Tuesday 30 April 2013

Software Testing Life Cycle - STLC and Different Types of Software Testing


In this blog I would like to cover the different phases of a Testing within SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

We are all mostly aware of the SDLC. Within this SDLC Testing is one phase and Testing by itself has its own cycle. I have tried to portray the software Testing Life Cycle (STLC) below:


Software Testing Life Cycle - STLC

-->1. Requirements Analysis
---->2. Test Planning
------>3. Test Case Development
-------->4. Environment Steps
---------->5. Environment Set-up
------------>6. Test Execution
------------->7. Defect Tracking and Bug Fixing
--------------->8. Review and Audit
----------------->9. Acceptance and Baseline
------------------->10. Test Case Closure / Loop back to step 1.                                              


Now within these STLC, Many types of testing can be performed. Below are the different types of testing that I have tried to find for my self.                                              
                                               
Source for this below section is: Soft Ware Testing Help                                               
                                               
Software Testing Types:

Black box testing – Internal system design is not considered in this type of testing. Tests are based on requirements and functionality.

White box testing – This testing is based on knowledge of the internal logic of an application’s code. Also known as Glass box Testing. Internal software and code working should be known for this type of testing. Tests are based on coverage of code statements, branches, paths, conditions.

Unit testing – Testing of individual software components or modules. Typically done by the programmer and not by testers, as it requires detailed knowledge of the internal program design and code. may require developing test driver modules or test harnesses.

Incremental integration testing – Bottom up approach for testing i.e continuous testing of an application as new functionality is added; Application functionality and modules should be independent enough to test separately. done by programmers or by testers.

Integration testing – Testing of integrated modules to verify combined functionality after integration. Modules are typically code modules, individual applications, client and server applications on a network, etc. This type of testing is especially relevant to client/server and distributed systems.

Functional testing – This type of testing ignores the internal parts and focus on the output is as per requirement or not. Black-box type testing geared to functional requirements of an application.

System testing – Entire system is tested as per the requirements. Black-box type testing that is based on overall requirements specifications, covers all combined parts of a system.

End-to-end testing – Similar to system testing, involves testing of a complete application environment in a situation that mimics real-world use, such as interacting with a database, using network communications, or interacting with other hardware, applications, or systems if appropriate.

Sanity testing - Testing to determine if a new software version is performing well enough to accept it for a major testing effort. If application is crashing for initial use then system is not stable enough for further testing and build or application is assigned to fix.

Regression testing – Testing the application as a whole for the modification in any module or functionality. Difficult to cover all the system in regression testing so typically automation tools are used for these testing types.

Acceptance testing -Normally this type of testing is done to verify if system meets the customer specified requirements. User or customer do this testing to determine whether to accept application.

Load testing – Its a performance testing to check system behaviour under load. Testing an application under heavy loads, such as testing of a web site under a range of loads to determine at what point the system’s response time degrades or fails.

Stress testing – System is stressed beyond its specifications to check how and when it fails. Performed under heavy load like putting large number beyond storage capacity, complex database queries, continuous input to system or database load.

Performance testing – Term often used interchangeably with ‘stress’ and ‘load’ testing. To check whether system meets performance requirements. Used different performance and load tools to do this.                                          
                                               
You can also find more information in wikipedia.org --> Software_testing                                               
                                               
                                                Happy Testing.... ;)