Zephyr Test Management

Zephyr is an extension for JIRA. It is a native application that exists in JIRA and brings quality test management capabilities to any JIRA project. When Zephyr is used with JIRA, the test can be created, viewed in any JIRA project, and executed immediately or as part of a testing cycle that may be linked to other issues. The detailed testing metrics can be tracked via customizable Zephyr gadgets. Zephyr is designed to streamline and enhance your test management workflow. Whether you're looking for custom dashboards, detailed reports or in depth analytics data Zephyr is there to support you. 

All teams work differently. It’s important to find a test management solution that best fits your needs. Whether you’re Agile or Waterfall, or somewhere in-between, Zephyr test management solutions support development natively on Jira as well as securely on-premises.

Zephyr is divided based on three capability. An organization can choose between three world-class solutions and find what’s right for your size and complexity:

Quick start your testing in Jira

Small, Agile Teams

• Test design
• Test executions
• Automation and integration with BDD and CI tools
• Single-project reporting

Advance your testing in Jira

Mid-Size, Growing Teams

• Reusability-at-scale features
• Lightweight test planning
• Automation and integration with BDD and CI tools
• Cross-project reporting

Achieve continuous testing agility in a standalone solution

Mid-Large, Complex Teams

• Bi-directional Jira integration
• End-to-end traceability
• Enterprise-grade test planning and auditing
• Flexible support for third-party automation frameworks
• Legacy ALM migration path and transition plan
• Premium enterprise support

Zephyr provides multiple deployment options:

• Zephyr for JIRA Cloud
• Zephyr for JIRA Server
• Zephyr for JIRA Data Center

Features of Zephyr for JIRA

• Native to JIRA allowing users to test right inside JIRA
• Testing is integrated into the project cycles and it enables you to track software quality and make empowered go/no-go decisions.
• Create, Plan, and Execute Tests
• Create, view, and modify test steps and attachments for individual tests. Build test execution cycles, execute the tests, and link defects to specific tests.
• Track Quality Metrics
• Zephyr provides easy-to-use dashboard which provides testing metrics on the testing activities throughout every project.

Continuous Testing

Zephyr is designed to give you the capability to test at scale as well as operate within the CI/CD pipeline. Integration to all the popular CI/CD tools gives you the capability to trigger execution runs and collate everything that's happening as part of your test process. No other tool gives you the ability to control your capability to test continuously with such a rich feature set to help you manage the whole process.

Example:

Zephyr gives you a slick user experience coupled with a feature set that provides everything you could ever need. More than this we strive to provide the integration too the full tool set used within today's agile software development projects. That might be Jenkins, Bamboo or Team City on the CI/CD side of things. On the test automation tool front we have you well covered with support for most of the tools on the market. Needless to say we deliver close integration with the likes of TestComplete and ReadyAPI. Everything you need to connect the dots between your agile tool set.

Performance Testing Tools

Top Performance Testing Tools

1. Load Ninja
2. Apache JMeter
3. Web LOAD
4. LoadUI Pro
5. Load View
6. NeoLoad
7. LoadRunner
8. Silk Performer
9. AppLoader
10. SmartMeter.io
11. Locust

Apache JMETER

JMeter is an open source tool that can be used for performance and load testing for analysing and measuring the performance of a variety of services. This tool is mainly used for web and web service applications.

Features:

• It supports multiple load injectors managed by a single controller
• Highly portable and supports all the Java-based apps
• Less scripting efforts as compared to other tools
• Simple charts and graphs for analysing key load related statistics and resource usage monitors.
• Supports Integrated real-time, Tomcat collectors for Monitoring
• It supports HTTP, HTTPs, XML, SOAP, Java-based protocols and FTP protocols

Blazemeter

BlazeMeter’s open-source based, enterprise ready platform unifies all the functionality you need to shift testing left - and right.

Features:

• Functional Testing
• Performance Testing
• Mock Services
• 360° API Testing

Loader.io

Loader.io is a cloud-based load testing service for developers to test performance and scalability with their web applications and APIs.

Features:

• It provides simple cloud-based load testing
• Load testing for web applications and APIs for performance and scalability
• Integration with PaaS providers, continuous integration tools, and browsers
• Allows testing up to 50,000 concurrent connections for free
• It is cloud-based so it is a no install solution and immediately available for developers to test.

Reference Blogs:

1. Performance Testing
2. JMeter
3. Blazemeter
4. JMeter VS Loader.io

This is not the end of this Blog on Performance / Load Testing tools. I will keep on adding details on other tools in future, as and when I gain more knowledge and experience.

Interview Questions Series

 (Q) How to deal with defects that are NOT reproducible?

Ans:  Firstly we need to know "What is reproducible defect ?" While first time you got defect and you posted it. But dev team want to know how to occur that defect then you need to reproduce that defect with same steps & data. It means second time creating same scenario for that defect. If you can't reproduce a bug you can never fix it.

Secondly we need to know "What are Non-Reproducible defects?" Observing an issue whole day and at the end of the day when you reported that defect, you find it is no more reproducible.

For example, suppose a user is unable to add products to its cart. This happens 6 out of 10 times. Issue observed only when we restart the application.

In all these cases, it is hard to determine the exact condition and report it right. Such defects take a lot of time in the investigation of.  We can't ignore these kind of defect. 

So, how we can deal with that:

• Clear all cache and cookies while reproducible defect
• Proper documentation needed
• Noting down each and every step and other details (like test data, environment, system settings, screenshots, server logs etc) will be a good practice to easily replicate the scenario.
• Sometimes looking for similar defect or patterns can be helpful in reproducing a bug. It will be easier to identify the scenario if the pattern is understood
• Verify a few more times to determine the occurrence of defect. Do not trust and report further on the basis of one single time occurrence of the issue
• Testing with patience is the key factor as this might and will take a lot of time

(Q) What is difference between use case and test case?

Use Case: Use case is a representation of actions which describes the behaviour of system to do a particular task. Use cases are prepared based on requirements. Business users executes use cases.

Test Case: Test case contains the test data, set of instructions to follow and a result of following the instructions. Test cases are prepared based on Use cases. Testers executes test cases.

(Q) Common challenges faced in software testing?

• Lack of requirements documentation
• Writing test scenario with less documentation.
• Lack of communication
• Unstable test environment
• Impossibility of complete testing
• Regression and integration testing

(Q) How to resolve inconsistent defect?

Inconsistent means which is not stable. The inconsistent bug is a bug which is not appearing during the retesting process. That means it may appear or may not appear. This is very difficult to reproduce.

To handle these kind of defects, better to attach screenshots and clear steps to reproduce with test data while logging the defect to avoid unnecessary comments by other teams.

(Q) What is RTM? What does RTM contain?

RTM stands for Requirement Traceability Matrix. Requirement traceability matrix is a document that map and trace user requirement with test case. 

The main purpose of Requirement Traceability Matrix is to validate that all requirements are checked via test cases such that no functionality is unchecked during Software testing.

The agenda of every tester should be to understand the client’s requirement and make sure that the output product should be defect-free.

(Q) Difference between Alpha and Beta testing?

Alpha Testing is a type of software testing performed to identify bugs before releasing the product to real users or to the public. Alpha Testing is one of the user acceptance testing. Alpha testing used both the white box and black box testing. Reliability and security testing are not checked in alpha testing.

Beta Testing is performed by real users of the software application in a real environment. Beta testing commonly uses black box testing. Reliability, security and robustness are checked during beta testing.

(Q) Explain Test Strategy?

In simple term, "Test Plan is a vision of what you want to achieve and Test Strategy is an action plan designed to achieve this vision."

A Test Strategy is a plan for defining an approach to the Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC). It guides QA teams to define Test Coverage and testing scope. It helps testers get a clear picture of the project at any instance. The possibility of missing any test activity is very low when there is a proper test strategy in place.

(Q) Why do you need test plan and what does test plan contain?

Test plan helps us to keep the details of the testing scope, features, and functionalities to be tested for a build. Test plan also contains details of testing techniques and tools to be used. This prevents the testing team from putting any efforts in testing 'Out of scope' functionalities. 

A Test Plan is a detailed document that describes the test strategy, objectives, schedule, estimation, deliverables, and resources required to perform testing for a software product.

(Q) What are the fields in a bug report?

Field which is available during bug report is:

• Bug Name
• Bug ID
• Bug description 
• raised by
• priority
• Severity
• Assigned to
• reported by
• reported on 
• Status
• Environment