Software QA/Testing Technical FAQs

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How a particular test team is formed ?

Putting together a test team is
1 - get an understanding of the application being tested
2 - understand the underlying technologies
3 - understand the roadmap (future plans) for the product
4 - understand the budgetary limitations you are working under

Points 1 and 2 are pretty obvious. Point 3 is more to do with future planning (they might be moving from client/server to webapp, so dont go recruiting lots of client/server specialist - bad example, but you get the drift ..). Point 4 is important as it will determine not just the number of testers, but the skill level of the testers you can afford to employ, training required etc ...

Need a template for preparing the Test Environment.

Answer1:
A test environment can be as simple or as complex as can be, but it *must* be seperate from a development environment. In an ideal world, you'd have a DEVelopment environment, a TEST environment, an ACCeptance environment and a partitioned PRODuction environment.
The DEV environment no one in QA touches, the TEST environment no one in development touches, the ACCeptance environment is for acceptance testing by end-users and adminstrators, performance/stress/load testing and so on and should mirror the PRODuction environment. The PRODuction environment should be a live/'hot swap' configuration; the release is deployed to 'hot swap', tested by the administrators and final acceptance testing before being 'hot swapped' to live.

Answer2:
TEST ENVIRONMENT:
Setup of a test environment will require:
- Hardware
- Operating systems
- Software that needs to be tested
- Other required software like tools (And people who can use them)
- Data configurations
- Interfaces to other systems, communications
- Documentation like user manuals/reference documents/configuration guides/installation guides

Setting up a dedicated Test Environment is expensive and the following needs to be considered:
- To create an internal Test Environment or to outsource
- To follow any External (IEEE, ISO etc.) or Internal company standards
- The initial set-up & running costs
- How long will the Test Environment be required?
- How production like does it need to be? If the environment does not mirrors production then differences between the test and production systems and their impact on test validity must be determined.
- Can you support the environment either technically or within the building infrastructure?
- Could any exisiting setup for other projects in the company can be re-used
- Could the setup be used for other projects within the company? - Day to day management
- Procedures for controlling change (Configuration management) - Data loading and security requirements

What is the exact difference between functional and non functional testing?

Functional testing means we do functional testing to validate the functionality of the application against functional requirements document.we test for functionality of the application only. Non-functional testing means we do not test for functionality of the application System testing, load testing, stress testing, performance testing etc come under non functional testing.

How is testing affected by object-oriented designs?
A well-engineered object-oriented design can make it easier to trace from code to internal design to functional design to requirements. While there will be little affect on black box testing (where an understanding of the internal design of the application is unnecessary), white-box testing can be oriented to the application's objects. If the application was well designed this can simplify test design.

Standards and templates - what is supposed to be in a document?
All documents should be written to a certain standard and template. Standards and templates maintain document uniformity. It also helps in learning where information is located, making it easier for a user to find what they want. Lastly, with standards and templates, information will not be accidentally omitted from a document.

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