Future trends in QA
Written by Ajdin Redžepovac, QA Engineer at Softray Solutions
Quality Assurance (QA) plays an important role in the SDLC. It not only helps discover defects early in the development cycle but also saves a lot of time, money, and sometimes nerves. When we talk about future trends in QA, it is impossible not to mention AI or ML. These are two phrases that are often seen on the Internet today.
But what are AI and ML? What benefits or enhancements do we get by using them in QA? Except for these two, we can come across terms like IoT and Cybersecurity. In this blog, we will write some of the benefits they can offer to improve QA process or generally. Stay tuned and keep reading! I promise it won’t be boring!
- AI and ML-based testing
Difference between AI and ML
The simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, particularly computer systems, is known as Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is a simplified problem-solving process for humans and allows the software to manage tasks without being explicitly programmed. AI programming focuses on three cognitive skills: learning, reasoning and self-correction.
Machine Learning (ML) is a subfield of artificial intelligence, which is broadly defined as the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior.
How can AI and ML enhance software quality?
Some of the benefits of machine learning-based quality assurance:
1. It speeds up manual testing and improves the overall quality
Testing manually each line of code might take weeks or months, and there is a higher risk of errors. By generating scripts and evaluating data more quickly, ML speeds up the entire process. To improve program accuracy and reliability, ML can be used to manage files easily.
1. Automated testing process
When there is a modification in the application, ML provides more test coverage to the test cases. It reduces the additional effort required to keep the testing going. AI bots can adapt and learn application functionalities. They can identify any changes in the code and, if necessary, find any potential flaws.
2. Predicting requirements
ML may be quite useful in determining and predicting client’s needs. Predicting provides customers more information about the company’s products and features as they require it.
2. Internet of Things (IoT) testing
What is IoT testing?
It is a type of testing to examine IoT devices.
What is IoT device?
In short, if your device is “smart”, then it’s an IoT device. Today, IoT devices come in all shapes and forms, from smart TVs to traffic monitoring technologies and others.
IoT testing is executing tests that validate the performance, functionality, and security of an IoT device. Because every IoT device transmits data from one object to another over the Internet, it is essential to confirm that IoT devices can transmit sensitive information wirelessly.
Types of testing IoT Devices
Like any software product, IoT devices require extensive testing before market launch. To test IoT devices, we can use the following types of testing:
1. Security testing
IoT penetration testing tools can verify that IoT devices are free from any threats, vulnerabilities, or risk.
2. Connectivity testing
Connectivity is what makes IoT devices so desirable. IoT testing tools should review the strength of communication between the device and the user as well as between two or more IoT devices.
3. Performance testing
IoT performance testing tools are designed to ensure the expected performance of the IoT device under normal circumstances.
4. Functional testing
The QA team should validate the IoT software system against functional requirements and specifications with the assistance of IoT testing tools. Whether performed manually or through IoT automation testing tools, functional testing checks the user Interface, APIs, database, and client/server communication.
5. Compatibility testing
Due to the complexity of IoT technology, compatibility testing must be included. Through IoT automation testing tools that examine the compatibility of IoT devices in any user experience, from hardware and operating systems to software and network speeds.
3. Increase QAOps influence
Companies are always in a race to deliver better versions of products to customers. But speeding up delivery means sacrificing quality, which is a short-sighted delivery strategy that almost always ends up causing more chaos.
Traditional testing approaches can sometimes cause bottlenecks that can slow down development and release. But, if you include QAOps, that won’t happen because of their versatility.
What is QAOps?
QAOps is a combination of DevOps and QA processes in one, ensuring the delivery of high-quality software. The entire process starts with the development of software and leads on to the QA team to assess and find potential issues in the software before it reaches the user. It sounds time-consuming, but the main goal is to increase the speed of the software delivery process and provide a quality web application along with it.
Steps in QAOps Process
The QAOps process can be achieved in three simple phases:
1. Trigger
The most crucial part of the entire process is to trigger the application. This is achieved by creating appropriate tests when the application is being integrated into the CI/CD pipeline.
2. Execute
When the trigger phase is approved, the next step is to execute. This step involves parallel testing for the framework and the software quality to ensure that developers have everything they need to generate results as desired.
3. Report
The final step is reporting. This step includes doing exactly what it means, reporting the results of the two phases mentioned above. Just like any other process, reporting completes the entire QAOps process.
Benefits of QAOps Process
By integrating the different testing methods with QA operations, companies can benefit in several ways:
1. Greater quality of new products,
2. Reducing the timeframe to deliver a finished product,
3. Better understanding of the entire process for the development and operation teams,
4. Prevents any delay and
5. Better quality and performance of the product.
4. Cyber-security testing
These days, cyber-attacks are widespread. To protect themself against potential attacks, companies have created products and software applications designed to secure their data. But can they provide complete protection against these threats?!
What is Cyber-security testing?
Cyber-security testing is testing systems, networks, programs and software applications to ensure that they can withstand digital attacks. QA team or cyber security testing company creates a web security testing checklist to follow in order to detect any weaknesses within the application.
The security testing checklist should include the following types of cyber security penetration tests:
1. Network Service penetration testing,
2. Web Application penetration testing,
3. Client-Side penetration testing,
4. Wireless Network penetration testing,
5. Social Engineering testing and,
6. Mobile penetration testing.
Steps To Complete Before Testing a Product in the Security Domain
Before an engineer or a cyber security testing company begins testing a product in the security domain with a cyber security checklist, we need to provide answers to specific questions. We need to offer answers to the following questions:
1. What type of application is being tested?
2. What is the category of a software application under testing?
3. What threats does this software protect against?
4. Which environments are supported by the software?
5. Is the test plan well thought out and thoroughly prepared?
In the end, we can’t say anything except, that QA engineers should keep an open mind and be ready to learn new techniques and skills, and the future will be bright.
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