Non-Functional Testing

Non-Functional Testing applies to areas outside the functionality of the software but are essential for the software’s performance. As such, Non-Functional Testing typically covers areas like performance testing, load testing and vulnerability (or security) testing.

Market trends in testing are quickly moving toward non-functional testing, as organizations become more aligned towards getting their applications to meet specific performance/security criteria before deploying into the “real” world. The best solutions aim at exploiting open source tools to build robust and distributed performance test suites, which simulate realistic user loads helping to discover bottlenecks before the application goes live.

When establishing Non-Functional Test practices, QA managers should consider the following areas:

• Creation of Web/mobile app performance tests after analyzing usage patterns
• Optimization of performance tests using API and scripting of Open Source tools
• Leveraging Cloud-testing tools to simulate higher loads and realistic geographic loads from different geographies
• Simulation of loads from various browsers for Web applications
• Mobile performance testing on various networks Edge, 3G, 4G, LTE, etc.
• Distributed load testing to simulate higher and realistic user loads
• Generation of easily comprehensive load test reports, which act as a critical input to analyzing application performance
• Analysis of application performance per page and server request/response analysis before it is productionized
• Considering all the parameters for performance testing for Web applications (i.e. server, pages, and HTTP request/responses), hence providing a thorough insight into the performance of the application
• Generating test reports which are easily readable by key stakeholders
• Surveillance of Web applications for present vulnerabilities
• Penetration of vulnerabilities discovered
• Knowledge of prominent APIs/tools to develop strong test suites
• Development of custom Test Suite for Security Testing
• Coverage for the discovery of standard vulnerabilities enlisted by OWASP

Leading open-source and commercial tools for Non-Functional Testing include the following.

Performance Test Automation

Commercial Tool: Load Runner, NeoLoad
Open Source Tools: Apache Jmeter

Security/Penetration Testing

Commercial Tool: Burpsuite
Open Source Tool: Kali Linux

The Future of Testing

This article provides a brief introduction to the world of Functional and Non-Functional Testing. There is a wide array of commercial and open-source tools in the market to address specific kinds of testing requirements or to help build out an enterprise test automation framework to fit with Agile and DevOps testing strategies.

Whether just starting the process to implement testing practices or advancing your capability to a fully automated testing framework, Functional and Non-Functional Testing are both essential to delivering the best quality software in today’s competitive environment. Keeping ahead of changing industry trends, Bitwise is well versed in providing test automation tools, technology, and capabilities to enable the perfect testing strategy for your company’s needs. See our Performance and Mobile Testing page to explore further.

DevOps Testing Services

There are subtle differences in Agile and DevOps Testing – the most prominent differences being continuous testing and engaging test automation at each phase.

Even though both Agile and DevOps advocate a culture, testing in DevOps is more fast-paced than in an Agile setting and relies on automating every possible task from testing to deployment.

Recommendations for successful implementation of DevOps testing:

• Adherence to continuous testing.
• Automating feasible tasks.
• Layered tests (Smoke test, subset of regression tests, full-blown regression tests) to ensure faster feedback at each checkpoint.
• Intelligent regression testing.
• Ability to set up testing environments.
• Execution of automated tests (cross-platform, cross-browser, and cross-device).
• Scaled up performance/load testing.
• Creation of a wholly evolved test automation harness.

Your organization will benefit from Agile testing implementation by enabling close collaboration with stakeholders and developers, thus aiding communication within the team.

Furthermore, you will see a reduction in time-to-live with parallel execution, achieve optimum test coverage with test automation and be able to identify and execute tests for a particular build, yielding quicker feedback.

Continuous Testing with Speed and Quality

Whether starting the process of implementing Agile testing or advancing your capability to a DevOps paradigm, continuous testing is essential to delivering better quality and quicker time-to-market of your applications in today’s competitive environment
Keeping ahead of changing industry trends, Bitwise is well versed in providing test automation tools, technology, and capabilities to enable a smooth transition to Agile and DevOps maturity and accelerate the deployment of highly complex enterprise applications.