7. Types of Testing

7. Types of Testing:

7.1. Compliance Testing:
Involves test cases designed to verify that an application meets specific criteria, such as processing four-digit year dates, properly handling special data boundaries and other business requirements.
7.2. Intersystem Testing / Interface Testing:
“Integration testing where the interfaces between system components are tested”
The intersystem testing is designed to check and verify the interconnection between application function correctly
Applications are frequently interconnected to other systems. The interconnection may be data coming into the system from another application, leaving for another application frequently in multiple cycles .The intersystem testing involves the operations of multiple systems in test. The basic need of intersystem test arises whenever there is a change in parameters between application systems, where multiple systems are integrated in cycles.
7.3. Parallel Testing:
The process of comparing test results of processing production data concurrently in both the old and new systems.
Process in which both the old and new modules run at the same time so that performance and outcomes can be compared and corrected prior to deployment; commonly done with modules like Payroll.
Testing a new or an alternate data processing system with the same source data that is used in another system. The other system is considered as the standard of comparison.

7.4. Database Testing:
The database component is a critical piece of any data-enabled application. Today’s intricate mix of client-server and Web-enabled database applications is extremely difficult to Test productively.
Testing at the data access layer is the point at which your application communicates with the database. Tests at this level are vital to improve not only your overall Test strategy, but also your product’s quality.
Database testing includes the process of validation of database stored procedures, database triggers; database APIs, backup, recovery, security and database conversion.

7.5. Manual support Testing:
Manual support testing involves all functions performed by the people in preparing data for and using data from automated system. The objective of manual support testing is
Verify the manual – support procedures are documented and complete
Determine the manual-support responsibilities has been assigned
Determine manual support people are adequately trained.
Manual support testing involves first the evaluation of the adequacy of the process and seconds the execution of the process. The method of testing may be testing is same but the objective remains the same.

7.6. Ad-hoc Testing:
“Testing carried out using no recognised test case design technique.”
Testing without a formal test plan or outside of a test plan. With some projects this type of testing is carried out as an adjunct to formal testing. If carried out by a skilled tester, it can often find problems that are not caught in regular testing. Sometimes, if testing occurs very late in the development cycle, this will be the only kind of testing that can be performed. Sometimes ad hoc testing is referred to as exploratory testing.

7.7. Configuration Testing:
Testing to determine how well the product works with a broad range of hardware/peripheral equipment configurations as well as on different operating systems and software.

7.8. Pilot Testing:
Testing that involves the users just before actual release to ensure that users become familiar with the release contents and ultimately accept it. Often is considered a Move-to-Production activity for ERP releases or a beta test for commercial products. Typically involves many users, is conducted over a short period of time and is tightly controlled.

7.9. Automated Testing:
Software testing that utilizes a variety of tools to automate the testing process and when the importance of having a person manually testing is diminished. Automated testing still requires a skilled quality assurance professional with knowledge of the automation tool and the software
being tested to set up the tests.

7.10. Load Testing:
Load Testing involves stress testing applications under real-world conditions to predict system behaviour and performance and to identify and isolate problems. Load testing applications can emulate the workload of hundreds or even thousands of users, so that you can predict how an
application will work under different user loads and determine the maximum number of concurrent users accessing the site at the same time.

7.11. Stress and Volume Testing:
“Stress Testing: Testing conducted to evaluate a system or component at or beyond the limits of its specified requirements.”

“Volume Testing: Testing where the system is subjected to large volumes of data. “

Testing with the intent of determining how well a product performs when a load is placed on the system resources that nears and then exceeds capacity.
Volume Testing, as its name implies, is testing that purposely subjects a system (both hardware and software) to a series of tests where the volume of data being processed is the subject of the test. Such systems can be transactions processing systems capturing real time sales or could be database updates and or data retrieval.

7.12. Usability Testing:
“Testing the ease with which users can learn and use a product.”

All aspects of user interfaces are tested:
Display screens
messages
report formats
navigation and selection problems

7.13. Environmental Testing:
These tests check the system’s ability to perform at the installation site.
Requirements might include tolerance for
heat
humidity
chemical presence
portability
electrical or magnetic fields
Disruption of power, etc.
7.14. Active Testing:
In active testing tester introduced the test data and analyzing the results. For example, we will fill the tank of a car with 1 liter petrol and see it's average.
7.15. Passive Testing:
Passive testing is monitoring the results of a running system without introducing any special test data. For example, a engine is running and we are listening it's sound to note noise pollution by engine.
7.16. CLIENT / SERVER TESTING:
This type of testing usually done for 2 tier applications (usually developed for LAN) ere we will be having front-end and backend.
The application launched on front-end will be having forms and reports which will be monitoring and manipulating data
E.g.: applications developed in VB, VC++, Core Java, C, C++, D2K, PowerBuilder etc.,The backend for these applications would be MS Access, SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, Mysql, Quadbase

7.17. WEB TESTING:
This is done for 3 tier applications (developed for Internet / intranet / xtranet)Here we will be having Browser, web server and DB server.
The applications accessible in browser would be developed in HTML, DHTML, XML, JavaScript etc. (We can monitor through these applications)
Applications for the web server would be developed in Java, ASP, JSP, VBScript, JavaScript, Perl, Cold Fusion, PHP etc. (All the manipulations are done on the web server with the help of these programs developed)
The DBserver would be having oracle, sql server, Sybase, mysql etc. (All data is stored in the database available on the DB server)