After you develop a software in an agile environment, you should test and confirm whether it is stable or not. This is where smoke testing can help. Smoke Testing is a software testing technique that verifies whether a software package has been delivered and is stable. Smoke testing allows the QA team to continue with the rest of the software testing. It is made up of a small number of tests that are run on each build to verify program functionality. “Build Verification Testing” or “Confidence Testing” are other terms for smoke testing.

To put it another way, we’re checking to see whether the essential features are working and if there are any show-stoppers in the build we’re testing.

It’s a quick and dirty regression test of main features. It’s a straightforward test that verifies that the product is ready for testing. This allows you to see if the build is faulty, preventing you from wasting time and money on further testing.

The smoke tests indicate that the structure is ready for further formal testing. The primary goal of smoke testing is to discover serious problems early on. Smoke tests are used to show that a system is stable and meets the criteria.

When new software functions are built and integrated with an existing build in the QA/staging environment, smoke testing is performed. It verifies whether or not all key functions are operational.

The development team deploys the build in QA in this testing technique. Testers execute test cases on the build after taking selections of test cases. The application’s essential features are tested by the QA team. The purpose of this set of test cases is to expose construction errors. If these tests pass, the QA team will move on to Functional Testing. QA engineers/QA lead do Smoke Testing after delivering the build to the QA environment. Whenever a new build is released, the QA team determines the application’s primary functionality in order to do smoke testing. The QA team looks for show-stoppers in the application being tested.

— Slimane Zouggari

Acceptance testing, which is also known as User Acceptance Testing, is where the end user would verify the functionality of a system before accepting it. As you do software development in an agile environment, you will continuously offer new developments to the system. At every release, the user will do acceptance testing and confirm that you have developed the system as per the initial requirements of the client.

The primary goal of UAT is to verify the end-to-end business process. It is not concerned with aesthetic flaws, misspellings, or system testing. User Acceptance Testing is performed in a separate testing environment with data that is similar to that used in production. Two or more end-users will be participating in this type of black box testing.

User Acceptance Testing is done by the client and end users. However, there are situations where the development team does a demonstration of the developed functionality and show it to the client.

After software has undergone Unit, Integration, and System testing, the need for User Acceptance Testing arises because developers may have built software based on requirements documents based on their own understanding, and further required changes during development may not have been effectively communicated to them, so user acceptance testing is used to determine whether the final product is accepted by the client/end-user.

There are multiple steps in a user acceptance test. They start from analyzing business requirements and creating test plan. Then you will discover the test scenarios and create testcases. Along with that, you will also prepare test data. The next step is to run all test cases and record results. As you run the test cases, you confirm business objectives as well. Clients and end users do this and verify that software is developed as per the initial requirement.

— Slimane Zouggari

System testing is a type of testing that verifies a software product’s completeness and integration. A system test is used to assess the end-to-end system requirements. Typically, software is just one part of a bigger computer system. The program is eventually interfaced with various software/hardware systems. System testing is a collection of tests whose primary goal is to put a computer-based system through its paces.

For example, let’s assume that you are developing a booking system in an agile software development environment. The booking system will have the inventory management module, reservation module, admin module, and many other modules. All these modules combine together to create the final system. Once you develop the final system, you test it as a whole to determine whether intended functionality is working or not. That’s where system testing can help you.

There are two main approaches to do system testing. They include white box testing and black box testing.

You should understand what you are trying to achieve in system testing, before getting your hands on it. During system testing, you proceed with testing fully integrated programs, including external peripherals, to see how components interact with one another and with the entire system. This scenario is also known as End to End testing. Then you need to check for intended results by thoroughly evaluating each input in the program. The application’s user experience is being tested as a part of system testing as well.

Multiple types of system testing are available for you to follow. They include usability testing, regression testing, load testing, functional testing, migration testing, software testing, and hardware testing. It is important to have a proper plan and then proceed with testing the system. This will help you to verify the functionality of the system at the end of the day.

— Slimane Zouggari

As you develop software in an agile environment, you will come across the need to integrate multiple systems to achieve desired functionality. Upon integrating different systems, it is important to test the functionality of the entire system as well. This is where integration testing comes into play. You will be testing all the integrated systems as a group.

For example, assume that you are going to integrate a Point of Sale system with a CRM to store customer information. You can do the integration via an API. After you create the link, you should do integration testing and see whether the integration is successful or not. This will help you to ensure the overall functionality of your system.

There are multiple approaches to do integration testing. If you have a small system, you may try big bang testing approach. This is where you integrate all modules and proceed with testing the entire unit. If the system is large, you can try incremental testing. This is where you integrate two or more modules at a time and proceed with integration. Likewise, you may also try stubs and drivers testing approach. This is where you use dummy programs for integration and proceed with testing. Another approach for testing is bottom-up testing. This is where you will test the integration of lower modules at the beginning, and then continue to test higher level modules. The opposite of it would be top-down testing, where you test higher level modules first.

No matter how you do integration testing, it is important to determine the best test strategy. Based on that, you can create your test cases. If you have a good understanding about the architecture of the system, you can get a helping hand to proceed with integration testing. You should never ignore the importance of test data, as you do integration testing.

— Slimane Zouggari

As you develop software in an agile environment, you will have to perform numerous types of testing. Vulnerability testing holds a prominent place out of them. Vulnerability testing is where you understand and classify the security vulnerabilities that exist within IT infrastructure. There are multiple tools, which you can use for vulnerability testing.

Multiple stages are there to follow as you do vulnerability testing. The very first step is to define goals of vulnerability testing. Then you can gather all information that you need for testing. After that, you can go through the vulnerability testing process. This is where you will be using specifically designed vulnerability scanners to detect vulnerabilities of the system. In case if there are complex flaws, you might have to do penetration testing along with vulnerability testing.

All the outcomes of vulnerability testing are documented and reported accordingly. You will need to have a deep analysis of the security vulnerabilities, so that you can detect causes as well as the potential impact caused by them. The next step would be to rank vulnerabilities based on severity and proceed with fixing them. In case if an issue cannot be resolved immediately, you should at least attempt to go for a virtual patch and fix it.

You should never ignore the importance of vulnerability testing. It will ensure the overall security of your IT infrastructure. Along with vulnerability testing, you can overcome customer loss, financial damage, and experience numerous other similar benefits. You can also refrain from encountering attacks as a result of vulnerability testing. While keeping this in mind, you should plan both automated and manual vulnerability tests accordingly.

— Slimane Zouggari

A penetration test, often known as a pen test, is an attempt to assess the security of an IT infrastructure by exploiting weaknesses in a safe manner. These defects might be found in operating systems, services, and applications, as well as incorrect settings and dangerous end-user behavior. These tests may also be used to verify the effectiveness of defensive measures and end-user compliance with security rules. When it comes to agile software development, you should pay more attention to PenTests as well. Then you can ensure that software applications you develop are secure against hacking attempts.

Penetration testing is used to systematically compromise servers, endpoints, online applications, wireless networks, network devices, mobile devices, and other possible sources of exposure using human or automated methods. Once a vulnerability has been successfully exploited on one system, testers may attempt to use the compromised system to launch subsequent exploits on other internal resources, specifically by using privilege escalation to gain incrementally higher levels of security clearance and deeper access to electronic assets and information.

Information about any security vulnerabilities successfully exploited through penetration testing is generally gathered and provided to IT and network system administrators to assist them in reaching strategic conclusions and prioritizing repair activities. The primary goal of penetration testing is to assess the likelihood of a system or end-user breach, as well as any potential repercussions for the resources or activities involved.

When it comes to penetration testing, you will be working as an ethical hacker. This is where you will evaluate the overall security of your IT infrastructure and exploit vulnerabilities. You will not just be focusing on few areas, but you will be focusing on the entire IT infrastructure, including mobile devices, web applications, networks, test servers, and other potential entry points to detect weaknesses. At the end of penetration testing, you can keep the peace of mind.

— Slimane Zouggari

White box testing is where you test a software, while taking its design, code, and internal structure into consideration. In other words, you will be verifying the input, flow of data, and the output to verify that the system is working correctly. The main objective of white box testing is to improve usability, security, and design of software. As a tester, you will be aware of the code.

There are numerous reasons available for you to go ahead with white box testing. For example, if you want to discover internal security holes, poorly structured paths, or to understand the behavior of specific inputs that you pass through code, you should do white box testing.

White box testing is quite complicated when compared to black box testing. You should initially understand the source code. This is the main reason on why not every tester can proceed with white box testing. You should have the understanding of a programmer to proceed with testing. Then you should create the test cases and execute them.

There are multiple techniques to follow as you do white box testing. For example, you should do statement coverage, where you test each and every statement within code. Then you get into branch coverage, where you check all possible paths in the code.

There are few types of testing that you perform in white box testing as well. Unit testing holds a prominent place out of them. This is where you test each block of code or unit in order to verify its intended functionality. In agile software development environments, you also test for memory leaks. To improve security of the application, you do penetration testing. On top of that, you even do white box mutation testing, where you try to discover whether best coding practices have been used.

— Slimane Zouggari

Black Box Testing is a method of testing software, where you will conduct a test without having a good understanding about the internal code structure or any other implementation details. You will just be focusing on the input to the system and output that you receive from the system for testing. In other words, black box testing is driven by specifications and requirements of software.

For example, assume that you want to test a login page of a website. Your inputs will be username, password, and forget your password link. You will not know how these functionalities are programmed. You just focus on the outcome that you get as you execute your test cases.

Even though black box testing sounds simple, there is an approach to follow and get your work done. You should begin with understanding software requirement and specifications. Then you will need to select valid inputs. Based on the understanding you have about the system; you can determine the output for desired inputs. Upon writing test cases for it, you can execute them. Then you can compare the results you got with the desired results. This will eventually help you to locate defects and raise bugs.

When it comes to agile software development, you can discover three main types of testing. They include functional testing, non-functional testing, and regression testing. Likewise, there are numerous techniques that you can follow for black box testing as well. If you want to minimize the total number of test cases, you can proceed with equivalence class testing. Or else, you can take a look at decision table testing, where you evaluate causes and results in a matrix, or try boundary value testing, where you focus on the values at boundaries. If understanding code is not a must, you may take a look at black box testing.

— Slimane Zouggari

A/B Testing is where you conduct a comparison in between two or more variations of a variable to determine what variable delivers the best results. This variable can be a web page, an element of a web page, or anything in between.

A/B testing removes all of the guesswork from website optimization, allowing experienced optimizers to make data-driven judgments. The ‘control’ or initial testing variable is referred to as A in A/B testing. B stands for ‘variant,’ which is a new version of the original testing variable.

Numerous reasons are available for you to conduct A/B testing in an agile environment. One of the key objectives of A/B testing is to understand the pain points of visitors who visit your website. You will be able to provide a better user experience to them after your series of A/B testing efforts. The end results will provide you the opportunity to secure a better return out of your investment from existing traffic. On the other hand, it will assist you to reduce your overall bounce rates. That’s because you are making your website more appealing for the visitors. You can also make low-risk modifications to your website with A/B testing. You can verify the improvements you achieve out of A/B testing statistically.

The success of your company is determined on the conversion funnel on your website. As a result, every piece of content that your target audience encounters on your website must be optimized to its full potential. This is especially true for items that have the ability to impact the behavior of your website visitors and the conversion rate of your business. Some of the elements that you can subject to A/B testing on the website include headlines, sub-headlines, body, subject lines, and the overall design layout.

— Slimane Zouggari

Agile testing is a type of testing that adheres to agile software development’s rules and concepts. Unlike the Waterfall technique, Agile Testing may begin right at the start of a project, with development and testing working in tandem. Agile testing is a continuous process rather than a sequential one.

Before you proceed with agile testing, you should have a well-defined test plan. The test data requirements, infrastructure, test environments, and test results are all included in the agile test strategy for that iteration. Unlike the waterfall paradigm, an agile model involves writing and updating a test strategy for each release. During agile testing, you will focus on numerous testing methods, including user acceptance testing, collaborative testing, pair testing, exploratory testing, and usability testing.

As you do agile testing, you will also need to be aware about the risks associated with it. For example, the automated user interface will provide confidence that you need to proceed with testing. However, it would be slow during execution. On the other hand, it would cost a lot to build and be quite fragile for maintenance as well. Automation would not improve the overall productivity of testing significantly. The tester has to play a major role in here. In other words, the tester should be aware of how to test in the right way.

In software testing, the agile methodology emphasizes testing as early as feasible in the software development lifecycle. It necessitates a high level of client participation and the testing of code as soon as it is made public. The code should be reliable enough to be tested in a production environment. To ensure that the issues are addressed and tested, extensive regression testing may be performed. The effectiveness of agile model testing is primarily down to team communication.

— Slimane Zouggari