6 Insightful Case Studies on Big Data Analytics

There’s tremendous buzz and hype behind big data consulting services Singapore. How much of it is legit? Quite a bit, actually. While the industry is laden with marketing gimmicks, it also offers plenty of genuine opportunities. We’ve assembled these big data analytics case studies to give you a clearer understanding of the value at hand.

1. AutoTrader Validates BigQuery

Known by most as the king of search technology, Google has its hands in a little of everything. Therefore, we were not surprised to learn that the company entered the big data arena with its web-based analytical platform BigQuery. AutoTrader used BigQuery to illustrate the speed and efficiency of big data analytics services Singapore. Test results revealed that the platform queried and visualized roughly 750 million rows of data in under 10 seconds. In the end, AutoTrader was able to conclude that BigQuery – a free big data tool, is ideal for small businesses and others with limited budgets.

2. Jabil Circuit Closes the Deal with Data

Jabil Circuit has been in electronics manufacturing and supply chain management for nearly 50 years. The St. Petersburg-based firm learned that some traditions are better retired when realizing that reporting via spreadsheets was no longer delivering the insights needed to accommodate its rapid growth. Jabil Circuit turned to big data giant IBM to customize a suite of analytical tools that made data easier to collect, manage, and analyze. In identifying key trends and other customer insights, the firm was able to reduce the closing capabilities of its financial department by 50 percent.

3. comScore Builds Statistical Success on Big Data

comScore provides statistics and insights on various digital markets. The firm collects over 20 terabytes of new data everyday from both the mobile and desktop internet. It’s a data-driven business built around serving up intelligence for consumption. comScore thrives in this arena by leveraging MapR, one of the most popular Hadoop distributions. MapR enables the firm to consistently process more than 1.7 trillion internet and mobile events per month. This platform provides the scalability, performance, and availability needed to deliver the insights audiences across several markets rely on.

4. IRS Sets Analytics Standard for U.S. Government

The IRS not only collects trillions in tax revenue – it generates serious scores of data. With over 1 petabyte of information to manage, the agency has one of the largest data warehouses of any branch in the U.S. government. These guys have swarms of digital data to deal with, in addition to mountains of historical information, so number crunching is only one of many challenges. In 1996, the IRS became one of the first government agencies to adopt a big data system. It still uses SAP solutions to streamline storage, improve access to data, and extract value with methods such as predictive modeling.

5. Swiss Colony Improves Customer Experience

The Swiss Colony started out doing retail via mail order, but has been highly successful in its transition to e-commerce. In the case of this retail veteran, success turned out to be bittersweet because growth resulted in a plethora of new data-related challenges. To address these problems, the company deployed Pentaho’s OpenBI, a powerful web-based business intelligence platform. After plugging nearly 400 GB worth of e-commerce data into the system, the Swiss Colony benefited from extensive data mining capabilities, intuitive reporting, and the ability to provide fast, responsive customer support.

6. Constant Contact Adds Cassandra For Beefier Marketing Prowess

Constant Contact combines email, social, and numerous online tools into an integrated digital marketing platform designed to help small businesses connect with their audiences. In effort to provide an even better value to its customers, the firm aimed to deliver new data-driven services that would enable to them gain a competitive edge in cost effective fashion. Constant Contact turned to DataStax Enterprise for the answer. Thanks to its Apache Cassandra platform, DataStax helped the company deliver these services with improved performance, scalability, and millions in cost savings enjoyed. .

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Adventure of Big Data Analytics in Retail

Retailers are getting wiser, and many owe their ascension up the knowledge tree to the information explosion. They know more about the consumer than ever.

Where they live. What they’ve purchased in the past. What they’re likely to buy if they see it in the future. Don’t be alarmed. It’s not necessarily a privacy breach at hand. It’s the fact that more businesses have hitched on to the big data bandwagon.

From historical sales data to social media feedback, retailers are using a wide variety of data sets to customize messaging, products, and experiences that customers will respond to.

When you can deliver on what the customer wants, you’re obviously going to do better than the rival feeling their way around in the guessing game.

However, when you have capabilities that allow you to take those actions in real-time, you’re right on the cusps of continual greatness. The possibilities are endless when incorporating big data analytics services into your retail strategy.

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Relevant Retail Targeting

The emergence of social media represents prime opportunities for retailers, and big data consulting services Singapore affords them the opportunity to take full advantage.

For example, based on the responses to a social media post, it’s possible to identify just who’s in the market for a new a computer, and who’s planning a trip the Bahamas.

So when they’re ready to rev up their marketing campaign, a travel agent can send deals about vacation packages to the Bahamas via email. When that social media user steps into the computer store, they may be encouraged to buy a PC tailored around the interests they expressed.

Mobile Targeting Innovation

As far as targeting mobile consumers goes, it’s fair to say that we haven’t seen anything yet. By tapping into these gadgets people can’t seem to live without, it’s possible for retailers to target consumers with ultra-relevant offerings right on the spot using data and technology like iBeacon.

Developed by Apple, iBeacon uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to help stores identify patrons as soon as they enter the building and send relevant offers right to their smartphones.

Soon, retailers will be able to incorporate dynamic functionality that changes offers based on the consumer’s position in the store. Pretty slick.

Value Beyond Sales

What many retailers are discovering is that big data analytics is much more than a conversion tool and revenue generator. It also arms companies with powerful insights they can keep on deck and call upon when the right moment arises.

Let’s say you run a local grocery store. If your data tells you that a particular brand of onion dip is selling well with your most popular potato chips, you can tweak your shelving situation so the two items are closer together and the customer has an easier time finding them.

Just an example of how analytics can improve the retail experience beyond sales.

Big data analytics is revolutionizing the retail sector both on and offline. Several companies in this vertical are challenged with information in the volume, variety, and velocity that constitutes what the trend is all about.

Retailers using the tools that allow them to manage it and take advantage are poised to enjoy the biggest competitive edge.

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Data Warehousing – Traditional vs Cloud!

Introduction

Let’s start with what a data warehouse is – Integrated historical & current data in a central repository! This data repository is derived from external data sources and operational systems.

A data warehouse, being a central component of business intelligence allows enterprises to cover a rather wide range of business decisions.

These decisions may include – business expansion, production method improvements, product pricing so on and so forth.

Apart from the huge role that a data warehouse plays in analysis and reporting, a data warehouse provides the following benefits to an organization:

• It allows you to keep data analysis separate from production systems. Complex analytical queries cannot be run by operational databases used by organizations every day. This is where a data warehouse lets the organization to run such queries without there being any ramifications on the production systems.
• Data warehouses bring consistency to disparate data sources.
• Data warehouses have an optimized design for analytical queries.

The popularity of Data Warehouse-as-a-service has increased tremendously over the past five years. This is primarily because of the impact that cloud computing has had on big data architecture. Let’s now have a look at the major differences between cloud-based data warehouses and traditional data warehouses.

A Traditional Data Warehouse

The traditional on-premise data warehouse requires on-premise IT resources like software and servers for the functions of the data warehouse to be delivered. Infrastructure needs to be maintained effectively when organizations run their own on-premise data warehouse.

The 3 tier structure of a traditional data warehouse:

• The data warehouse server is what occupies the bottom tier. This contains data pulled from various sources and is integrated in a sole repository.
• The OLAP servers occupy the middle tier. This allows the data to be more accessible for the different types of queries that will be used on it.
• The front-end BI tools occupy the top layer. These tools are primarily used for querying, reporting and analytics.

In order to pull data into the data warehouse, ETL tools are usually used. These tools obtain data from various sources, process it and apply the relevant business rules to get the data into the right format based on the data model.

After this, the data is finally loaded into the data warehouse.

Bill Inmon and Ralph Kimball, two computer science pioneers have contrasting opinions when it comes to traditional warehouse design –

Bill Inmon suggested a top-down approach which meant that all enterprise data is stored in the data warehouse which is the central repository.

From this data warehouse, dimensional data marts which serve particular lines of business are created.

On the other hand, the bottom-up approach according to Ralph Kimball suggests that the result of the combining data marts is the data warehouse.

Cloud Data Warehouse

The concept of the cloud-based data warehouse approach stems from leveraging data warehouse services provided by the public cloud providers like Google BigQuery or Amazon Redshift or Azure SQL DW.

With data warehousing services singapore accessible over the internet, public cloud providers allow companies to cut down heavily on their initial set up costs required for a traditional on-premise data warehouse.

Adding to that, the cloud data warehouses are fully managed by the providers. Hence, the service providers manage and assume entire responsibility of the required data warehouse functionalities. This includes updates and patches to the system.

In comparison – Traditional vs Cloud

The traditional data warehouse approaches differ from the cloud architectures. Cloud Architectures are somewhat different from traditional Data Warehouse approaches.

Take the case of Amazon Redshift – The operations of Redshift are designed where you are required to provision a cluster of cloud-based computing nodes.

A few of these nodes compile queries whereas a few of them execute these queries. Google on the other hand provides a serverless service.

This means that the allocation of machine resources is managed by Google dynamically.

These decisions are taken by Google thereby freeing up the user’s bandwidth. In the case of Azure, it is a solution that is relatively cheaper with an ability to scale and compute storage.

In Azure, you have the advantage of pausing and resuming your databases in minutes.

When it comes to cloud data warehouse, the level of optimization it offers is very tough to match by the traditional on-premise setup.

Another advantage of cloud over on-premise is columnar storage. This is when table values are stored by column and not rows.

This allows for faster aggregate queries in line with the type of queries you need to run in a data warehouse. Another feature that drastically improves query speeds is massively parallel processing.

This is done by using many machines to coordinate query processing for large datasets.

When it comes to scalability, in the cloud, it is just as simple as provisioning additional resources from the cloud provider.

On-premise scalability is expensive and time consuming as the need to purchase more hardware arises.

The tricky aspect of having a cloud data warehouse is security – transmitting terabytes of data over the internet brings about a security concern which includes compliance concerns as well.

This is because the data may carry sensitive information. An on-premise setup holds the edge here as these security concerns are totally avoided because the organization controls everything.

Summing it up

For medium and small-sized companies, the cloud makes data warehousing more accessible than before due to the low barriers to entry.

Cloud data warehouses entice even the biggest enterprise due to their lower costs – reduction in infrastructure management costs and easy scalability.

Putting things in perspective, the cloud does have its issues when it comes to security. However, the benefits clearly outweigh the negatives. Legacy on-premise setups are not entirely obsolete.

However, the volume and velocity of data is growing at the rate of knots today and cloud services are designed to handle this sort of data.

As it stands today, more and more workload is moving to the cloud and more and more companies have started providing cloud-based data warehousing services.

This trend tells us that the cloud is the future of data warehousing!

Original source here

What Is Regression Testing Software?

Regression testing is the process of retesting software after bug changes or additional functionality has been added.

Regression testing software is used to perform systematic checks at designated intervals to determine whether the new functionality has caused new issues or whether previously fixed faults have reemerged.

Software developers and companies that do not follow rudimentary software testing and quality assurance services procedures subject the project development to poor quality assurance and burn up valuable development time and productivity going over old ground.

Regression testing software is a tool that can be integrated into the software development lifecycle to provide a systematic way to document reversions that have taken place during build updates and to keep project team members aware of changes made to the software under development.

Software Development case studies indicate that the re-emergence of faults is common during the project development.

Previous fixes that get lost due to file overwriting or poor reversion control practices can contribute to this problem.

When new features get added this can trigger the emergence of old bugs or problems. By using regression testing software, bugs that are located and the steps to resolve the issue are recorded for future reference.

Automated testing tools allow for the systematic recording of program changes and streamline the testing process.

Software testing Companies that use a manual reporting methods subject themselves to higher risks associated with human error, loss of documentation and a failure to adequately document previous changes.

A software tool that automates this process is a superior productivity and risk management choice to ensure valuable project time is not lost and quality control is maintained.

Common strategies for running regression testing software include executing the software immediately after bug fixes and at stated intervals such as end of day, end of week and end of month.

In some software testing suites, the update process is automatically scheduled to execute without the need for developer intervention.

This eliminates the possibility that developers forget to execute the process. Software qa companies running support centers can also benefit from regression software by having the ability to report bug fixes and reference developer progress on existing problems.

This improves company communication by providing a centralized repository for reporting, fixing and resolving problems.

Best practice standards employed by software development professionals recommend the use of regression testing software as part of the software development life cycle.

Third party software regression testing tools such as Borland Silk Test permit a wizard driven toolbar workflow for users to develop useful tests quickly.

The customizable error-recovery system function returns systems to pre-failure state to allow the restoration of the program to pre program error inducing status.

Regression testing in software is a process that every software development house should include as part of the software development life cycle.

Hope these are important information about regression testing software. All of the above information’s are very useful to test software.

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What You Need To Know About Software Testing Techniques

Software development houses employ a range of software testing techniques in order to maintain quality control, benchmark against intended scope, minimize software development time and improve software functionality.

Software testing techniques are used to test an applications usability, robustness, platform and system compliance.

The project plan for software development is an integral part of the project development and to outline QA software testing services methods.

This documentation comprises the software test requirements, the range of software testing techniques to be used, outlines resource requirements and provides a structured testing schedule.

This documentation is used by the development team as a guideline during the software testing process. The software testing techniques used depend, to some extent, on the style and view taken by the software engineer when designing software test cases.

One common software testing technique is known as white box testing. This is where an internal view of the testing process is adopted and applied to the structure and format of the code.

White box testing is an effective method for software testing and usually undertaken by someone who has knowledge of the development language used.

This is an advantage to the testing process because having a coder involved allows for immediate on the job formulation of input and output test data requirements aids in the optimization process and speeds up the removal of redundant code that can contribute to logic and program errors.

The black box software testing technique assumes an external view of the testing process.

Data is entered as an input and only the results of the output are known. This can encompass feedback from end users, the results of interaction with platforms used and the programs that the software interfaces with.

No knowledge of coding or the coding structure is required for the black box software testing technique and the primary focus is on the appropriate selection of data inputs to test against the software functional specifications.

Feedback for the testing is collated on software performance behavior and used by the development team to improve the software product.

Grey box testing is a software testing technique that is commonly used by testers that have some interaction with database structures or can manipulate the code directly.

An example of this would be a developer subjecting the application to a range of tests to determine whether the application is subject to code injection that can compromise data integrity.

The test cases used for grey box testing almost always have some knowledge of the coding internal structure, architecture, platform, system design and dependence. This allows the creation of test scenarios to test for a range different scenarios and performance measure for anticipated structural and functional result.

CONCLUSION:

Indium Software is a Specialist Software Testing Services provider.
Indium Software’s comprehensive suite of testing services covers Test Advisory, Functional testing and Non-Functional testing specializing in Automation testing, Compatibility testing, Regression Testing, Security testing, Performance testing, Digital, DevOps, Agile, Web, Mobility, IOT, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to name a few. Indium Software is helping clients globally transform their QA services function to achieve zero production defects, reduce QA cycle times up to 80% and lower overall QA costs up to 60% with its Next-Gen Testing Solutions, Modern Testing Approach, Skilled Teams and Global Delivery Model. We are also an ISO 9001:2008 & ISO 27001:2013 certified company.

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Why Software Testing is Necessary?

We, citizenry are susceptible to making mistakes and errors. Constant distractions, incomplete knowledge, or maybe wrong decisions are a number of the explanations that become a explanation for defects and other discrepancies. Likewise, in Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) too, software engineers make mistakes, which frequently hamper results and prohibit the developers and programmers to develop a software that’s of optimum quality. Therefore, to avoid such a scenario software testing services are implemented regularly during the software life cycle to make sure the prominence and quality of the merchandise . To elaborate more on the importance of testing, here is an discussion on an equivalent .

Software Testing at a Glance:

Performed manually or with the help of automated tools, software testing may be a process that’s usually executed by a team of testers to verify application’s quality, functionality, effectiveness, efficiency, reliability, security, stability, among other things. it’s an amalgamation of varied simple and sophisticated activities, methodologies, and techniques, which make sure that the software is developed as per the wants of the client and follows the international rules and regulations.

Executed with the help of fundamental testing process, software testing allows testers to seek out defects within the system. Hence, software testing is one among the foremost important process during SDLC, without which we cannot guarantee optimum user experience and 100% user satisfaction.

Why is Testing Necessary?

Errors made by us humans, when executed can cause software failures. Some errors and mistakes are minor but some are quite dangerous and need constant evaluation and monitoring. Therefore, it’s become vital for software testing engineers to implement testing throughout the software life cycle, to make sure the efficiency of the developed software also on verify that no defects or bugs are left undetected, as they will hamper the intended quality, effectiveness, & performance of the software. Moreover, testing may be a process that helps measure the standard of the software and provides confidence in it. Other reasons that make testing necessary during SDLC are:

Makes use of the purchasers reliability and their satisfaction within the software/application.
It is necessary so as to supply various facilities to the customer like, the delivery of top quality product that needs low maintenance.

Reduces overall level of risks.

Prevents failures of software applications, which may be very expensive if not prevented.
It is needed for properly understanding the faults and defects within the system.
Testing validates effective performance and functionality of the software package .
Helps learn more about software application’s reliability, stability, security, and more.
Allows us to check major also as minor components and features of the software.
Makes software safe and user friendly.

Software that are tested properly provide efficient resource utilization leading to low cost.
Allows us to detect defects during the first stages of software development.
Ensures the standard , effectiveness, and efficiency of the software before its release.
Validates its compliance with user environment, various rules and regulations, also as necessary regulatory standards.

Creates defect reports and test report, which may be utilized in future by developer and testers if an identical issue or defect is encountered by them.
It is necessary to enhance business.

CONCLUSION:

Indium Software is a Specialist Software Testing Services provider.
Indium Software’s comprehensive suite of testing services covers Test Advisory, Functional testing and Non-Functional testing specializing in Automation testing, Digital, DevOps, Agile, Web, Mobility, IOT, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to name a few. Indium Software is helping clients globally transform their QA services function to achieve zero production defects, reduce QA cycle times up to 80% and lower overall QA costs up to 60% with its Next-Gen Testing Solutions, Modern Testing Approach, Skilled Teams and Global Delivery Model. We are also an ISO 9001:2008 & ISO 27001:2013 certified company.

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What is Agile Software Testing?

What is Agile Software Development?

In general, Agile development works with relatively few, very briefly-defined requirements within the sort of user stories. Agile’s requirements usually are within the sort of user stories, which by definition are very brief and comparatively few within the number keep with Agile’s specialise in just the work to be wiped out the near term. User story acceptance tests also tend to be limited to the tiny user story, which is closest in scope to integration tests.

Agile tends to not devote much attention to software design. Instead Agile usually limits its attention to the individual small pieces of code implementing particular features, often without necessarily addressing the design–how those features fit along side one another and with other components. Consequently, typical agile development often lacks system testing. Not surprisingly, such lack of design can cause agile development upstream difficulties when the individual features fail to figure together adequately overall.

What is the test during a scenario of Agile development?

The test strategy and therefore the Agile development approach might be very different from the normal testing.

You must start testing activities without design documents and specifications. Test and development activities are conducted simultaneously on an agile project.

This suggests you will need to seek out how to start out writing test cases without documents or code from development.

I’ve seen quite a couple of testers implode from the change this represents. i might say about half the time (as a totally unofficial estimate) the testers who struggle with this concept find yourself quitting and getting employment at an area like Microsoft where they still do sequential development.

You will be expected to figure before the present release cycle to assist define acceptance criteria for the user requirements.

The wants you will be handed as a team goes to be impossible to accurately estimate that’s not an opinion such a lot as my and every one my colleagues’ experience. Someone will then got to work with the customer to “right size” the wants , in order that they are detailed enough to estimate without being so detailed on tell the team the way to solve the matter . Software QA Services is that the natural fit this task.

You and your team must jettison the thought , there are development and software testing companies tasks. On an agile project, their requirements, stories, or requests.

Each of those will have tasks the team must complete for the item to be considered done. These tasks got to be completed by the foremost logical person on the team, albeit meaning a developer writes test cases or a tester writes code.

If you’ve got a situation where people are sitting around or racing ahead to subsequent release while others are swamped with work, you’re doing it wrong.

You will be expected to estimate your task effort an equivalent as anyone else on the team. This one should go without saying, but tons of sequential testers are allowed to easily “test until we reach the deadline” or connect some completely random number supported a percentage of what development has estimated.

you can’t do that on an agile project, or you’ll constantly miss your deadlines. QA has got to take ownership of estimating their tasks, by which I mean the tasks they’ve agreed to require on since there are not any “QA tasks” on an agile project.

So in summary in agile testing you’ll be dealing with:-

Emergent requirements. Some requirements will start with a single-line description. You, and therefore the remainder of the team, need to take that to working software.
– very tight feedback cycles. Something will likely be delivered to check a day .
– high levels of automation
– more of attention on “do the proper thing,” less on following a longtime process. which will make some people uncomfortable.

Conclusion:

Indium Software is a Specialist Software Testing Services provider.
Indium Software’s comprehensive suite of testing services covers Test Advisory, Functional testing and Non-Functional testing specializing in Automation testing, Digital, DevOps, Agile, Web, Mobility, IOT, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to name a few. Indium Software is helping clients globally transform their QA services function to achieve zero production defects, reduce QA cycle times up to 80% and lower overall QA costs up to 60% with its Next-Gen Testing Solutions, Modern Testing Approach, Skilled Teams and Global Delivery Model. We are also an ISO 9001:2008 & ISO 27001:2013 certified company.

Software defects priority

Software Defects Priority can be classified into four categories as i stated below:

Priority 1 – Resolve Immediately:

Example: User unable to launch ‘Funds Transfer’ page in a Banking application. When user clicks on ‘Funds Transfer’ button from Banking application home page the ‘Technical Problems’ or ‘Page Not Found’ displayed to the user.

In this example software tester should report the defect as Severity 1 or Showstopper because the system/application under test is out of service. In other words there is no work around or not usable to use the system/application unless the developer fix the defect for further usable.

In this case software tester should deem this as a top priority or Priority 1 defect to resolve immediately.

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Priority 2 – High Attention:

Example: User able to launch ‘Funds Transfer’ page in a Banking application successfully but the ‘Complete Transfer’ button not clickable to initiate funds transfer.

In this example software tester should report the defect as Severity 2 or Critical because the major function of the system/application under test not working. In other words the intent of the application functionality is not usable and no workaround exists to use the application functionality unless the developer fix the defect for further usable.

In this case software tester should deem this as Priority 2 or High Attention defect to resolve the defect at the earliest.

Priority 3 – Medium:

Example: User able to launch ‘Funds Transfer’ page in a Banking application successfully and ‘Complete Transfer’ button is clickable to initiate funds transfer. But the application allows to transfer the money upto $1000 and not more than $1000. As a workaround user has to initiate funds transfer 2 times in order to transfer $2000 with each transfer of $1000.

In this example software tester should report the defect as Severity 3 or Medium because major function of the system/application under test not working but there is a temporary workaround exists to use the system.

In this case software tester should deem this as Priority 3 or Medium because this defect may be considered acceptable by the business to proceed to production and address as a post production issue.

Priority 4 – Low:

Example: Cosmetic issues in the ‘Funds Transfer’ page like spelling mistakes, page format issues.

In this example software tester should report the defect as Severity 4 or Minor because whenever components of the application are not functioning to specification but the situation is manageable i.e fix can be instituted in a future release.

In this case software tester should deem this as Priority 4 or Low because this defect may be considered acceptable by the business to proceed to production and address as a post production issue.

Selenium Software Testing Tool

Selenium IDE is a Firefox plug-in that can be used to automated testing services. Note that this plug-in works only in Firefox.

• Selenium WebDriver is a robust and browser-based automation tool that can be used to execute regression test suits across different browsers, test phases and test environments.
• Selenium IDE is a Firefox plug-in that can be used to automate web testing. Note that this plug-in works only in Firefox.
• Selenium WebDriver is a robust and browser-based automation tool that can be used to execute regression test suits across different browsers, test phases and test environments.
• Software testing companies leveraging automation testing tools to reduce software testing cost. And, being Selenium widely used tool across many IT companies hence it would create plenty of job opportunities if someone is full verse with this tool.
• Selenium is the easiest way to get started with web site testing because as it requires no need of previous programming experience.
• Compatible with widely used languages such as Java, C#, Python 2 and Ruby. This way a wide range of programmers and testers can develop the test scripts using Selenium IDE.
• Ease of use in developing different version of test cases from the base version. Eg: Start record and play the app that is under test, copy and paste the record & play version code into any word doc then update the base version code to develop different version of test cases such as ‘code base’ or web driven test cases etc. This way you can maximize the testing power with Selenium IDE.
• With one of the Selenium feature called XPath locators, one can easily develop and execute accurate GUI, content based tests such as on Help pages. Basically, XPath locators is used to find elements in a webpage. Manually validating help pages is very time consuming and more over it is high prone to overlook the defects within Help pages.
• Cross-browser testing and regression testing friendly because of ease in running same test suit across multiple browsers and test phases without major test suit updates. This saves a lot of time and effort while doing mundane tests.
• Programmers who follows white-box testing techniques because Selenium can help them to execute test faster and efficiently by quickly validating page elements such as broken links etc within the web page before Software QA testing test phase.
• Testers can leverage Selenium to validate GUI, help contents, data dictionary and many more using Selenium IDE tool.
• Freelancer testers.

Using Mock objects in load testing

Introduction.

One of the main problems with software load testing is the overall scope and in particular applying scrutiny to an individual software component.

The first issue with scope is that if multiple components are being tested, as in a full systems performance test, it is difficult to isolate the system resources used by a given component (process).

By way of example consider a Web services architecture that has Common Gateway Interfaces CGI (or asp and jsp etc) running on the same server.

When load is put on the front end (Web browser) the Web Services are called via the CGI and the resource utilization is an aggregate of both the CGI and the other Web services.

This issue does go away if the components are separated out onto different servers but in most cases some shared server resource, by components, will exist.

The second issue, concerning scope, with performance testing a system, is that the complete system has to be built before a complete test can be executed through the front end (i.e. Web Service, CGI or Web Browser).

In the case of Web services both the client (usually Web browser, CGI, asp, jsp etc) and the backend data base need to be available to perform the end-to-end performance testing services.

Both of the issues of scope for performance testing can be addressed with mock services (stubs) and a test harness to drive the load from.

Mock Web Services.

Mock Web services are place holders for any SOA request that has to be developed. Mock services are similar to Mock objects for unit testing .

There are many papers on Mock Objects, in the software testing companies directory, that go into further detail.

The advantages of mock services for load testing are:-

• The called service does not have to be fully complete.
• The calling component (i.e. Web service) can be isolated in terms of measuring performance.

It is also easier to control the behavior of the returned values, using a Mock service, as these (canned) returned values can be defined for the given purpose.

It is important to note that this test is not a system test and other functional tests will need to be performed to validate the component but for the purposes of performance testing the mock object will be able to ‘stand in’ for the real thing.

An open source Mock service tool.

SoapUI has a web service mocking feature that allows for quick and easy building of mock services.

This tool set also includes building the various responses that the anticipated calling program expects from the complete delivered web service.

The harness or driver.

Given we can isolate the server component from the Web Services; we now look to isolate that component from the client.

This isolation is needed in any event in order to recreate large volumes of simulated service calls to the component under test.

If the component under test is itself a Web service then a SOAP load testing tool can be used as the driving harness.

If the component is a CGI (or other web server side component) a HTTP load driver can be used to put load on the component under test.

In either case a suitable open source load testing tool can be found.

Measuring the component under test.

When isolated there are a number of useful monitoring tools that can be used to measure the performance of the given component.

Although CPU is a useful measure to determine the overall performance of a middleware component it is essential to establish that a server side component is not leaking memory or not returning other unused resources (such as threads) back to the pool when appropriate.

The first type of load test that should be performed on a middleware component, and this can be done early in the SDLC with Mock services, is stability testing.

With stability testing the memory, thread pool and CPU are monitored over an extended period, about six hours, of consistent load to determine if performance degrades over time.

Conclusion
Indium Software is a Specialist QA & Software Testing Services provider. Indium Software’s comprehensive suite of testing services covers Test Advisory, Functional and Non-Functional testing specializing in Automation, Digital, DevOps, Agile, Web, Mobility, IOT, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to name a few. Indium Software is helping clients globally transform their QA services function to achieve zero production defects, reduce QA cycle times up to 80% and lower overall QA costs up to 60% with its Next-Gen Testing Solutions, Modern Testing Approach, Skilled Teams and Global Delivery Model. We are also an ISO 9001:2008 & ISO 27001:2013 certified company.