Growing Significance Of Quality Assurance And Testing? Know How And Why

By Author: Michael Wade
Total Articles: 67
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The transition from traditional QA software testing to software quality assurance testing on the lines of Agile and DevOps is being followed up by stakeholders with renewed vigour.

The role of QA testers has gained primacy in this scenario wherein a host of continuous QA testing services such as productivity testing, load testing, API testing, user access testing, security testing, regression testing et al throughout the SDLC occurs simultaneously with development as well as deployment.

The year 2016 also saw software QA testing take incremental steps to cover emerging areas like the IoT and Cloud by way of IoT testing and Cloud testing.

The onset of 2016 saw business think tanks and experts of the software industry predicting that 2016 to be the year where companies shall usher in quality assurance testing into their processes and consolidate the same along the lines of Agile and DevOps. Although continued global recession meant that there was less money available for automating QA testing services in a majority of companies, a few have taken it as an opportunity ...
... to transform their software quality assurance testing processes -from the traditional or reactive one to the Agile based intuitive one.

The year saw increased focus on Agile and DevOps – the paradigms that aim to integrate disparate processes to work in tandem in order to meet company’s goals and customer expectations. It calls for a change in work culture wherein development and QA software testing teams work together in pre-defined ‘sprints’ to address glitches as opposed to the traditional practice of developing codes followed by software quality assurance testing and deployment. The year also saw increased focus by software QA companies on service virtualization and leveraging cloud services.

The year 2016 has seen developments in software QA testing in areas such as:

Internet of Things (IoT) Testing: With a growing market for IoT based technologies, companies have started focusing more on testing the IoT architecture before deploying the same. As functional and security aspects of IoT have become crucial for its success, IoT testing of sensors, codes, networks and devices took center stage.

Data Analytics: The penetration of ERP software has meant analyzing huge databases pertaining to various functions, branches or departments of a company. With increased centralization of a company’s overall operations, it is important that every sinew of the ERP software works in a robust manner. Hence, ERP testing involving testing of datasets and usage of analytical tools became one of the trending QA testing software activities of this year.

Performance engineering: Meeting growing customer expectations means ensuring the adaptability of software across diverse platforms, operating systems, networks, and devices. This calls for a shift to performance engineering from the traditional performance testing to meet non-functional requirements of software such as latency, downtime and memory capacity.

Moving away from Testing Centre of Excellence (TCoE): The earlier methodology of creating a centralized pool of testing tools, protocols, and processes has given way to Agile, according to which, quality assurance testing and development became a part of a single team. Besides, the year also saw increased focus on cloud testing and use of virtualization methodology for testing purposes.

Conclusion
Testing has taken center stage to meet business objectives, faster time to market, continuous improvement goals, and customer expectations.