kalilur rahman testingexperience 26 06 2014 mobile testing v2

The Magazine for Professional Testers

June 2014

26

Sep 29 – Oct 1, 2014 Berlin/Potsdam

Keynote Speakers:

Stefan BielauEntrepreneur,

consultant, CEO

Amazon Apps& Games

Jesse Freeman

COO at Axel Springer Ideas

Engineering

Dr. Chaehan So

Owner of Kohl Concepts Inc. and

consultant

Jonathan Kohl

Exec. Director at App Quali�

Alliance (AQuA)

Martin Wrigley

CTO Mobile & Co-Founder at runtastic GmbH

Christian Kaar

Design

Development

Testing

Marketing

Management

LEARN HOW TO CREATE BETTER MOBILE APPS!

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Testing Experience – 26/2014 1

Dear readers,Mobile app testing is becoming more and more popular. Almost all companies already have an app or are on their way to having one.

The question always is: “How on earth do we test it?” The point of view of some managers is that they don’t really care – it’s only an app.

And they may not understand the value of it for the company. At the beginning, the easiest and cheapest way of doing it is to use emula-tors and simulators. You can run a lot of tests with them and you may be happy with that. But I have to tell you a secret – your customer uses a smart phone and not an emulator!

I know that it is hard, but it is true. So you need to look for devices. You can buy them, if you have the money and the management skills for a rank of devices and so on, or you can use the cloud to rent devices or people with devices who could test for you.

There are several companies offering this service. Check them out. The solutions are “similar” but the prices, and especially the “support”, are quite different.

If you want to understand more about the mobile world, don’t miss our conference Mobile App Europe (www.mobileappeurope.com). It looks like we will rock the market.

Enjoy the summer and looking forward to seeing you at the MAE (Mobile App Europe).

All the best,

José Díaz


Keynote Speakers:

Stefan BielauEntrepreneur,

consultant, CEO

Amazon Apps& Games

Jesse Freeman

COO at Axel Springer Ideas

Engineering

Dr. Chaehan So

Owner of Kohl Concepts Inc. and

consultant

Jonathan Kohl

Exec. Director at App Quali�

Alliance (AQuA)

Martin Wrigley

CTO Mobile & Co-Founder at runtastic GmbH

Christian Kaar

Design

Development

Testing

Marketing

Management


TICKET PRICES NOW REDUCED!

BUY YOUR TICKET UNTIL JUNE 30 AND GET ADDITIONAL 15% OFF THE TICKET PRICE WITH THE EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT AT


The conference for applying innovative knowledge to the mobile app life cycle process.

SAVE OVER

400€

http://mobileappeurope.com/?utm_source=TE%2026&utm_medium=Magazin&utm_campaign=MAE%20Early%20Bird

2 Testing Experience – 26/2014

contents 26/2014

From the Editor ..................................................................................................1

Editorial Board ..................................................................................................4

Impact of the Digital Revolution in the Communications Industry on Testing Mobile and Web Applications over the Cloud .....8by Kalilur Rahman

Virtual Testing Farm on the Cloud ............................................................. 14by Ravikumar Bhadravathi Narasimha

TE TESTING TRENDS: Learn How to Create Better Mobile Apps ........ 24Interview with Uwe Gelfert

Advertorial: HP Supports the Software Testing World Cup With Their HP Agile Manager ............................................... 26by Felix Bergauer, HP

Reflecting on my Software Testing World Cup Experience ................ 29by Graeme Harvey

The Adventures of Captain QA ...................................................................32by Mike Sparks

Automated Acceptance Tests for Mobile Applications: Thoughts on Test Strategy ....................................................................................................34by Alexandra Schladebeck & Markus Tiede

Minimizing Garbage Collection Latencies on a Load Testing Software ........................................................................ 39by Michael Aleithe

Topics for a Data Warehouse Test Strategy .............................................43by Wayne Yaddow

COLUMN: EARLY IN THE MORNING ............................................................54by Erik van Veenendaal

Mobile App & Web Testing in the Cloud ..................................................57by Ravindra Pilli

Advertorial: ISTQB® announces Agile Foundation Module ................61

Not All Cloud Testing Tools Are Created Equal ...................................... 62by Mike Sparks

A Unified Framework for All Automation Needs ..................................66by Vladimir Belorusets, PHD

Quality Assurance Team’s Role in the Cloud-Testing Arena ...............72by Rajeswari Jayaraman

Key Lessons from Recent Peak Traffic Periods: 2013 Holidays, Sochi Olympics, and 2014 Super Bowl ............................77by Klaus Enzenhofer

Masthead ........................................................................................................80

Picture Credits ................................................................................................80

Index of Advertisers ......................................................................................80

http://www.ranorex.com/?utm_source=Testingexperience&utm_medium=magazine&utm_campaign=FullPageAd-Jun14


Mike is Managing Director of Learntesting Group (www.learntesting.com) and has a broad back-ground in systems development and testing stretching back 30 years. After starting his career in pharmaceutical research where he continued his education in Chemistry, he moved into IT where he worked in the Telecoms, Pharmaceuti-

cals and Banking sectors. Mike became an independent consultant in 1984 and initially worked in the development of critical financial applications. He was the original author of the T-Plan Test Process Management tool which was first implemented by The Bank of England in 1989 (www.t-plan.co.uk) He also founded ImagoQA Ltd which at the time was the largest independent test consultancy in the UK with global operations in the USA and Australia. Over the past 20 years, Mike has produced a series of papers about Test Process and Test Management and presented numerous seminars in these subjects together with IT Governance and Information Traceability. Mike was on the presenter list at the very first STAR conference in Las Vegas, 1992 and has also presented at EuroSTAR and StarWEST in more recent years. Mike is using experience of various entrepreneurial start-ups, board-level appointments as well as his testing and QA background to develop ways in which the profile of testing can be raised in a manner that can be better un-derstood by key business and IT stakeholders. Mike is Vice-Chairman of the UK Testing Board (which represents the UK on the Interna-tional Software Testing Qualifications Board – ISTQB) and the Chair-man of the ISTQB Advanced Level Syllabus Working Group. Mike’s interests include cookery, wine, cy cling, reading, quizzes, sport in general especially cricket and football. Mike was elected a member of the General Committee at Essex County Cricket Club in 2007 following over 10 years of involvement in sponsorship, players’ ben-efits and [email protected]

Mike Smith

Erik is a leading international consultant and trainer, and a widely recognized expert in the area of software testing and quality management with over 20 years of practical testing experiences. He is the founder of Improve Quality Services BV (www.improveqs.nl) and one of the core develop-ers of the TMap testing methodology and the

TMMi test improvement model. Erik is a regular speaker both at national and international testing conferences and holds the Euro-STAR record winning the best tutorial award three times! In 2007 he received the European Testing Excellence Award for his outstand-ing contribution to the testing profession over the years. He has been working as a test manager and consultant in various domains, including finance, government and embedded software. He has written numerous papers and a number of books, including “Risk-based Testing: The PRISMA Approach”, “ISTQB Foundations of Soft-ware Testing” and “The Little TMMi”. Erik is also a former part-time senior lecturer at the Eindhoven University of Technology, vice-president of the International Software Testing Qualifications Board (2005–2009) and currently vice chair of the TMMi Foundation.www.erikvanveenendaal.nl

Erik van Veenendaal


Graham’s experience in testing spans more than 30 years and has covered a wide range of domains and technologies. As a test manager he has been responsible for the testing of mission-critical systems in spaceflight, telecommunications and police incident-control. Graham has designed tests to the highest levels of rigour within real-

time aerospace systems. As a principal consultant for T-Systems, the systems division of Germany’s leading telecommunications com-pany Deutsche Telekom, he has mastered the Quality Improvement Programs of major companies, primarily in the financial and govern-ment sectors. In his current position Graham is responsible for the test consulting group. He has built up a training program to include all levels of the ISTQB certification scheme, including the new Expert Level, for the company’s large staff of testing professionals. Graham is the chairman of the ISTQB Expert Level Working Party and co-author of both Advanced Level and Expert Level syllabi.

Graham Bath

Maik Nogens works as a testing consultant with Díaz & Hilterscheid, where he focuses on the agile aspects of software testing. His 19 years of work experience include being a NATO naval broadcast team leader in the German Navy HQ and a project leader in the Middle East (Bahrain) as well as working in software development com-

panies as a tester and QA in different industries. Since joining Díaz & Hilterscheid, he completed many projects in the banking industry, in medical software companies and various agile adaptations. These projects range from Kanban implementation and conducting of Testing Dojos to the more traditional roles in test management, test infrastructure planning and tool support. As part of his passion to support the profession of testers and testing, he is very active in many peer and community setups. Maik is a co-founder of two in-ternational peer networks, GATE (German Agile Testing and Explor-atory Workshop) and PotsLightning (the pre- Agile Testing Days event held in Potsdam). In his hometown Hamburg he moderates the STUGHH (Software Test Usergroup Hamburg) and also leads the special interest group “Agility” for the ASQF organization in Germany. He is a black belt in the Miagi-Do School of Software Test-ing, attended the BBST foundation course, is a practicing CAT (Cer-tified Agile Tester) trainer, conducts Testing Dojos and runs work-shops for Kanban, SCRUM and other agile areas. He is a CSM, a CAT and holds the ISTQB Full Advanced Level.

Maik Nogens

Gary Mogyorodi has over 30 years of experience in the computing industry. He consults, trains and mentors in software testing, specializing in Re-quirements-Based Testing and Cause-Effect Graphing test case design. His customers include organizations from medical, retail, banking, and telecommunications. He is the co-developer of

the Ambiguity Checker software, a tool for identifying potential ambiguities in requirements. Mr. Mogyorodi is the President of the Canadian Software Testing Board. He is an accredited ISTQB Instruc-tor at the Foundation and Advanced Levels (Test Analyst and Test Manager). He teaches for a number of accredited ISTQB training providers.

Gary Mogyorodi

57 years old. Specialist in software testing. Inde-pendent consultant in software testing and test-ing improvement matters. Guest lectures at several universities in Norway about Quality As-surance and Software Testing. Public and inhouse seminars in Software Review and Testing in Scan-dinavian and European countries. Regularly

speaking at conferences. Several best paper awards (Best presenta-tion award at CONQUEST 2003, best paper in 2004). Test coordina-tor, ISEB Certified Tester (Foundation Level), ISTQB Certified Tester (Foundation and Advanced Levels) Chairman of Norwegian Testing Board. Active participant in running museum trains in Norway, certified for safety critical services on steam locomotives. M. Eng. from Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany. Computer science, railway signaling. Development of real time process control software at the Fraunhofer-Institute in Karlsruhe, Germany. Work with Center for Industrial Research in Oslo, Norway. Development of parts of an IDE-tool (Systemator). Later developing test tools and leader of quality improvement program. Consulting and lecturing about software quality.

Hans Schaefer

Paul is a consultant, teacher, author, webmaster, programmer, tester, conference speaker, rowing coach and most recently a publisher. He has con-ducted consulting assignments in all aspects of software testing and quality assurance, specialis-ing in test assurance. He has presented keynote talks and tutorials at testing conferences across

Europe, the USA, Australia, South Africa and occasionally won awards for them. Educated at the universities of Oxford and Imperial College London, he is a Principal of Gerrard Consulting Limited and is the host of the UK Test Management Forum.

Paul Gerrard


Arjan Brands has acted as a test and quality man-agement consultant since 1996. His focus is on process and strategy issues related to testing. As author of TPI Automotive (test process improve-ment) and test consultant for several branches and companies, Arjan has very broad experience in test management, test process improvement

and other quality related themes. Arjan is currently working as a team lead “Agility and Quality” and as a managing consultant for Díaz & Hilterscheid Unternehmensberatung GmbH (Germany), focusing on agile transition and testing activities in agile projects. He is also one of D&H’s trainer for different programs (CAT, ISTQB and IREB).

Arjan Brands

Andreas leads the Agile Software Factory (ASF) at codecentric. For more than four years, he is a cer-tified Scrum Master. Since then he could contrib-ute his competencies in small and large (> 300 persons), internal and external, or local and global projects as developer, scrum master or product owner. Meanwhile, he’s also a Profes-

sional Developer Scrum Trainer, conducting a hands-on training for Scrum team members, which codecentric has developed together with scrum.org and in which he shares with joy the knowledge gained in the ASF. More than 15 years ago, his interest in JavaSE/EE awakened, and it never vanished since then. His focus at codecentric is the continuous improvement of the development process in the Agile Software Factory, where technical, organizational and social possibilities are the challenging, external determining factors.

Andreas Ebbert-Karroum

Yaron has been working in software since 1990, and has more than 20 years in testing field as a Test Engineer, Testing TL, and Testing Manager. His original profession was Systems Analyst. Yaron Tsubery is the current CEO and founder of Smartest Technologies Ltd and has been a Direc-tor of QA & Testing Manager at Comverse since

2000 until 2010. Yaron was in charge of a large and distributed group that includes Testing Team Leaders and Test Engineers. The group deals with Functional, Non-functional, Load & Performance tests, some of which are done off-shore. The group has much experience in managing and controlling acceptance tests. Yaron is also known as a manager who has built testing groups in his past and also acted as a consultant to testing managers while they were building their testing groups. Yaron worked in Product Management, Project Management and Development for at least 3 years before becoming a Director of QA & Testing. Yaron has wide experience in banking business processes. For the last 10 years he has implemented best practices in a field where he is in charge of producing complex systems for telecommunication companies such as Vodafone, T-Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, Verizon Wireless etc.; Main systems in Mobile technology: i-mode, Mobile GateWay and Billing Proxy; in System Integration projects: Content Data Management solutions includ-ing OSS & BSS sub-systems, Video Solutions, IPTV and IMS. Yaron is the current President of ISTQB® (International Software Testing Qualifications Board – www.istqb.org) and is also the President and founder of the ITCB (Israeli Testing Certification Board – www.itcb.org.il). He is a member of IQAMF (Israeli QA Managers Forum) and in SIGiST Israel. Yaron has been invited as a speaker to some impor-tant international conferences to lecture on subjects related to testing, as well as he wrote articles that were published in profes-sional magazines.

Yaron Tsubery

Gualtiero has been working in the IT and testing domain for the last 20 years; he is author of more than 50 publications on the topics of sw quality and testing; he currently holds the following po-sitions: Managing Director of Alten Italia, Chair-man of ITA-STQB, the Italian Board of ISTQB® of ISTQB® Marketing Working Group, Chairman of

STF – Software Testing Forum, the most important event on testing held annually in Italy.

Gualtiero Bazzana

In the IT industry for more than twenty years, Mieke Gevers has developed a special interest in the techniques and processes relating to perfor-mance management and automated testing. Mieke is a regular speaker at conferences and organizations worldwide. She served on the Pro-gram Committee for the EuroSTAR conference in

2007 and 2009 and was Program Chair of the Belgium Testing Days 2011 and 2012. A co-founder of the Belgian Testers Organization, Mieke has been a board member of KVIV and the ISTQB-affiliate Belgian Software Testing Qualifications Board.

Mieke Gevers

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Kalilur Rahman

Impact of the Digital Revolution in the Communications Industry on Testing Mobile and Web Applications over the Cloud

The evolution of social media and activism has put consumer acceptance at the forefront of any technologi-cal decision. This evolving landscape has led to a new wave of empowerment amongst the consumers of today to influence key decisions based on their needs. Be it the

“Internet of Things”, “Social Media”, “Mobility”, “Ana-lytics”, “Cloud”, or “Everything as a Service”, leading technology companies today focus on solving the most complex consumer issues with the simplest possible solu-tions. Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Digital Agenda, stated that “data is the new oil”[1] and going by the proverb scienta est potenta – which means knowl-edge is power – the digital revolution supports innova-tion, growth, and advances in human capability. Hence, organizing this huge information base and translating it into tangible, consumable knowledge poses a challenge for testing these technologies. Testing has never been as exciting as it is today because of its creative, innovative, and agile needs which can cater to the rapidly growing mobile, multi-modal, and omniscient customer channels of today.

Evolution of a Digital Revolution

How does the digital revolution impact the communications industry? According to a survey by Ericsson, by 2020 there will be 5 connected devices per customer in mature markets, 1.5 billion connected vehicles, 100 billion processors with USD 1.2 billion in revenue generated by smart devices. A staggering statistic isn’t it?

According to a High Performance IT Survey [3], high-performers are distinct due to their ability to focus on customers and deliver on consumer needs, focus on the context of customer interaction, have a combined IT and business strategy to deliver value, be agile and nimble at the same time, have an expansive cloud-based infrastructure helped by virtualization and tighter security, and have a “working and proven” analytics engine to monetize customer interactions and the data available. Most impor-tant is a focus on data veracity to make decisions, and deliver products and services more swiftly with higher quality and stronger customer contact via an omniscient channel presence.

Some big-league players in the digital landscape, like Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, have set the trend and are continuously upping their game in information management and data crunching. This has mandated a redefinition of innovation from enterprise-centric to consumer-centric.

Along with a focus on the right tools for information management, companies are also placing increasing significance on customer expe-rience by introducing newer wow-factors at every customer contact. Newer technologies for customer care, customer relevance, ways of collaboration, information access, privacy and security of personal data, transactional information, etc. are making inroads into the ecosystem and replacing the traditional call center experience. Technology leaders focus on investing in innovative technology early and break away from the market as leaders. The cases in point are Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to name a few.

The communications Industry has been a pioneer for advances in the digi-tal growth of mankind – from the first telegraph to the latest machine-to-machine ‘Internet of things’ revolution. The current focus of leaders in the communications industry is to “provide the right information to the right person at the right time”, meaning customer analytics, data veracity, and innovative product and service offerings, “find better ways to interact with customers”, which is about having omniscient always-on, multi-modal channels to interact, and “deliver new services or products to customers”.

Communication service providers across the globe have come up with the “build-your-own-bundle” mechanism which offers consumers much needed flexibility and choice, and embraces the BYOD wave. In a broader context, to survive the cut-throat competition, telecoms firms are ex-panding their digital marketing strategy to both long-term ARPU and innovative short-term spikes in ARPU with creative offerings. These may be daily use data bundles, pay-per-use OTT TV, freemium offers (to increase ad revenue), value-added services such as a trusted service manager for a “bank in a box/device” type of offering, etc. – enabled by mobility, NFC, or other advanced technologies.

With the increase in phablets, smartphones and connected devices (expected to exceed USD 250 billion by 2020[4]), a majority of the revenue for services will come from digital data consumption, which would lead to increased investment and innovation in technology. Mobile service providers are seeing a decline in voice and SMS revenues with the advent of viral-social messaging leaders who are coming up with creative ways


to tap the market. On the other hand, the cost of service for the service providers increases with every data-hungry smartphone that is added to the network. The key need is a fine balance between these two. How can the mobile service providers cross the chasm? This can be done by understanding Business+Technology is > IT. Adapting to the changing consumer – to connect multi-channel to different customer segments, by brand differentiator with niche and differentiated customer experiences (such as an Apple Store experience), and a seamless digital customer experience in a multi-channel, multi-device, multi-platform delivery.

KYC is the new norm, and customers today want the service firms to know them by providing customer-centric interactions and offers, showing them that the service provider knows them – by a personalized service offer through knowing their channels and products of preference, and enabling them with “relevant” products and offers. This is feasible with customer analytics and data monetization of the predictive analytics of consumer behaviors. Certain retail firms are having a field day by targeting marketing to consumers based on their buying patterns and preferences, and increasing their spend per visit by targeted market-ing, ads, and placements. Similar customer-centric mobile care can be delivered by the market leaders.

In a digital world where supply exceeds demand for the customer, the context of interaction is key. Customers have many choices when evalu-ating a vendor before buying their services or switching over. As the customers are constantly in a channel, customer segmentation analytics play a key role. Here, digital analytics such as big-data, predictive analysis, and forecasting are vital. Some of the Wall Street analysts were able to predict the quarterly performance of certain retailers by checking the car parking density available over GPS-enabled maps to forecast growth numbers, and a retailer in the US was able to predict types of products for a female customer based on buying patterns, and sending relevant coupons and ads to her home. Many market leaders are doing analyses on “how much is their data worth” to monetize digital customer behav-iors, buying patterns, and other information to provide predictive and prescriptive analytics. In certain cases, the value of the customer data could run into several billions. Netflix[9], for example, analyzes metrics on customer browsing patterns, and types of scenes they pause and replay to target movies – features that could be of interest to customers. Similarly, certain leaders (such as AT&T)[6] are using analytics to conduct sustainability and corporate social responsibility tasks better by start-ing a carbon war room. Hence data analytics – which is a key part of the digital revolution – plays a very important role here.

Two other key elements of the digital revolution are virtualization and software-defined networking. Aided by cloud and advanced technolo-gies, market-leading firms are able to make changes rapidly using the Agile framework and expand their capacity. Web giants such as eBay[7]

are able to rapidly develop, test, and deploy features using a virtualized production infrastructure without the need to change application or infrastructure components by rapidly reconfiguring the networks using SDN. Some of these deployments happen in minutes. Given that every minute is worth a few millions of revenue for eBay, this digital technol-ogy advancement is a game-changer.

Given that digital data is likely to grow by a factor of 300 or more (with a forecast of about 5200 GB for every human by 2020[8]), digital data will double in size every two years, in a tautologically similar construct to the famous Murphy’s Law. With this large growth in volume, what is



needed is data veracity and the ability to digest information and make the right decisions faster. SAP’s HANA technology promises 10000[9] to 20000-times faster performance for the companies using SAP and the 10+ customers leveraging the service. Similar advances in data technol-ogy, such as Hadoop, Cloudera, R, MapReduce, NoSQL, Exadata, Google Analytics, etc., contribute to explosive growth in good analytics that can lead to a better customer experience, efficient data monetization, and efficient spending on IT and marketing.

With the phenomenal growth in data, cloud and omni-channel interac-tions comes an increasing threat to security. In the new digital world, data security has become a paramount priority for the digital leaders. They are well aware of the business risks posed by security threats, as it could result in damage to intellectual capital, operational risk due to outages, and loss of business or a reputational risk when customer data is stolen and makes the headlines – notwithstanding the legal and financial fine-related risks.

From a communications industry customer perspective, to be the mar-ket leader in the digital economy it becomes a priority for the service providers to ride the digital wave by having:

a. The right customer experience management, segmentation, and marketing spend to get better ROI and ARPU.

b. A market-leading approach to digital and social media marketing, connects and conversion of leads to cash.

c. Multi-channel, always-on platform for sales, fulfilment, assurance, and billing services to customers.

d. Next generation, real-time, flexible, customer-customisable plans, bundles, and offers integrated with efficient order management and billing systems.

e. Lightweight, lightning-fast cloud and web services-based channel and platform integration architecture.

f. Real-time fulfilment, assurance, and billing platforms.

g. Effective customer analytics, insight, segmentation, and market-ing insights for data monetisation, campaign and marketing management, efficient sales pipeline management, and enhanced customer experience.

h. An always-on personalised, secure customer care platform via dif-ferent channels and segments.

i. Secure and flexible platform to meet increasing demands.

j. Agility to develop and deliver new products and features in a rapid fashion.

k. Ability/infrastructure to actively fend off security threads by safe-guarding customer data, intellectual capital, and critical business processes.

l. Continuously innovating technology that is greater than (>) the combined best of business and IT.

Testing Innovation for a Digital, Mobility, Web and Seamless Cross-Channel Customer Experience

To test efficiently for a changing landscape, i.e. moving away from the established practice of individual application interfaces, to testing the integration touch-points of a closed-loop enterprise integration consist-ing of custom/legacy applications or a green-field system integration implementation, or to a hybrid integration involving legacy and the likes, it is important to have a test strategy that will allow the organization to deliver test innovation for digital/SMAC areas.

With the explosive growth in application stack and testing needs, some of the areas can be grouped as shown in table 1.

In addition to various types of testing/test phases, some key areas of focus for innovative, industrialized test delivery could be:

▪ Having a comprehensive test framework covering testing across platforms, devices, and channels.

▪ Use of an innovative tooling strategy to cover the various test phases/types and environments to test.

▪ Ability to perform cloud-based remote testing to:

▪ Reduce testing schedule and for faster time to market.

▪ Improve omni-channel customer experience.

▪ Manage and control devices/access platforms/browsers/OSs centrally for vertically-integrated platforms, and provide globally dispersed teams with access to common devices to perform testing.

▪ Innovative “automation strategy” to test various types of vertically-integrated platforms and devices.

▪ Ability to support global sites and localisation of applications.

▪ Ability to test end-to-end across the SDLC for “digital” applications.

▪ Need to integrate testing into the end-to-end SDLC with integrated tooling that allows for agile/rapid implementations, continuous automated test delivery, virtualised infrastructure to leverage

“utility”-based test delivery model by leveraging testing-as-a-service, process Innovation with testing maturity by adhering to standards/frameworks, Agility to integrate testing with any type of tool such as Open Source, market leading or custom implementa-tions, etc.

▪ Ability to improve maturity of the testing organisation before reap-ing the benefits of the productivity advantages (such as automa-tion) offered by various tools

With the digital revolution changing the technology landscape, a lot of complexity arises:


S.No Digital Trend Business Expectations Testing Implications

1 Consumerisation of mobility • Need to cover customer experience across channels, devices and platforms

• Need to cover localization and preferences

• Localisation testing• Cross-browser testing• Cross-platform testing• Security testing• Compatibility testing• Big data testing (for preferences)

2 End-to-end security • Personalised services• Access to data (sensitive and non-sensitive,

personal and public)

• End-to-end security testing for• Device• Data• Network• Perimeter and vulnerability

3 One-to-many omni-channel, omni-device, omni-platform ap-plication

• Cross-platform mobile app, device and platform testing

• Multi-variant testing for• Devices

• Hardware• Usability and UI• Memory/storage• Features • Multi-tasking vs. uni-tasking ability• Battery consumption (due to applica-

tion)• Language/content support• Network features• Wi-Fi vs. mobile network (2G->5G)• Etc.

• Platforms

4 Anytime, anywhere, any type ecommerce/web application

• Business efficiencies• Application security• 24×7×365 availability needs

• End-to-end functional testing• End-to-end security testing• Innovative performance testing• Rapid test delivery driven by SDN and

rapid build, test, and deploy model

Table 1

a. Advances in ecommerce platforms have changed the way we trade, buy and sell things (for various types of daily commodities as well as luxury goods), and transact money.

b. Advances in the cloud computing infrastructure and services have lead to utility computing for organisations with a myriad of options for their IT and delivery infrastructure (private, virtual private, public, hybrid clouds) for software application, platform and infrastructure services.

c. Mobility growth and data monetisation opportunities due to ex-plosive growth (catalysed by the cloud, and social and ecommerce growth) and the need to manage this growth efficiently.

d. The pervasiveness of technology enables multi-channel anytime anywhere access and the blurring of life’s physical and digital barriers.

e. Next generation disruptions, such as wearable technologies, 3D printing, 3D interfaces for technology, software-defined network-ing, healthcare improvements, connected vehicles, Internet of things.

Along with these complexities, the challenges of testing arise. If normal testing costs are around 32% of application development, then with the changes in investment for the explosive growth of technology, the demand for testing services will grow over next few decades. However, the majority of the growth will be for automated and intelligent test services rather than human-dependent test services.

What this means is that testing would need to support:

▪ Different facets of testing (i.e. test phases)

▪ More efficient and effective testing (with more £€$$)

▪ More rapid testing

▪ Continuous testing

▪ Testing with more automation

▪ Preparation of pre and post requisites with automation

▪ Replacement of time-consuming admin tasks by tools


Kalilur Rahman is a Senior Manager working for Ac-centure. Kalilur is a seasoned IT professional with 17+ years of experience in the telecommunications indus-try working for wireline, wireless, cable, MSOs, terres-trial carriers, and communication Industry standard-ization leaders across a myriad of telecommunications functional areas. He has played vital IT delivery roles in complex programs and these roles have covered all

SDLC phases. In his current role as an End-to-End Program Test Manager for a large-scale testing factory in a TCoE for a global telecoms giant, Kalilur focuses on improving the test delivery for a big global business line. Prior to his current role, Kalilur led the managed delivery of a TMMi Level 4-certi-fied TCoE ,end-to-end test program and managed a large retail logistics transformation program for a global mobile telecom giant‘s UK geography retail store transformation. Additionally, Kalilur has delivered a test trans-formation road-map and delivered testing service transformation tools using a global delivery model. Kalilur was a key/founding member of a large end-to-end testing deal for a leading communications company. As a firm believer in “Knowledge is Power”, he is passionate about writing and shar-ing his knowledge. He is an active member in the TeleManagement Forum and has contributed to a lot of internal initiatives in the organizations he has worked for. Before Accenture, he worked with Cognizant Technology Solutions and Tata Consultancy Services. Kalilur has an Engineering degree in Computer Science. @krahmanhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/kalilurrahman

> about the author

▪ Testing for various combinations

▪ Cross-platform/cross-browser/cross-geography testing needs

▪ Testing for compliance and regulatory requirements

▪ Testing for security

As the testing service evolves, the growth in intelligent test services, tools, technologies, and methods will increase. Whether it is automated test services for cross-browser or cross-platform testing; automated robotic device validation testing; automated anytime simulated field; network validation testing for communications services and application validation testing; automated multi-channel, multi-lingual, or multi-variant test services for various permutations; automated verification of content (such as bills, images, and user interfaces), or non-functional aspects, we are looking at the tip of the iceberg of the testing revolution.

Conclusion

Given the need to rationalize operations, system stack, and the legacy system complexity, some of the tenured communications industry gi-ants are starting to make the digital transformation slowly. The real threat comes from technological innovators who are foraying into the stronghold of telco giants with their digital technological might. It may not be long before the communications industry becomes fully com-moditized horizontal, spanning across industries, in lieu of being a technology-centric vertical. All these technological advancements (In-ternet of things, machine-to-machine, social media, mobility, analytics, cloud, everything-as-a-service (EAAS/XAAS), data management, security, and virtualization) will lead us along that path. To conclude, there will be a strong digital divide between the leaders and laggards in the com-munications industry and it will be the “survival of the fittest” in the long run. It is a good idea to start investing and making the best of the digital technologies. With this explosive growth in digital technologies, the demand for testing maturity will be very high, the need for innova-tion will reach its zenith, and it presents a very interesting situation and a challenging growth situation for testing professionals to deliver. ◼

References

[1] http://www.thenewfederalist.eu/Neelie-Kroes-Information-is-the-new-oil,04732

[2] Accenture Tech Vision 2013 Microsite - http://www.accenture.com/Microsites/it-trends-innovations-2013/Pages/home.aspx

[3] Accenture High performance IT Review Report 4

[4] “M2M 2012: Fragmented Requirements Still Biggest Challenge for Internet of Things,” IHS, 2012.

[5] Making Data Visible So You Can Act on It,” MIT Sloan Manage-ment Review, December 11, 2012.

[6] “EBay Goes Live with Virtual-Networking Maverick Nicira,” Wired, August 7, 2012.

[7] “The Digital Universe in 2020: Big Data, Bigger Digital Shadows, and Biggest Growth in the Far East,” IDC/EMC, December 2012.

[8] More than 50 billion connected devices - http://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/whitepapers/wp-50-billions.pdf

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