STARWEST 2016 - Architecture - Design
Tuesday, October 4
The Impact of IoT on Testing: What’s in Store?
No longer just a futuristic concept, the Internet of Things (IoT) has a strong presence in our world even today. If your business is not prepared for it, you’re already behind. With the proliferation of connected “things”—devices, appliances, cars, and even clothes—Jennifer Bonine says that the stage is set and IoT apps are here to stay. Testing, product management, and development teams must address developing and testing in this paradigm. Testers, accustomed to traditional platforms, are now asked to test on more complex devices and more advanced platforms....
Integrating Automated Testing into DevOps
In many organizations, agile development processes are driving the pursuit of faster software releases, which has spawned a set of new practices called DevOps. DevOps stresses communications and integration between development and operations, including rapid deployment, continuous integration, and continuous delivery. Because DevOps practices require confidence that changes made to the code base will function as expected, automated testing is essential. Join Jeffery Payne as he discusses the unique challenges associated with integrating automated testing into...
Wednesday, October 5
Design for Testability in Practice
With the drive for continuous integration and delivery, the implications and approaches for designing more testable software are receiving substantial discussion and debate. What does testability really mean in practice? How do you take the idea of testability—how easy it is to test software—and put it into action through the different dimensions of designing and testing a real world product? Nir Szilagyi recognizes that the challenges of difficult-to-test software can transform a testing cycle from a small automation and exploratory effort to a long struggle of...
Go Test Yourself: A Self-Testing Automation Pattern
Today even the simplest applications are built with numerous technologies, creating an ever-expanding need for tests. If you’ve built an automation framework and a suite of tests, Prakash Karaka says you are off to a good start. However, as your application changes expand, you are required to add more and more tests. Even though most new application pages are built from existing code patterns, maintaining your test suite is tedious work. You have a nagging feeling you could use a robot assistant to automate the creation of most tests, freeing you to focus more on...
Lightning Strikes the Keynotes
Throughout the years, Lightning Talks have been a popular part of the STAR conferences. If you’re not familiar with the concept, Lightning Talks consists of a series of five-minute talks by different speakers within one presentation period. Lightning Talks are the opportunity for speakers to deliver their single biggest bang-for-the-buck idea in a rapid-fire presentation. And now, lightning has struck the STAR keynotes. Some of the best-known experts in testing will step up to the podium and give you their best shot of lightning. Get multiple keynote presentations...
Thursday, October 6
The Boss Chose the Cloud: What Does that Mean for You?
Although most test managers and testing staff know how to cope with new and difficult testing challenges, Martin Pol and Jeroen Mengerink maintain that the cloud phenomenon requires special attention. Testing must evolve and innovate to address the newly introduced risks combined with the changing emphasis for classical quality requirements. How do you test resource elasticity and the “bring your own device” philosophy with their cloud-specific security and performance risks? How do you understand and then cope with local and international privacy legislation for...
A Day in the Life of a Test Architect
Although Lee Hawkins stumbled into testing—in 1999 after migrating from the UK to Australia amid a tech boom time—he has since become a passionate member of the worldwide testing community and currently holds the title of principal test architect. So, what does that really mean? A test architect at Dell Software provides technical leadership and strategic direction for testing, and Lee describes what that means in his day-to-day work. His position involves advocacy for great new testing ideas gleaned from the wider testing community, mentoring new testers, and...
Big Data, Big Trouble: Getting into the Flow of Hadoop Testing
Big Data, one of the latest buzzwords in our industry, involves working with petabytes of data captured by various systems and making sense of that data in some way. Maryam Umar has found that testing systems like Hadoop is very challenging because of the frequency with which the data arrives in the system, the number of jobs that run to process that data, and the interdependency of the data. Maryam describes some of the projects at Hotels.com which involve identifying multiple users and using that data to make recommendations of hotels. Testing this is fairly...
Transform Your Cloud Validation Strategy from Cloudy to Clear
Security, data privacy, reliability, and regulatory compliance are critical factors when evaluating whether to move business applications from in-house, client-hosted environments to a cloud platform. Quality assurance plays a vital role in ensuring that the appropriate level of risk assessment, verification, and validation takes place to ensure business continuity during the migration to a new cloud platform. Vandana Viswanathan shares an introduction to the five components of a sound cloud application validation strategy: cloud provider qualification process,...