Importance of QA Specialist in an Agile Environment


Agile Team Work Principle

An agile team relies on greater collaboration and clear communication between the team members. Owing to the frequently changing requirements in an agile project, the designers, developers, testers and business analysts work hand-in-hand with each other.

How to Conduct Database Regression Testing?


Why Test a Database?
Just as developers are human and prone to errors, database containing mission critical information and lines of codes on which applications are built is also vulnerable to errors and requires regular maintenance and updating from time to time. Organizations use several applications day in and day out that work on database which gets altered depending on the requirements. The best way to ensure the functioning of these applications is to test them on a regular basis for the new features and changes made in the database. This is what Regression Testing is all about.
What is Regression Testing of Database?
Database regression testing refers to performing regression testing of the database for any new changes and updates made in the database to keep its integrity intact even after modifications in it.

Steps to database regression testing:

Step 1: Decide What to Test in Database Regression Testing?
When it comes to performing regression testing of a database, it is never pre-defined as to which part or kind of database gets updated that requires retesting. The updates keep on occurring in various areas of database and testers need to target those updates to get the most out of their efforts. Generally, database testing comprises of following:
  • Incoming data values,
  • Outgoing data values (generated for raw queries),
  • Database elements (tables, procedures)
  • Metadata for web applications
  • Data load that’s somewhat we call “load testing”
While performing regression testing of database, if you are adopting an approach of either Black-box testing or White-box testing, your contents for testing would be something like this
  • Black-box Testing at the Interface
  • O/R mappings (including the metadata)
  • Incoming data values
  • Outgoing data values (from queries, stored functions, views ...)
  • Stored Procedures & Functions
  • White/Clear-Box Testing Internally Within the Database
  • Database Schema (tables, procedures, etc.)
  • Triggers
  • View Constraints
  • View definitions
  • Referential integrity (RI) rules
  • Default values for a column
  • Data invariants involving several columns

Step 2: Decide When to Test Database for Regression Testing?

When you change something in the existing database or application that runs on the database to refactor it or add new functionality, you need to ensure that you have not broken anything. This requires you to perform regression testing to either fix the errors or roll back to the changes made in the database. Hence, database regression testing is generally done after introducing changes in the database to check the behavior of the modified code. It requires hundreds of new tests to retest in order to check and rectify the newly written code as well as integration with other systems or applications.
If you are working in an agile environment, you need to take the Test-First Approach or Test-First Development (TFD). In this approach of regression testing, you need to prepare test codes parallel to development in order to test the business logics implemented in the database as well as forms, data validation rules, referential integrity, etc. in the database which works like a cycle as mentioned below
  • Add a Test
  • Run Your Tests
  • Update the codes or make changes
  • Run Your Tests Again

Step 3: Decide How to Perform Regression Testing of Database?

This is the most important question that comes to the testers’ mind while performing regression testing of the database. Regression testing can be performed both in manual and automated manner.
A common practice in agile team is that testers have their own “sandboxes” to work. A sandbox is basically a technical environment that isolates untested codes form production repository.You can opt for either of them depending on the size of the tests and database.
In my opinion, automated regression testing is more beneficial since it allows testers to test and manage a large number of databases without manual intervention. In other words, it allows you to perform other tasks while the testing automation tool continues to do its job in the background and sends the report of bugs if any.
Automated regression testing of database seems more easy and convenient and adds to the testers’ productivity saving a huge amount of time along with imparting following benefits
  • Entire database regression testing process gets automated
  • Reduces testing efforts by 50 to 75%
  • Testing is done parallel to development
  • Extensive test coverage can be achieved
There are several software testing tools that takes care of regression testing. These tools help in getting the testing team up with the database regression testing requirements in no time overcoming several challenges they face in manual testing.

Best Practices to Manage Test Automation Effectively


Software quality assurance and testing are an important part of every application development lifecycle. Most of the enterprises and test engineers today prefer automation testing due to the whole host of benefits offered by it. There is no denying that the easy learning curve with minimal time and effort in testing are the coolest things that testers and enterprises can leverage from test automation, however, it sometimes becomes difficult to perform projects due to difficulty in managing test automation resources and test cases accurately.

Reasons for Test Automation Failure


Over the last decade, test automation has acquired a significant space in the software testing industry. Owing to the increasing adoption of agile methodologies and DevOps principles, we see enterprises and test engineers plunging into test automation for various reasons. However, not all of them have been successful in getting the automation ROI out of their investment of time, money and resources in test automation. In most of the scenarios, testers have failed to obtain the desired results of their test automation initiative primarily due to one or some of the following reasons:

Best way to Search QA Jobs



Getting the first QA jobs is always difficult. It is one of the most difficult phases of the career as, at this time, QA position seeker does not have practical testing experience and are short of confidence. But by following some tips and ways to search and apply, one can land the testing QA position with more ease. 

Reasons why Tester miss Software Bug


First of all, it is not a good thing on part of tester if he/she miss the Software bug, as we know how much important Testing is in Software development life cycle, but there are times when testers miss the bug. Though it is not done purposely as no tester want to leave the Software bug undetected and unreported.
There can be many reasons which can lead to miss of Software bug by a tester. Some of them are as below:

Is Automation Successful in Agile?


Agile is a term used for several iterative and incremental software development life cycle methods. Most popular methodologies include extreme programming, scrum etc which are implemented or said to be implemented nowadays by teams. The development cycles have become shorter, crisper with feedback and testing being conducted in these small sprints. The SCRUM model of agile follows iterative sprints, where a part of the product is shipped. And in this sprint, the part has to be developed and tested. With every sprint or iteration, the product is going to be built, the code is going to become larger but the time to test will remain the same. Automation is not a choice in agile methodology, it is a necessity.

Ways to Learn Automation Testing


Software testing is all about ensuring the integrity of the product and making sure that it strictly abides by the specifications provided by the client. To thoroughly test an application, the testing team incorporates a number of different test methodologies, learn automation testing and abide by QA process to effectively test the software and provide their findings to the project owner.

Tricks to Increase Software Testing Interview Calls


Software testing is one of the most sought-after IT professions. Testers from different organizations always try to enhance their testing skills in order to crack QA interview and up in a well-paid testing project. Testers go through the latest testing techniques, methodologies, and tools to gather as much information as possible. And with working project experience, their knowledge base increases.

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