming response from the audience. The event brought several leaders from top-notch firms like STAG Software, Wipro Technologies, TestingCzar, Symphony Services, ITC Infotech, Mphasis, CanvasM, Tech Mahindra, Sonata Software, L&T Infotech, Mindtree and Mphasis. Hypothesis Based Testing (HBT) A new approach to detect defects during testing is by using HBT. The central theme is of constructing a hypothesis of potential defects that may be probable, and then scientifically proving that they do not indeed exist. The activities relate to formulating a scientific test strategy, designing test scenarios and cases that are indeed complete and proven to be adequate and then automating them as appropriate. In simple words, as T Ashok, Founder and CEO, STAG Software says, “HBT is a personal test methodology that enables rapid defect detection. Sharp goal clarity, purposeful activities, wide net are vital for good testing and cannot typically be speeded up by mere tools or the organizational process.” Test Optimization Realizing that we must develop reusable test strategies is no different than the reusability concerns of any good application development project. As we set out on our task of automating test, we must keep the past lessons forefront. In order to make the most of our test strategy, it needs to be reusable and manageable. To that end, there are some essential guiding principles while developing overall test strategy. Test automation is a fulltime effort, not a sideline; and test design and the test framework are totally separate entities. “Testing will be more aligned with business needs. Test Automation will become more important as quality will become everybody’s responsibility,” says Naveen Gurusiddaiah of Micro-Focus. Cloud-based Testing While the Cloud platforms vendors Amazon, IBM, Google and Rackspace are fighting to offer the cheapest and the most flexible environment for companies to use, cloud testing services is gaining momentum. Going forward there will be more test offerings in the Cloud. Cloud provides a way to quickly ramp up different environments on the fly without investing in physical environments. It breaks break physical barrier and allows executing tasks from any place with secured connectivity with an on-premise qualified resource to execute testing activities. Security “Security assurance is often an overlooked aspect of software quality. From buffer overflows to sql injection and arbitrary code execution, many of the vulnerabilities can be exposed by application modeling and deriving attack scenarios based on the assets so identified. The 3rd party modules and undocumented network protocols were identified as areas to focus for security testing,” says Mahesh Saptarshi, Technical Director, Symantec. It is an important to understand Binary and Protocol Security Assurance. Round-Up The Conference was designed for organizations and individuals who have technical proficiencies and leadership responsibilities within their respective discipline areas and are actively involved in the testing and quality process, development, and group dynamics. People were thrilled to learn about the entire array of the testing space in IT with specific sessions delving deep on one or the other type of specialized testing. This helped the attendees take away a lot from the event, making their venture into the event a worthwhile one. In the words of Dr. Mandaar B. Pande of Wipro, “It covered the whole gamut of the Testing space in IT. Overall a very well organized conference.”