WHAT IS AUTOMATION

TESTING?

DAVID TZEMACHWWW.MACHTESTED.COM

MAY 12 2017

AGENDA

• WHAT IS AUTOMATION TESTING?

• WHAT ARE THE OBJECTIVES OF USING AUTOMATION TOOLS?

• WHAT CAN WE ACHIEVE USING AUTOMATION TOOLS?

• WHAT TEST AUTOMATION IS NOT?

• WHY MAY TESTING TEAMS REJECT THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AUTOMATED TESTS?

• COMMON TYPES OF AUTOMATED TESTING TOOLS

WHAT IS AUTOMATIONTESTING?

OVERVIEWAUTOMATED TESTING IS ANOTHER LAYER THAT WE CAN USE BESIDES TO THE TRADITIONAL MANUAL TESTING, AS WE

ALL KNOW, MANUAL TESTING IS PERFORMED BY TESTERS THAT DESIGN AND EXECUTE TESTS ON A SYSTEM MANUALLY

AND WITHOUT ANY USE OF EXTERNAL TOOLS.

AUTOMATED TESTING MEANS THAT ENGINEERS (QA/DEVELOPERS) WILL USE AN AUTOMATION FRAMEWORK/TOOL TO

EXECUTE TESTS THAT THEY USED TO RUN MANUALLY, THIS IS DONE WHEN EACH STEP IN THE TEST SCENARIO IS

SCRIPTED INCLUDING THE TEST DATA AND THE EXPECTED/ACTUAL RESULTS OF THE TEST.

IN MY OPINION, BOTH MANUAL AND AUTOMATION TESTING SHOULD ALWAYS BE COMBINED DURING A TESTING

PROJECT, THE TRUE ART IS TO DETERMINE THE AMOUNT OF EFFORT TO INVEST IN WHICH ONE OF THEM BASED ON THE

PROJECT COMPLEXITY, DEADLINES, AND RISKS.

WHAT ARE THE OBJECTIVES OF USING AUTOMATION TOOLS?

TEST AUTOMATION MAIN OBJECTIVES

THE FOLLOWING LIST WILL SUMMARIZE THE OBJECTIVES THAT WE AIM TO ACHIEVE

WHEN USING AUTOMATION TOOLS:

• INCREASE THE RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI) IN THE LONG-TERM.

• IMPROVE THE EFFICIENCY OF THE TESTING TEAM (WE WILL WANT TO REDUCE THE

NUMBER OF TEST CASES THAT WE RUN MANUALLY).

• GENERATE A REUSABLE CODE FOR FUTURE PROJECTS.

• REDUCE THE NUMBER OF MANUAL TESTERS.

• INCREASE THE TEST COVERAGE.

• IMPROVE THE TIME TO MARKET.

WHAT CAN WE ACHIEVE USING AUTOMATION TOOLS?

THERE ARE SOME MAJOR GOALS THAT WE CAN ACHIEVE USING AUTOMATION TOOLS:

• WE WILL GET A FAST FEEDBACK ABOUT THE STATUS OF THE APPLICATION (USING AUTOMATION REPORTS).

• WE CAN CREATE AND EXECUTE TESTS TO VALIDATE APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS AND SPECIFICATIONS.

• MAKE TESTING MORE FUN AND ALLOW THE TESTER TO CONTRIBUTE MORE TO THE QUALITY EFFORT.

• MAKE AN EFFICIENT TEST SCHEDULING (TEST CAN RUN AT NIGHT VIA PREDEFINED SCHEDULE).

• WE WILL BE ABLE TO IMPLEMENT AN AUTOMATED “CONTINUES INTEGRATION” PROCESS.

• WILL HELP THE ENGINEERING TEAM TO ACHIEVE AN EFFICIENT RESOURCE UTILIZATION.

• AFTER THE FIRST IMPLEMENTATION, WE CAN REMOVE THE MANUAL TESTERS FROM THE REGRESSION CYCLES (INSIMULATE TEST SCENARIOS THAT WE CANNOT ACHIEVE USING MANUAL TESTS.

• THE BEST SCENARIO, THE ENTIRE REGRESSION CYCLE WILL BE AUTOMATED).

• RUN A LARGE NUMBER OF TEST CASES IN A NARROW PERIOD OF TIME.

• REDUCE THE TIME EFFORT TO BUILD THE TEST ENVIRONMENTS.

• WE WILL BE ABLE TO RUN THE TESTS 24/7.

WHAT TEST AUTOMATION IS NOT?

TEST AUTOMATION IS NOT…

USUALLY, USING AUTOMATION TOOLS DURING THE

TESTING EFFORT IS ESSENTIAL NO MATTER WHAT IS THE

SCALE OF THE PROJECT, ONCE SAID, WE STILL NEED TO

REMEMBER THAT AUTOMATION TESTING WILL NOT:

• AUTOMATION IS NOT TESTING! YOU WILL ALWAYS

NEED TO ADD THE EYE OF THE HUMAN TESTER.

• BE EASY TO MAINTAIN AFTER A WHILE.

• REPLACE THE NEED TO PLAN, DESIGN AND WRITE THE

TEST PLAN.

• PAY OFF ON THE FIRST TESTING PROJECT, BUT WILL

REMOVE THE NEED TO PERFORM THE SAME TESTS

AGAIN.

WHY MAY TESTING TEAMS REJECT THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AUTOMATED TESTS?

MANY COMPANIES ARE STILL USING MANUAL TESTING WITHOUT CARRYING OUT AN AUTOMATED TESTING PROCESS, LET’S REVIEW THE COMMONEST REASONS THAT MAY EXPLAIN WHY.

JOB SECURITY

IT’S A SIMPLE AND LOGICAL ASSUMPTION, IN MANY CASES, MANUAL TESTERS THAT DO NOT HAVE

EXPERIENCE IN AUTOMATED TOOLS OR CODING WILL REJECT THE IDEA TO USE AUTOMATION

BECAUSE OF THEY AFRAID THAT IT WILL MAKE THEM LESS RELEVANT IN THE FUTURE.

COSTS

ALTHOUGH THERE ARE SOME GREAT FREE TOOLS THAT WE CAN USE TO AUTOMATE ALMOST

EVERYTHING, IN MOST PROJECTS WE WILL BUY A DEDICATED EXPENSIVE TOOL, SOMETIMES, ORGANIZATIONS WILL REJECT THE INVESTMENT IN AUTOMATION TOOLS DUE TO LACK OF BUDGET.

MANY COMPANIES ARE STILL USING MANUAL TESTING WITHOUT CARRYING OUT AN AUTOMATED TESTING PROCESS, LET’S REVIEW THE COMMONEST REASONS THAT MAY EXPLAIN WHY.

TIME

IMPLEMENTING AUTOMATED PROCESS IS A TIME-CONSUMING TASK, TESTING TEAMS WILL NEED TO

INVESTIGATE WHAT ALTERNATIVES ARE AVAILABLE TO REPLACE THE MANUAL PROCESS, LEARN HOW

TO USE THE SELECTED TOOL, WRITING THE CODE AND MAINTAIN IT.

ALL THESE TASKS WILL TAKE TIME THAT SOMETIMES THE COMPANY CANNOT AFFORD (STARTUPS

AND SMALL COMPANIES ARE A GREAT EXAMPLE), THEREFORE THEY WILL INVEST MORE TIME IN

DEVELOPMENT AND CONTINUE TO TEST MANUALLY UNTIL THE PRODUCT WILL BECOME TOO BIG TO

TEST MANUALLY.

APPLICATION COMPLEXITY

IN SOME RARE CASES, THE APPLICATION BEING TESTED MANUALLY IS JUST TOO COMPLEX FOR

AUTOMATED TESTING.

COMMON TYPES OF AUTOMATED TESTING TOOLS

WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON AUTOMATED TESTING TOOLS THAT WE CAN USE DURING AUTOMATION PROJECTS?

Test Automated Tool

Unit Testing TestNG, NUnit,xUnit…

Security Testing WireShark, WebInspect, fiddler….

Penetration testing CORE impact, Metasploit, Nessus,

Retina,Sqlmap,Sqlninja,beEF,Hydra, Nagios,Nmap…..

Performance Testing JMeter, LoadRunner, WebLoad, NeoLoad,Qtest,Loadster,Wapt….

Regression Testing TestCafe,QTP,vTest,Winrunner,TestComplete …

Web testing SoapUI,Ranorex, Selenium, Browsershots, IE Tab,

BrowserCam,Watir…

Mobile Testing Frank (iOS), iOS UI Automation (iOS), Robotium

(Android/iOS)…

Cloud Testing SaltStack,Fabric, Chef, Puppet, Juju…

FOR ADDITIONAL KB’S PLEASE VISIT MY BLOG

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