Conference Presentations

Keyword Testing at the Object Level

It's time to put a new spin on the technique of keyword testing using a data-driven engine. Brian Qualters shows you how to effectively place your focus not on the action or process to be completed, but rather on the object type that's to be manipulated. This redirected focus lets you avoid the pitfalls and resource requirements encountered when you move to test another application. He gives a demonstration of how this modified approach can be integrated into the manual test case creation as a way to tremendously improve efficiency.

Brian Qualters, TurboTesting Concepts
Getting Things Done: Practical Web Application/e-Commerce Stress Testing

Web and e-commerce applications are still the rising, often unreachable, stars of the testing world. Your team's ability to effectively stress test Web applications-before your customers do-is critical. This double-track session shows you the tools that support stress testing, including several that cost absolutely nothing. It also walks you through a variety of approaches to stress testing that are available during all phases of development. This journey allows you to develop a plan to automate your stress testing, as well as know how and when to implement it as part of the software development process.

Robert Sabourin, AmiBug.com Inc
A Test Automation Harness for the PocketPC

The emergence of the handheld platform is an exciting opportunity to reapply quality and usability paradigms. It gives us the chance to establish new, industrywide quality benchmarks for handheld applications that may propel society beyond the traditional human-machine interface. Handheld-based computing has its potential-and its limits. When moving from desktop-centered quality assurance to handheld-centered applications, there will be changes that affect software testing techniques. We must be prepared. This session covers the basics of handheld automation, details what's needed before designing test automation, and demonstrates a repository for tests designed for the PocketPC.

Ravindra Velhal, Intel Corporation
Automated Testing for Programmable Logic Control Systems

Developing real-time, automated testing for mission-critical programmable logic controller (PLC)-based control systems has been a challenge for many scientists and engineers. Some have elected to use customized software and hardware as a solution, but that can be expensive and time consuming to develop. Reginald Howard shows you a way to integrate a suite of commercially available, off-the-shelf tools and hardware to develop a scalable, Windows-based testing platform that's capable of performing an array of different tests including, but not limited to, black box, destructive, regression, and system security testing. He describes the use of the Jelinski-Morana statistical model for determining expected results from automated tests.

Reginald Howard, Advanced Systems Integration Inc. and Jon Hawkins, Alliance Technical Solutions
Test Lab Stability through Health Check Test Automation

New application code is installed on Sunday. Your test team arrives on Monday to run test scripts and certify the release. Unfortunately, one environmental problem leads to another and suddently it's Friday before you run your first test script against the new code. Does this sound familiar? One way to buck this trend is to run daily health checks on the test environment. By running daily health checks, you'll minimize the time required to test new application code installs. Plus, you'll improve your test environment stability, reduce the number of variables to examine when a test fails, and reduce tension between your development and test teams.

John Rappa, Verizon Communications
A Custom Automation Framework and Test Case Management Solution

Interested in seeing a real test automation solution in action? Automated testing is an exciting thing to be part of, but automating the automation is even better. This session presents a system where the test case/automation system is set in motion after configuration management builds a piece of software for a project in which test has been automated. This means thousands of preprogrammed test cases can be run on multiple machines day and night. Darin Magoffin shows you a demonstration of the process, then explains its challenges as well as its flexibility.

Darin Magoffin, Todd Hovorka, and Rich Wolkins, PowerQuest Corporation Inc
Testing a Distributed Application Written in Embedded Windows CE

How will your Windows CE application perform once you start deploying it in the "real world"? This session addresses the many issues developers face when building distributed applications using embedded Windows. The ability to set up your application simulating the "real world" in a controlled lab environment using automated testing tools-along with the option to troubleshoot-saves critical time and money. Don't forget to be aware of the many pitfalls you face. You must also identify tools and strategies to resolve your product's problems before they impact your company's "real" customers.

Jim Walters, BSQUARE Corporation
Laws of Testability

This presentation explains the four "laws" of testability: test automation isn't possible without some level of testability; test automation is most successful when developers focus on providing testability; there is no clear distinction between automation support and testability features; and automated tests are never completely realistic. It also describes the characteristics of "testability."

Bret Pettichord, Pettichord Consulting
Automation Opportunities: Finding the Sweet Spot in Your Project

In any test automation effort, there are "sweet spots," points of leverage where you get more for your automation efforts. Knowing how to find that sweet spot helps you determine how to spend your limited time and resources to your best advantage. In this presentation, Elisabeth Hendrickson explores various ways to find the sweet spots in your project. She uses real-world examples of sweet spots from past projects to illustrate.

Elisabeth Hendrickson, Quality Tree Consulting, Inc.
Compressing Test Execution Time to a 24-Hour Cycle

Software development projects face a growing trend of tighter schedules, more complex environments, and increased time-to-market pressures. Thomas Poirier presents a composite case study that explores how frequently encountered situations can severely impact the duration of the Test Execution Cycle (TEC). Learn strategies and tactics to shorten the TEC to within a 24-hour cycle without sacrificing test coverage.

Thomas Poirier, Conduciv inc.

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