Top 10 Test Automation Strategies And Best Practices

These strategies are taken from my own experience plus from the literature of testing gurus like Michael Bolton, James Bach, and Cem Kaner. These practices should be followed in every automation project.

What You Will Learn: [show]

10 Best Test Automation Strategies And Practices

Here we go..

#1. Hire a Dedicated Automation Engineer or Team

This is a basic thing to do. Don’t ask your manual testers to indulge in test automation. If you do want them to do test automation, then free them from manual testing work. Test automation is a full-time job. For this, you need dedicated resources.

I recommend building a test automation team consisting of at least one automation architect. You can hire multiple automation engineers to work under the guidance of the test automation architect. The number of automation engineers depends on the number and size of your products.

#2. An automation tool is important, but it is not the solution to everything

We talked about tool selection. But selecting the right tool is just the beginning. Some managers have the misconception that if they select the right tool, they can easily automate anything. Beware, automation tools do not give you everything. They make the process easier. But you need skilled resources to complete the process.

Often automation tools are buggy and they stuck in identifying complex objects on the application. The resources you hire, if they are skilled, come up with a workaround which takes the process forward. Otherwise, if you don’t hire good resources, Tool alone cannot guarantee successful automation.

#3. Select the automation tool which is familiar to your resources

If your resources are familiar with C# and your application to be tested is also developed in C#, then there is no point selecting the tool which does not offer C# to write scripts.

Language learning is a time taking process. Avoid this learning curve by buying a tool which offers a minimal learning curve.

#4. Know the application being tested

The tool selection depends heavily on the technologies used in your product. Know your product inside out before starting the automation.

If it is a web application, know the browsers it will support. Know the technologies being used in it. If it is a desktop application, know which language is built upon. What third-party controls are being used in the application. This will help you make the tool selection and future automation easier.

#5. Good Automation means good manual test case

Nicely written strong manual test cases save us from automating those test cases which are easy to automate but weak in finding defects.

Here is the quote from the book Lessons Learned in Software Testing:

“Automating without good test design may result in a lot of activity, but little value.”

It is always advisable to first write the test case in manual form. Identify all prerequisites and test data. Write steps in a clear manner and write expected results in front of each step. The objective of one test case should be clear and it should be less dependent on the other test cases. Automation engineers should run this test case manually at least once to clearly decide what objects need to be identified and what will be the flow of navigation. Ask questions with manual testers.

This activity sometimes helps to identify bugs even before the automation script is written. Experts say that the majority of bugs is identified in the test automation development phase rather than in the actual execution phase.

#6. Identify opportunities with automation

If you are handed over with a manual test case to automate, don’t just automate that test case as it is. Instead, find further opportunities in your automation, to expand the scope of this test case.

For example, if the manual test case requirement is you have to login to a web page. You can expand this test case by making it data-driven. List all the possible scenarios of login like invalid password, empty password, invalid username, invalid email, blank username, remember me checked, not checked, etc. List the possible scenarios along with their expected result in an excel file and put this excel file as a data source to your test case. Now this one manual test case, after being automated, can test all the possible scenarios in one go.

Always look for opportunities that can be done with automation, but difficult to do manually. Such as Load Testing scenarios, Performance Benchmarks, Same Tests under different environments with different configurations, Memory Leaks, High Precision Tests etc. These all are difficult scenarios for manual testers.

#7. You cannot automate everything

Automation means running fewer tests more often. You have to start small by attacking your smoke tests first. Then cover your build acceptance tests. Then move onto your frequently performed tests, then move onto your time taking tests. But make sure every test you automate, it saves time for a manual tester to focus on more important things.

Automation is not here to replace manual testers. Nor it can. It is here to take the repeated work away from manual testers so that they can use their full focus and strength in finding new testing scenarios and bugs. (Read my article Misconceptions of test automation)

Automate a few tests that are valuable and time savers or difficult to do for manual testers. If you did that, the task of automation is done.

#8. Avoid GUI Automation when there is an alternate present

GUI automation is always tougher than other types of automated tests. So if there is a situation when you can achieve your target by not automating the GUI, but by some other methods like command line inputs, then the best strategy is to avoid GUI automation.

For example, you want to test the installation of the application. The objective is to check whether the application installed or not in a particular environment. One approach is to start the installation and click on the “Next” button multiple times through your automation tool. It can be tricky, time-consuming and it is subject to maintenance if UI changes. The other approach is to initiate the application installation with a batch file giving silent arguments. The application will silently install showing no GUI. The objective will be achieved in less time and in a more reliable manner.

#9. Use Automation for other useful purposes as well

Automation is such a fantastic thing. You can achieve such things from it that you don’t normally think about. Automation is not just about programming a manual test case. Instead, you can use automation to facilitate different operations in your organization.

For example, you can use automation to create master data and setup configurations automatically for manual testers. So that they can start their testing as early as possible.

I can give one example from my own company. We wanted to switch from our test case management tool. We were using “Test Director” (now HP ALM) and wanted to switch to TFS (Team Foundation Server). We had around 4000 manual Test Cases and Bugs in Test Director. Transferring them manually to TFS could take about a month. So my manager asked me to try some automation.

I dig those tools and found out that Test Director is using SQL server as its repository. For TFS, I found out a tool that can read test cases and bugs from an excel file, if they are written in a particular format, and can insert them in TFS. The Rest of the story is simple. I wrote an SQL query to fetch all test cases and bugs and exported them in an Excel File in the specific format. I then used that tool which reads all test cases and bugs from excel file and inserted them in TFS. The whole process took only 3 hours. My manager was very happy. I hope you get my point too.

#10. Automation is software development

If you develop quality software, it needs best practices. It needs code reviews to write quality code. It needs a framework or design pattern to be followed. It needs constant maintenance.

Automation is basically software development. So all best practices you follow when you develop software should be followed in doing automation. Automation Framework should be there. Code Reviews should be done. Bugs of automation should be reported in the bug repository. Source Code of automation should be placed under source control, etc. The more you treat it like software development, the more successful automation will be.

Conclusion

This sums up the article as well as the series of test automation. I learned many things while writing these tutorials and I hope you learn as well by reading. Test automation is an interesting and rewarding career. Doing it correctly is not only beneficial for you but for the organization as well.

Every day while working on test automation and its techniques, I find new and interesting challenges to solve. This series was an attempt to highlight what could come across on a journey of test automation. I hope I delivered it right and in a simple manner.

As always, I wait for your comments and suggestions. Feel free to write your feedback in the comments section. I will be happy to hear from you and help you if needed. Thanks for reading.

Creating Bootable USB:

Creating Bootable USB......

Bootable USB , here we assume that you are using either Vista or Windows 7 to create a bootable USB.

1. Insert your USB (4GB+ preferable) stick to the system and backup all the data from the USB as we are going to format the USB to make it as bootable.

2. Open elevated Command Prompt. To do this, type in CMD in Start menu search field and hit Ctrl + Shift + Enter. Alternatively,

navigate to Start > All programs >Accessories > right click on Command Prompt and select run as administrator.

3. When the Command Prompt opens, enter the following command:

DISKPART and hit enter.

LIST DISK and hit enter.

Once you enter the LIST DISK command, it will show the disk number of your USB drive. In the below image my USB drive disk no is Disk 1.

4. In this step you need to enter all the below commands one by one and hit enter. As these commands are self explanatory, you can easily guess what these commands do.

SELECT DISK 1 (Replace DISK 1 with your disk number)

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS

(Format process may take few seconds)
ASSIGN

EXIT

Don’t close the command prompt as we need to execute one more command at the next step. Just minimize it.

5. Insert your Windows DVD in the optical drive and note down the drive letter of the optical drive and USB media. Here I use

 “D” as my optical (DVD) drive letter and “H” as my USB drive letter.

6. Go back to command prompt and execute the following commands:

D:CD BOOT and hit enter. Where “D” is your DVD drive letter.

CD BOOT and hit enter to see the below message.
BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 H:

(Where “H” is your USB drive letter)

7. Copy Windows DVD contents to USB.

You are done with your bootable USB. You can now use this bootable USB as bootable DVD on any computer that comes with

USB boot feature (most of the current motherboards support this feature).

Note that this bootable USB guide will not work if you are trying to make a bootable USB on XP computer.

Hacker cracks W-LAN password:

Hacker cracks W-LAN password in 20 mins using Amazon cloud:

A German hacker says he cracked the wireless LAN password of his neighbour in 20 minutes – using the cloud computing power available on Amazon in a demonstration which he says should sensitise people and businesses to security issues.

Thomas Roth, described in Der Spiegel magazine as an IT security expert, will report on his experiment at next week’s Black Hat DC 2011 hacker conference in Washington.

The holder of a W-LAN password can not only spy on the network’s user, but also use the account to secretly start attacks on other servers, or initiate illegal downloads.

The cloud computing systems run not only by Amazon but also Google and Microsoft effectively rent out computing power. For companies which occasionally need such capacity, the idea is attractive as it saves them from having to invest in powerful computing systems of their own.

The amount of computer power in ‘the cloud’ has grown to enormous proportions – and prices have thus fallen, to between $1 and $2 an hour for the use of a very fast computer.

Roth said he easily used this power to show how a W-LAN password could be cracked.

There is already a service called WPACracker which uses 400 computers in the Amazon cloud at the same time to elicit passwords. Roth said he did not even need to use this – rather, he rented the power of a cluster GPU Instance – a group of four extremely fast computer processors.

This took just 20 minutes to crack the WPA password of his neighbour, who had agreed to the experiment. An improvement in the software could reduce this time to around six minutes, he said – which would cost less than $2.

The software tried 70 million words from a dictionary one after another, in a ‘brute force’ attack to find the password.

The WPA password security system is one of the newest, although it has been superseded by the WPA2 system in the newest WLAN systems.

However, the longer the password, the safer it is – and WPA allows up to 63 letters and numbers to be used. The best idea is to use at least 20 figures, without any recognisable words, but using capital as well as small letters as well as numbers and other signs.

Roth said he will publish his software on the internet – not to enable criminals to use it, but to sensitise people to the security issues.

“People tell me it is not possible to crack WPA,” he told Reuters newswire. “And if it were possible, they say it would cost a fortune.” But he said it is actually relatively easy.

Amazon said researchers would often use its system in order to show how security systems can be improved. But the firm said it would be an infringement of its conditions of use to compromise the security of a network. 

All About Movie Tags:

Original Sources-

CAM -

A cam is a theater rip usually done with a digital video camera. A mini tripod is sometimes used, but a lot of the time this wont be possible, so the camera make shake. Also seating placement isn't always idle, and it might be filmed from an angle. If cropped properly, this is hard to tell unless there's text on the screen, but a lot of times these are left with triangular borders on the top and bottom of the screen. Sound is taken from the onboard microphone of the camera, and especially in comedies, laughter can often be heard during the film. Due to these factors picture and sound quality are usually quite poor, but sometimes we're lucky, and the theater will be fairly empty and a fairly clear signal will be heard.

TELESYNC (TS) - A telesync is the same spec as a CAM except it uses an external audio source (most likely an audio jack in the chair for hard of hearing people). A direct audio source does not ensure a good quality audio source, as a lot of background noise can interfere. A lot of the times a telesync is filmed in an empty cinema or from the projection booth with a professional camera, giving a better picture quality. Quality ranges drastically, check the sample before downloading the full release. A high percentage of Telesyncs are CAMs that have been mislabeled.

TELECINE (TC) -

A telecine machine copies the film digitally from the reels. Sound and picture should be very good, but due to the equipment involved and cost telecines are fairly uncommon. Generally the film will be in correct aspect ratio, although 4:3 telecines have existed. A great example is the JURASSIC PARK 3 TC done last year. TC should not be confused with TimeCode , which is a visible counter on screen throughout the film.

SCREENER (SCR) -

A pre VHS tape, sent to rental stores, and various other places for promotional use. A screener is supplied on a VHS tape, and is usually in a 4:3 (full screen) a/r, although letterboxed screeners are sometimes found. The main draw back is a "ticker" (a message that scrolls past at the bottom of the screen, with the copyright and anti-copy telephone number). Also, if the tape contains any serial numbers, or any other markings that could lead to the source of the tape, these will have to be blocked, usually with a black mark over the section. This is sometimes only for a few seconds, but unfortunately on some copies this will last for the entire film, and some can be quite big. Depending on the equipment used, screener quality can range from excellent if done from a MASTER copy, to very poor if done on an old VHS recorder thru poor capture equipment on a copied tape. Most screeners are transferred to VCD, but a few attempts at SVCD have occurred, some looking better than others.

DVD-SCREENER (DVDscr) -Same premise as a screener, but transferred off a DVD. Usually letterbox , but without the extras that a DVD retail would contain. The ticker is not usually in the black bars, and will disrupt the viewing. If the ripper has any skill, a DVDscr should be very good. Usually transferred to SVCD or DivX/XviD.

DVDRip - A copy of the final released DVD. If possible this is released PRE retail (for example, Star Wars episode 2) again, should be excellent quality. DVDrips are released in SVCD and DivX/XviD.

VHSRip -Transferred off a retail VHS, mainly skating/sports videos and XXX releases.

TVRip -TV episode that is either from Network (capped using digital cable/satellite boxes are preferable) or PRE-AIR from satellite feeds sending the program around to networks a few days earlier (do not contain "dogs" but sometimes have flickers etc) Some programs such as WWF Raw Is War contain extra parts, and the "dark matches" and camera/commentary tests are included on the rips. PDTV is capped from a digital TV PCI card, generally giving the best results, and groups tend to release in SVCD for these. VCD/SVCD/DivX/XviD rips are all supported by the TV scene.

WORKPRINT (WP) -A workprint is a copy of the film that has not been finished. It can be missing scenes, music, and quality can range from excellent to very poor. Some WPs are very different from the final print (Men In Black is missing all the aliens, and has actors in their places) and others can contain extra scenes (Jay and Silent Bob) . WPs can be nice additions to the collection once a good quality final has been obtained.

DivX Re-Enc -A DivX re-enc is a film that has been taken from its original VCD source, and re-encoded into a small DivX file. Most commonly found on file sharers, these are usually labeled something like Film.Name.Group(1of2) etc. Common groups are SMR and TND. These aren't really worth downloading, unless you're that unsure about a film u only want a 200mb copy of it. Generally avoid.

Watermarks -

A lot of films come from Asian Silvers/PDVD (see below) and these are tagged by the people responsible. Usually with a letter/initials or a little logo, generally in one of the corners. Most famous are the "Z" "A" and "Globe" watermarks.

Asian Silvers / PDVD -

These are films put out by eastern bootleggers, and these are usually bought by some groups to put out as their own. Silvers are very cheap and easily available in a lot of countries, and its easy to put out a release, which is why there are so many in the scene at the moment, mainly from smaller groups who don't last more than a few releases. PDVDs are the same thing pressed onto a DVD. They have removable subtitles, and the quality is usually better than the silvers. These are ripped like a normal DVD, but usually released as VCD.

Formats-

VCD -

VCD is an mpeg1 based format, with a constant bitrate of 1150kbit at a resolution of 352x240 (NTCS). VCDs are generally used for lower quality transfers (CAM/TS/TC/Screener(VHS)/TVrip(analogue) in order to make smaller file sizes, and fit as much on a single disc as possible. Both VCDs and SVCDs are timed in minutes, rather than MB, so when looking at an mpeg, it may appear larger than the disc capacity, and in reality u can fit 74min on a CDR74.

SVCD -

SVCD is an mpeg2 based (same as DVD) which allows variable bit-rates of up to 2500kbits at a resolution of 480x480 (NTSC) which is then decompressed into a 4:3 aspect ratio when played back. Due to the variable bit-rate, the length you can fit on a single CDR is not fixed, but generally between 35-60 Mins are the most common. To get a better SVCD encode using variable bit-rates, it is important to use multiple "passes". this takes a lot longer, but the results are far clearer.

XVCD/XSVCD -

These are basically VCD/SVCD that don't obey the "rules". They are both capable of much higher resolutions and bit-rates, but it all depends on the player to whether the disc can be played. X(S)VCD are total non-standards, and are usually for home-ripping by people who don't intend to release them.

KVCD

KVCD is a modification to the standard MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 GOP structure and Quantization Matrix. It enables you to create over 120 minutes of near DVD quality video, depending on your material, on a single 80 minute CD-R/CD-RW. We have published these specifications as KVCDx3, our official resolution, which produce 528x480 (NTSC) and 528x576 (PAL) MPEG-1 variable bit rate video, from 64Kbps to 3,000Kbps. Using a resolution of 352x240 (NTSC) or 352x288 (PAL), it's possible to encode video up to ~360 minutes of near VCD quality on a single 80 minute CD-R. The mpeg files created will play back in most modern standalone DVD players. You must burn the KVCD MPEG files as non-standard VCD or non-standard SVCD (depends on your player) with Nero or VCDEasy.

DivX / XviD -

DivX is a format designed for multimedia platforms. It uses two codecs, one low motion, one high motion. most older films were encoded in low motion only, and they have problems with high motion too. A method known as SBC (Smart Bit-rate Control) was developed which switches codecs at the encoding stage, making a much better print. The format is Ana orphic and the bit-rate/resolution are interchangeable. Due to the higher processing power required, and the different codecs for playback, its unlikely we'll see a DVD player capable of play DivX for quite a while, if at all. There have been players in development which are supposedly capable, but nothing has ever arisen. The majority of PROPER DivX rips (not Re-Encs) are taken from DVDs, and generally up to 2hours in good quality is possible per disc. Various codecs exist, most popular being the original Divx3.11a and the new XviD codecs.

CVD -

CVD is a combination of VCD and SVCD formats, and is generally supported by a majority of DVD players. It supports MPEG2 bit-rates of SVCD, but uses a resolution of 352x480(ntsc) as the horizontal resolution is generally less important. Currently no groups release in CVD.

DVD-R -

Is the recordable DVD solution that seems to be the most popular (out of DVD-RAM, DVD-R and DVD+R). it holds 4.7gb of data per side, and double sided discs are available, so discs can hold nearly 10gb in some circumstances. SVCD mpeg2 images must be converted before they can be burnt to DVD-R and played successfully. DVD>DVDR copies are possible, but sometimes extras/languages have to be removed to stick within the available 4.7gb.

MiniDVD -

MiniDVD/cDVD is the same format as DVD but on a standard CDR/CDRW. Because of the high resolution/bit-rates, its only possible to fit about 18-21 mins of footage per disc, and the format is only compatible with a few players.

Avast Free antivirus 2014/2013 30 yrs license key full download

AVAST has acquired Jumpshot to provide you with a cleaner, faster PC experience.

For 25 years, you've trusted us to protect your PC.

With Jump shot, we’ll make that PC more efficient and faster than ever.

Download avast! Free Antivirus Or try our best-selling virus protection: Internet Security DownloadFree 30-day trial
		Internet Security
Blocks viruses & spyware	es	yes
Allows assistance from a geek friend	yes	yes
Secures shopping & banking		yes
Runs risky programs safely		yes
Blocks hacker attacks		yes
Secures personal data		yes
Stops annoying SPAM		yes
Blocks phishing scams

yes
Free AntivirusDownloadTotally free

Avast Free antivirus 30 yrs license key full download :
W9740570R9942A0910-8NB2E62T