What is a Test Tool?

Any software that supports test activities

(eg: Email software, Spreadsheet etc..)

Why tool support?

 To avoid repeatability by humans

 Where test activities are not easy to be performed by humans
 Accurate and objective assessment
 Ease of information

Risks in tool support for testing?

 Overestimation on the capabilities of tool

 Underestimation on the time, effort & cost required in inducing a tool into the
organization
 Underestimation on the time, effort required in creation beneficial use of the tool
 Underestimation on the time, effort required in maintaining automation test assets
 Skill mismatch in automation testing (Good tester need not be a good automation engg)

Limitation of tool support?

 Maturity of the organizational processes

(Low maturity in processes or undefined processes may lead to failures in automation)
 Frequent changes in GUI / functionalities may render tool usage ineffective

Factors leading to the successful in use of tool support

 Guidelines on tool usage should be developed based on the experiences of Pilot project
 Training / mentoring should be extended to tool users
 Incremental roll-out of tool into the organization

Tool Classification (as per the test activities supported)

 Test Management tools

 Static Test tools
 Test design tools
 Test execution tools
 Performance and monitoring tools

Test Management tool

Tools which help to Manage Requirements, Configuration items, Incidents, Testware

o Provide information on test activities

 o Interface with Test execution tools, Requirement management tools, Configuration
management tools, Incident management tool

o Maintain traceability between testware

Test Management tools

1. Requirement Management tool

Store and prioritize requirements

Maintain dependencies between requirements

2. Configuration Management tools

Store configuration items at a centralized location

Allow restricted access as per the privileges
Traceability between configuration items
Support version control

3. Incident management tool

Store information related to incidents

Assign incidents to person / teams
Designate Severity & Priority
Track incident status
Provide information / metrics

Static Test tools

1. Review support tools

Provide web based platform for reviewers

Maintain documents related to reviews
Provide information / Metrics

2. Static Analysis tools (D)

Analyze the code without execution to detect defects,

Deviation from programming standards

Variable initiated but not called
Variable called before being initiated
Unreachable code
Security vulnerabilities
Syntax violations
Analyze the code for code complexity
 3. Modeling tools(D)

Software used in developing Graphical design models

Modeling tools can detect

Inconsistencies in requirements
Ambiguous requirements
Consistency of data objects in the database

Test Design tools

1. Tool support for Test design

 Test data preparation

 Deriving expected outcome
Computer Aided Software Engineering

Tools that design, develop and test the software based on the requirement

2. Test Data preparatory tools

 Tools that support compilation of test data from Databases, Records etc
 Manipulate and Randomize input values
 Generate large sets of input values for a given template
 Manage sensitive data in encrypted form
Test Oracle

Earlier version’s behavior provides expected outcome for the application being developed

Test Execution tools

Tools that support implementation & execution activities

Execution tool

 Repeat test execution activities

 Control & manipulate test execution through scripting languages & features of the tool
 Parameterize tests with multiple data
 Support automation framework
 Keyword driven execution

Test Comparators

Identify differences in Expected and Actual when comparing large

databases, files & images

Unit test framework tool (D)

Component or Unit level testing support tool ,Stub / driver (temporary programs)
Security tool

Detect viruses, malware, adware

Detect intrusions, denial of service attacks
Detect vulnerabilities

Code coverage tool (D)

Measure structural coverage w.r.t Specification based tests

Instrumentation of the code
Probe effect

Dynamic analysis tools

 Analyze use of system resources such as memory, hard disk, processor, ports by the
application
 Detect Memory Leaks

Performance test tools

 Evaluate performance under expected conditions

 Evaluate system behavior under extreme conditions
 Evaluate data handling capabilities of the system

Monitoring tools

 Monitoring Live system for vital performance characteristics

 In-line alerts when key parameters are slipping