Articles

Pyramid in Egypt Inverting the Test Automation Pyramid

A growing company was tasked to develop a test automation program from scratch, change its coding practices, and build a continuous testing toolchain. Martin Ivison details how they did it, including realizing that implementing the traditional test pyramid wasn't going to work—it would have to be turned upside down. They found out that small is beautiful, cheap is good, and cultural change matters.

Martin Ivison's picture Martin Ivison
Power button Simplify Continuous Operation Tests with a Periodic Reboot

Continuous operation tests find important bugs, partly as a result of their long operation and partly by increasing the probability of finding statistical bugs. However, CO tests have their own downsides. Mandating a periodic reset or reboot can work around these issues, as well as save time and cost for testing, reproduction, debugging, and fix verification.

Michael Stahl's picture Michael Stahl
Icon of a dial showing good system performance Measuring the Performance of Your Operations Center

Many organizations have problems with consistently tracking and measuring system outages. Issues aren't logged, admins make changes to systems without going through change management, and a high number of issues turn out to be recurring problems. Implementing a performance measurement process calculates system reliability and can help you improve consistency.

Nels Hoenig's picture Nels Hoenig
 Four Solutions Compared How to Test Your Website on Multiple Browsers: Four Solutions Compared

Robbie Bridgewater writes on the difficulty in finding bugs during testing since no single computer can run all of the major browsers—not to mention the added challenge of testing various mobile operating systems. In this article, Robbie compares four possible solutions to this dilemma.

Erle Bridgewater's picture Erle Bridgewater

Better Software Magazine Articles

Failed system update Reducing the Risk of Failed System Updates

As software applications become more powerful and complex, users are demanding seamless and automatic updates. There is nothing worse than a “bricked system” after a failed update. The selection of a reliable file system is a vital component of the software update process.

Thom Denholm's picture Thom Denholm
From Curmudgeon to Kanban

It didn't take long for Stacia Viscardi to realize that as effective as agile can be, a plan-driven mindset may not be the best approach for every project or every team. Breaking the rules and embracing whatever it takes to motivate the team to get a project to doneness—and delighting the customer along the way—is a much better approach, even if it means breaking away from fixed iterations.

Stacia Viscardi's picture Stacia Viscardi
A Radical View of Software Licensing and Piracy

Software vendors are making extraordinary efforts to protect the installation and use of apps, but have they gone too far? Preventing software piracy can have an adverse effect on genuine users. Software licensing  technology, according to Steve, needs to strike the best balance of protecting the asset while trusting the customer.

Steven Cholerton's picture Steven Cholerton
How Does Security Testing Fit in My QA Process?

Alan Crouch addresses the question most commonly raised by those who are new to security testing: "How does security testing fit in my QA process?" Alan explains that security testing shouldn't be limited to the QA process, but instead should be applied throughout the entire software development lifecycle. Read this FAQ column for suggestions on how to improve your chances for success in catching security issues.

Alan Crouch's picture Alan Crouch

Conference Presentations

Decoupled System Interface Testing at FedEx
Slideshow

If you work in a large-scale environment, you know how difficult it is to have all the systems “code complete” and ready for testing at the same time. In order to fully test end-to-end scenarios, you must be able to validate results in numerous systems. But what if all those systems are...

Chris Reites, FedEx Services
Leading Successful Software Projects

Presentation Leading Successful Software Projects

Andy Kaufman, Institute for Leadership Excellence and Development
Software Test for Embedded and Real-Time Systems

Conference Presentation Software Test for Embedded and Real-Time Systems

Jon Hagar, Jon Hagar Inc.

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