STARWEST 2016 - IT Operations
Monday, October 3
Better Test Design for Great Test Automation
When we discover—often late in an automation effort—that the automated tests are cumbersome and costly to maintain, we often view this as a technical problem for the automator to solve. However, an often-overlooked cause is the role that testers who designed these tests play in making automation scalable and maintainable. In this interactive tutorial for both testers and automation engineers, Hans Buwalda explores how better test designs will result in much improved test automation and can make the difference between automation success and failure. See why...
Test Automation Strategies for the Agile World
With the adoption of agile practices in many organizations, the test automation landscape has changed. Bob Galen explores current disruptors to traditional automation strategies, and discusses relevant and current adjustments you need to make when developing your automation business case. Open source tools are becoming incredibly viable and beat their commercial equivalents in many ways―not only in cost but also in functionality, creativity, evolutionary speed, and developer acceptance. Agile methods have fundamentally challenged our traditional automation...
Tuesday, October 4
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...
Exploring Usability Testing for Mobile and Web Technologies
It’s not enough to verify that software conforms to requirements by passing established acceptance tests. Successful software products engage, entertain, and support the user experience. Goals vary from project to project, but if your users do not embrace your software—no matter how robust and reliable it is—business can slip through your hands. Rob Sabourin shares how to elicit effective usability requirements with techniques such as storyboarding and task analysis. Testers, programmers, and users collaborate to blend the requirements, design, and test cycles...
Wednesday, October 5
Testing in a Continuous Delivery Pipeline: Faster, Better, Cheaper
The continuous delivery pipeline is the process of taking new or changed features from developers, and getting features deployed into production and delivered quickly to the customer. Gene Gotimer says testing within continuous delivery pipelines should be designed so the earliest tests are the quickest and easiest to run, giving developers the fastest feedback. Successive rounds of testing lead to increased confidence that the code is a viable candidate for production and that more expensive tests—time, effort, cost—are justified. Manual testing is performed...
IoT Software Testing Challenges: The IoT World Is Really Different
With billions of devices containing new software connected to the Internet, the Internet of Things (IoT) is poised to become the next growth area for software development and testing. Although many traditional test techniques and strategies remain viable, challenges in IoT testing include huge amounts of data, multiple communication channels, device protocols, resource limitations (battery or memory), addressing sensors and controllers, cloud-hardware-device integration, and security concerns. Jon Hagar says that for IoT testers to be successful, they must develop...
The Journey to Continuous Testing
Capital One’s highly integrated environment creates many interdependencies for its agile teams. Because these dependencies were not being completed until late in their sprints, Adam Auerbach says that Capital One faced prolonged integration and regression testing phases and did not realize expected improvements in quality or time-to-market. As technology leaders pushed for continuous delivery (CD), testing needed to shift left and occur simultaneously with development. To shift left, the testing community needed to learn basic development skills, including Ruby...
A DevOps Primer: Whole Team Approaches for Better Software Quality
With fingers wagging and eyes squinting, they query Why didn’t you find this problem during testing? How many times have you tried to defend yourself with things like We can’t test everything or It’s a corner case? Everyone knows you can’t improve quality with testing alone, so what can you do? Marianne Hollier shares practices and tools that help improve your test effectiveness and overall software quality. Learn how early collaboration across your whole team can remove bottlenecks and surprises. See how capturing and agreeing on interfaces...
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...
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,...