Understanding System Testing

In this article, we will discuss on System Testing. To Understanding System Testing, we need to understand what a system is. Let us take our self away from software testing and go to Politics. In Politics, when we say System is corrupt, it means our political system, Administrative, and support system is corrupt. If a project comes with requirement to test this system as a whole, We need to test political, administrative and support system are working correctly and we need to validate also the integration between them is also working fine.

So now we have identified system and sub-systems. It is important to identify what all needs to be tested in system, i.e. we need to identify testing types required to test the system. Testing Types needs to be identified based on the requirement in hand.Testing type for a financial site and can be different from an e-commerce website.

While a financial domain will stress more on functional testing – The requirement is completely tested and the calculations and functionality is complete is utmost priority as a small mistake can lead to huge losses and impact the business value. Next priority can be security testing as to avoid loss to customer due to security functionality not matching. Performance Testing can or cannot be priority to the financial project. E.g. for a front –end system (e.g. Market Order Placement Website), Performance testing can be priority so as to ensure the user transaction is completed in time and issues like crashing do not take place, Whereas for a back-end system (where accounting and settlement happens in back-end for the transactions), Performance testing can be lower priority compared to various other testing types.

So now we know which testing needs to be done depends upon the system requirements and on basis of testing type, we identify the tools and resources required for the testing type.

• GUI Testing – Testing the graphical user interface.

• Usability testing – Testing whether the software developed is usable for the end users

• Performance testing – Testing how system performs in terms of responsiveness and stability

• Compatibility testing – Tests the compatibility of software with different environment conditions

• Exception handling – Tests different error conditions are properly handled.

• Load testing- tests the behavior of system under both normal and peak load conditions

• Volume testing – tests the system under varying volume of data.

• Stress testing - Tests robustness of system under stress condition.

• Security testing   - Test for Security features of the application.

• Scalability testing – tests whether the software is scalable.

• Sanity and Smoke testing – initial tests to identify basic tests are working and the software is good to continue further testing.

• Exploratory/ Ad-hoc testing – Performed mostly by experience tester without any proper documentation.

• Regression testing – Performed in the final phase of software testing to identify any defect fixes has not resulted in residual effect in rest of software.

• Installation testing – Testing the installing of software on different environment.

• Accessibility testing - Test the application meets the accessibility requirement

Also based on application type, the testing can vary. E.g.: Web Services testing for SOA Application, Localization testing for same application used across different geographies and so on. All of above testing types are a topic in itself.

Right, Once we are done with System testing, It means the software developer team( and this includes testers too) have developed and tested the application and feels the system is good enough to be delivered to the client once all the open defects are closed, or some minor issues exists which can be shared with client. Once system testing is completed, it is passed to the client to perform acceptance testing on the same to provide itself and release it to the required audience. So next topic will be around acceptance testing. Perhaps next weekend. Will keep you posted.