What are multi-protocol routers?

- There are routers that have the capability to route a number of protocols at the same time. 

- These routers are popularly known as the multi-protocol routers. 

- There are situations in networking where combinations of various protocols such as the appletalk, IP, IPX etc. are used. 

- In such situations normal typical router cannot help. This is where we use the multi-protocol routers. 

- Using the multi-protocol routers, information can be shared between the networks. 

- The multi-protocol router maintains an individual routing table for each of the protocols.

- The multi-protocol routers have to be used carefully since they cause an increase in the number of routing tables that are present on the network. 

- Each protocol is advertised individually by the router. 

A multiprotocol router consists of the following information:

Ø  Routing information protocol (RIP)

Ø  Boot protocol relay agent (BOOTP)

Ø  RIP for IPX

- The multi-protocol routers use this routing information protocol for performing dynamic exchange of the routing info. 

- Routers using RIP protocol can dynamically exchange information with the other routers that use the same protocol. 

- The BOOTP agent is included so that the DHCP requests can be forwarded to their respective servers residing on other subnets. 

- It is because of this, a single DHCP server can process a number of IP subnets. 

- Multi-protocol routers do not require to be manually configured.

- The networking world these days relies totally up on the internet protocol. But there are certain situations where certain tasks can be performed more efficiently by the other protocols. 

- Most of the network protocols share many similarities rather than being different. 

- Therefore, if one protocol can be routed by a protocol efficient, then it is obvious that it can route the other one also efficiently. 

- If we route the non-IP protocols in a network, this implies that the same staff that takes care of the IP monitoring is administering the non-IP routing also. 

- This reduces the need for more equipment and effort. 

- There are a number of non-IP protocols available using which a LAN can work more effectively. 

- Using a number of non-IP protocols, a network can be made very flexible and easier to meet the demands of its users. 

- All these points speak in the favor of multi-protocol routing in an abstract way. 

- But the non-IP protocols to be routed must be selected with care. 

Below we mention reasons why routing non – IP protocols can be avoided:

1. It requires additional knowledge because you cannot master everything. For individual protocol an expert is required who in case of a failure can diagnose it and fix it.
2. It puts extra load on the routers. For every protocol, the router would have to maintain a separate routing table. This calls for a dynamic routing protocol for the router itself. For all this, more memory is required along with high processing power.
3. It increases the complexity. Multi-protocol router even though it seems to be simple, it is quite a complicated thing in terms of both hardware and software. Any problem in the implementation of the protocol can have a negative impact up on the stability of all the protocols.
4. Difficulty in designing: There are separate rules for routing of each protocol, assignment of the addresses and so on. There are possibilities that there might be conflicts between these rules which means it is very difficult to design.
5. It decreases stability. Scaling capacity of certain protocols is not as good as of the others. Some of the protocols are not suited to work in a WAN environment. 

Explain Rapise - Web Functional/Regression Test Tool

In this world of web–based applications, every application is unique and therefore its testing needs are also different from the other applications. To satisfy all those different testing requirements, environments, specifications, scenarios and so on we require many different testing tools. So a number of web functional/ regression testing tools have been developed and all of them possess some unique features that suit to needs of the different testers. 

In this article we discuss about one such web functional/ regression tool called Rapise that has been developed by the Inflectra inc. 

About Rapise

- This tool provides a platform for functional test automation. 

- The architecture of this tool is quite open and can be extended if required. 

- These two qualities make it very flexible for testing the applications.

- Rapise has built–in cross–browser testing capabilities that support several versions of the following web browsers:

1. Microsoft internet explorer
2. Mozilla firefox and
3. Google chrome

- It supports the following applications:

1. Ajax
2. GWT
3. YUI
4. Flash/ flex
5. AIR
6. Silverlight and so on.

- Microsoft excel spreadsheets can be used for following approaches such as keyword driven testing and data driven testing.

- Rapise identifies the objects based up on CSS and Xpath. 

- Rapise comes with a built–in OCR i.e., optical character recognition.

- It relies on JavaScript for scripting purpose. 

- An open format is used for storing the scripts as well as the identified objects unlike other tools that store them in a database or a proprietary binary file. 

- The JavaScript editor included with Rapise is full function edition and has a feature called the automatic code completion. 

- An active JavaScript debugger that is plug-gable plus has watches and break points, is also included in Rapise tool. 

- Rapise has made cross browser testing much easier than before. 

- This is all because of the cross – browser testing capabilities that are of the best standard and multiple browser versions as mentioned earlier in the article. 

- You have the choice of recording and creating one test script and executing the same in all the major browsers without making any modifications to it. 

- Rapise claims to have the most flexible as well as the powerful test automation features ever available in the market. 

Features of Rapise Testing Tool

Below we mention some features of Rapise testing tool:

1. Learn and go functionality: This lets you create test scripts rapidly. This works in a more efficient manner than what traditional recording and playback methods we have. The editing of the object takes place during the learning process.
2. Keyword driven testing and data driven testing
3. Windows and web application testing
4. Can be extended using Javascript
5. Adobe AIR and Flash support
6. Supports DevExpress, Infragistics and telerik controls.
7. Support for Qt framework
8. Integrated reporting capabilities that are very powerful.
9. Integration with SpiraTest for effective test management.

- This tool has leveraged the power of extensible architecture by a great measure. 

- For user, the JavaScript source code has been made available for library recognition as well as execution. 

- All these features let you automate the test where other testing tools are bound to fail. 

- With such advanced features, Rapise can be called as the most customizable, extensible and flexible test automation tool. 

- Key functions can be modified by the users as per their requirement and the recording aspects can be customized with the help of custom plug – in libraries. - Since Rapise is using Javascript, a broad range of users can access it.  

What smaller projects are contained in Watir projects?

About Watir

- Web application testing in Ruby often known as ‘watir’ belongs to the family of the open source family of tools for automation of the web browsers. 

- This tool is available under BSD license and consists of ruby libraries that can be used for automating the web browsers. 

- The tool possesses the ability for driving the web browsers such as Mozilla firefox, internet explorer, opera, safari and chrome. 

- Further, watir has been even made available in the form of RubyGems gem. 

- The credit for the primary development of this tool goes to Brett Pettichord and his colleague Paul Rogers.

Functionality of Watir

- The functionality of watir has been divided in to three main smaller projects. 

- Actually, watir consists of a number of smaller projects but we shall discuss the 3 major ones namely:

1. Watir – classic
2. Watir – webdriver
3. Watirspec

About Water–classic

- This project of watir is based on the fact that the OLE (i.e., object linking and embedding) capabilities come in – built with the ruby package.

- With such capabilities it becomes easy for watir–classic to drive the browsers pro-grammatically.

- One thing to be noted about the water – classic is that its way of operation is quite different from the way the other HTTP based test tools operate. 

- The other HTTP based testing tools operate via the simulation of the browsers. 

- The web browsers are directly driven by the water – classic using the OLE protocol. 

- The implementation of this protocol is done over the COM (component object model) architecture.

- Inter-process communication is possible due to COM such as in IE and ruby. 

- Further, dynamic object creation as well as manipulation is also possible with such architecture. 

- This is termed as OLE automation by Microsoft. 

- The manipulating program has been termed as the automation controller. 

- Technically this can be explained as follows: The internet explorer serves as the server and caters to the automation objects and exposes their methods. The ruby program then serves as the client that carries out the manipulation of the automation objects. Water – classic can be put in to the gemfile or can be installed manually.

About Water–webdriver

 

- This project has been developed as a modern version of selenium based water API. 

- The selenium 2.0 has been taken to be the reference implementation of the specification of the webdriver.

- Selenium 2.0 is the selenium webdriver. 

- Water API has been implemented as a wrapper around the selenium webdriver by Jari Bakken.

- The selenium 2.0 is what from which the water – webdriver has been derived and has been built up on the html specifications. 

- This implies that the water webdriver always maintain compatibility with the world wide web consortium specifications that already exist. 

- Webdriver is quite an elegant way for using webdriver with ruby. 

- Ruby 1.9.3 is perfectly supported by the watir – webdriver but nonetheless it works well with its old versions also. 

- When you start with watir ruby will take your commands and the spath selectors are absent here. 

- Even though the xpath selectors are supported by watir, its API is so awesome that the need for using the xpaths is totally eliminated. 

- Using watir web driver increases your efficiency as well as productivity. 

- In addition to this, the quality of the scripts execution increases by a thousand times.

About Watirspec

- This is the third major project of watir and can be considered to be its API’s executable specification such as ruby has rubyspec. 

- The performance of watir is better with watirspec and also improves the compliance with the watir – webdriver. 

Explain Watir (Web application testing in Ruby)?

Watir stands for Web application testing in Ruby and was developed as an open source that would provide Ruby libraries by Paul Rogers and Bret Pettichord. The software is licensed under BSD and contains all ruby libraries that would be required for the automation of the web browsers. The software is known to drive a number of web browsers namely:

1. Internet explorer
2. Mozilla firefox
3. Chrome
4. Opera
5. Safari

The software has been made available especially for ruby as the ruby gems. Watir is comprised of several smaller projects which define its functionality:

1. Watir–classic: Ruby has got built – in OLE capabilities that can be used by water classic for driving the IE pro grammatically. The way of operation of water classic is different than that of the other HTTP based based testing tools.
2. Watirspec: This one is watir’s executable specification.
3. Water–webdriver: The reference implementation of the web driver specification is the selenium 2.0. the roots of the water web driver can be traced to the HTML specification.

- This automated test tool uses ruby as the scripting language for driving the above mentioned web browsers. 

- You can call it a tool kit for developing effective automated tests and run them against the browsers. 

- Watir can be used for driving the web applications which can be looked up as HTML pages while browsing. 

- However, Watir is not known to work with the following:

1. Active X plug – in components
2. Java applets
3. Macromedia flash and other plug – in applications.

- Before you use watir for your application you need to determine whether it will work for it or not. 

- To do so just right click on the object and check for the view source menu.

- If the HTML source for the object is available it can be well automated using watir otherwise not. 

- There are certain prerequisites for using watir which are that you need to have knowledge about the following:

1. HTML
2. Programming basics including simple control structures.
3. Ruby: this is required if you put water to a really good use.

- Watir works well for all the windows platforms including windows 2000, server 2003, XP and vista and it can be run on versions 6 and 7 of internet explorer. 

- Using Ruby 1.8.5 – 24 or 1.8.6 – 26 is recommended. 

- For installing ruby and water you need to log on as the administrator. 

- There are two ways for installing watir:

1. From behind a proxy and
2. From behind a firewall

- The tests written using watir are quite easy to read as well as maintain and exhibit simplicity and flexibility.

- The way watir drives the web browsers is the same as done by people. 

- It performs clicking operations such as clicking on links and buttons, forms filling operations and so on. 

- Results are also checked by watir. 

- Ruby, like other programming languages provides your application with the ability to do the following:

1. To connect to data bases
2. To read from spreadsheets and data files
3. To export the XML files
4. To restructure your code so that it can be converted in to a reusable library.

- Watir is free open source tool and therefore no money expenditure in using it. 

- Ruby is a full featured modern programming language which lets watir support all the web applications no matter by what technology it has been developed. 

- Watir provides support to a number of browsers on different platforms. 

- Though the tool is quite powerful it is extremely simple and easy to use. 

- For using watir, it is recommended that you install the IE developer tool bar. 

What are main features of Silk test?

The Borland silk test automation tool is said to possess all the features and qualities that an ideal testing tool is said to have. Therefore, in this article we shall focus on the features of the Borland silk test automation tool.

1. It is quite easy for use since it is possible for the business users to create the automated tests without requiring any actual software coding.
2. Further the silk test automation tool takes lesser time for its deployment i.e., it can be deployed fast which in turn enables the software testers to keep an appropriate pace with the rate with which the development takes place.
3. It's third most important feature is its flexibility while use which in turn enables the software developers to create tests in an integrated development environment that is chosen by them only.
4. The fourth feature of the silk test is that it provides the role based test automation. Usually it happens that the domain experts, business analyst, developer or automation engineer – all of these people have their own way of working i.e., they have a tendency to work with different interfaces such as some may work with a visual interface, others with script based or some others with interfaces that are IDE powered. The silk test automation tool provides each of them with a suitable interface with which they are comfortable. Thus, in a way a kind of empowerment is granted to the users so that they can participate in the testing process with confidence and ensure that their critical applications go through a continuous validation.
5. Fifth most popular feature is the cross browser web testing by silk test. Most advance web 2.0 applications can be verified for their functionality very well before you are able to launch them with confidence. Using silk test automation tool, one powerful script can be used for carrying out testing in  a number of different  browsers as well as browser versions as well as in locales such as the following:

a)     Microsoft internet explorer

b)     Mozilla firefox

c)     Google chrome

d)     Html 5

e)     Fx

f)      Ajax

g)     Microsoft silverlight

h)     Java and so on.

Even the embedded technologies can tested very well at speeds that are non -parallel with that of the any other software test automation tool.

6. Sixth feature is the support for the .net and java platform and scripting language. With silk test, it really does not matters now that whether you go for vb. Net, C#, java which are industry standard languages or you go for 4test language of the silk test. Using any of these you can improve the working of the silk test in whichever environment you are working up on. Both visual studio as well as the eclipse is supported by the silk test and it takes care that they can be well integrated with the acceptance tests and unit tests frame works such as fitness e.
7. Seventh feature of the silk test is its powerful recorder. The powerful recorder of the silk test has got many powerful features which enable the quick capturing of the reusable as well as the common sequences of the test steps. There is also a provision of the easy modification and customization of the sequences so that they can be reused in the test automation frame works.
8. The eighth feature is the debugging feature of the silk test. The debugging feature of the silk test consists of some powerful debugging capabilities which enable one to step through the automation sequence and check out what is actually happening there. 

What is TSL? What 4GL is it similar too?

TSL and 4GL are two major languages that are coming in to the scenario of the present world programming languages. What do you mean by a test script actually? 

Test scripts form a set of instructions that in turn can be performed on some software system or application under test for checking whether or not the functions are giving the desired output i.e., if they are working properly or not. There are two ways via which these test scripts can be executed as mentioned below:

1. Manual testing and
2. Automated testing

In this article we shall discuss regarding the test script language or TSL and fourth generation language or 4GL. First let us start our discussion with the test script language. 

About Test Script Language

- The Test script language lies at the heart of the integrated testing environment created by the mercury interactive.

- Test script language is categorized under the category of high level languages. 

- Its usefulness is born out of the combination of the flexibility as well as the power of the conventional programming languages and functions that have been developed as a tool or a feature to be used along with the products of the mercury interactive like winrunner and test director. 

- Also, this feature of the test script language has made it to be used for the modification and programming of the sophisticated test suites. 

- The functions that the test script language provides have been grouped in to the following four categories:

1. Analog functions
2. Context sensitive functions
3. Customization functions and
4. Standard functions.

- All of the above mentioned functions do not come with all the mercury interactive products. 

- Winrunner is one such mercury interactive product which supports all of these functions. 

- Apart from just the built in functions the test script languages gives its users the provision of creating their own functions.

What are Fourth Generation Languages - 4GL?

- A fourth generation programming language needs not necessarily be a language only it can also be a programming environment. 

- The 4GLs have been developed with a certain set of design patterns in mind and are assigned a specific problem domain. 

- 4GLs were developed as a succession to the 3GLs and are known to define a higher trend of statement power as well as abstraction. 

- It was observed that the 3GL languages were quite slow and much prone to errors. 

- As a result of the efforts to overcome this problem, the 4GL languages were born and these were more focussed towards aspects like:

     1. Systems engineering

     2. Problem solving and so on.

- The fourth generation language was designed as such that they cut down on the following: 

     1. programming efforts,

     2. Time consumed in development and of course

     3. The cost of the software development.

- However, in some of the cases, a try at achieving all this resulted in an ineffective and unmanageable code. 

- A formal definition of the 4GL was given by John Capers in terms of developer productivity (i.e., in terms of function points per staff month). 

- 4GL languages are said to support 12- 20 function points per staff month. 

- The 4GLs are a subset of domain specific programming languages has been stated a number of times by some researchers. 

- 4GLs have been classified in to 4 types as stated below:

1.Table driven programming (codeless): Uses table driven algorithm. Example: power builder.

2. Report generator programming languages: Generates the required report.

3. Fourth generation environments or more ambitious 4GLs: Specialize in generation whole system from output of CASE tools.

4. Data management 4GLs: such as-

             a)   SPSS

             b)   SAS

             c)   Stata

What are the main attributes of test automation?

Test automation is nowadays counted among the best software development aids that we have today. It is a great testing aid that seeks to resolve the drudgery of the testers. Test automation has become so common nowadays that every one of us knows quite a lot about it.

What does Test Automation do?

- Test automation actually controls the execution of the test cases by using an automated process. 

- Also, the comparison of the actual and the predicted outcome takes place in the same and "take it easy" manner.  

- One thing that should be noted is that only those manual processes can be automated which have deployed a formalized testing process. 

- In the test automation process, the user actions are recorded and the checkpoints are introduced in to the testing script so that playing it back from a particular point is made easy when you have to perform regression tests. 

- The manual tests that passed can be automated and is mostly used in the testing methodologies like:

1. Data driven testing
2. Regression testing
3. Performance testing and so on.

Attributes of Test Automation

By attributes, we mean the characteristics of the test automation process. It has got quite a lot of positive attributes. So let us what all attributes we can state for test automation:

1. Repeatability:

Automation supports repeated execution of a test case several times again and again. When you need to execute the same test case again and again the test automation comes as a big win for you.

2. Programmability: 

The test cases can be programmed to be executed on a number of different machines whereas the manual tests have to be executed in a sequential way one after the other.

3. Reliability: 

You can rely on test automation for repeat-ability and accuracy.

4. Impact

5. Criticality

6. Maintainability: 

The maintenance is just that you have to update the test automation suites for every new release of the software system or application.

7. Flexibility: 

With test automation it becomes quite easy for you to run automated tests that frequently change according to the regressions at particular time intervals and also the tests can be run in mainstream scenarios.

8. Efficiency: 

The ratio of total cost to the required effort need is reasonable.

9. Portability: 

The automated tests can be executed in different environments unlike manual test cases.

10.Robustness: 

The automated tests are quite effective for the software systems or applications that are quite unstable or change rapidly.

11. Usability: 

The automated tests can be used to a large extent by different types of users.

12. Speed

13. Accuracy

14. Relentlessness: 

The automated test generator as well as the process never gets tired generating and running test cases.

There are some tests like exploratory testing and usability which cannot be automated because of their free style. Testers involved in a testing team support diverse software systems and applications that are quite unrelated to each other. 

- If the projects that demands implementation of a unique testing strategy, then the testers involved in the whole will appear more to be a hindrance rather than being a help. 

- The testers will require tie to get adjusted to the new environment which unfortunately they cannot get and thus lowering the level of their productivity. 

- We cannot waste time on re- engineering the development frame works but we can surely harness test automation power for every new application that we need to develop. 

- The application can be continuously improved since the test automation has got so many positive attributes that can surely benefit the whole testing process. 

List out the differences between extreme programming and scrum?

The scrum development and extreme programming as we all know are two very great and popular agile software development processes. 

The common thing between the two is that both of these are agile processes, but on the other side there are a lot of differences too! 

In this article we are going to discuss the same i.e., what are the differences between extreme programming and scrum? There is no doubt in the fact that the two processes are very well aligned with each other! 

It often happens while following one of these processes that if you been following extreme programming you will feel as if you had been following scrum throughout the development process and vice versa.

Differences between Scrum & Extreme Programming

The differences between the extreme programming and scrum are quite subtle but they are important things which distinguish between the two processes from each other. Below mentioned are some of the differences between the scrum and the extreme programming:

Difference #1:

- The first subtle difference between the two is the duration of the iterations.

- In extreme programming the iterations are usually short i.e., one or two weeks long. 

- On the other hand the scrum iterations are quite long and may range from several weeks to months. The sprint is the name given for the iterations carried out in the scrum methodology.

Difference #2:

- In scrum, any changes during the development process are not supported by the scrum and neither do any changes are allowed in the iterations or sprints. 

- Once the sprint planning meeting is completed and it is decided to deliver a set of product back log items, the plan is not altered till the very end of the sprint. 

- In contrast to scrum, extreme programming iterations are known to be quite flexible since they allow changes to be incorporated in to its iterations. 

- But the changes can be made only if the team has not started working on a particular feature. And also the feature to be changed must be of the equivalent size of the feature that is to be replaced and has not been built up.

Difference #3:

- Extreme programming, has been known to work strictly in the order of the priority assigned to the various features and aspects. 

- These features and functionality had already been prioritized by the customers. 

- The customer is not considered to be the whole owner of the extreme programming product, whereas in the scrum it is do considered. 

- In the scrum development, the features are not prioritized by the customer instead the customers prioritize the product’s back log items.

- It is then the responsibility of the development team to determine the sequence for the development of the back log items. 

- In the extreme programming, the development always starts from the highly prioritized features and functionality.

- In scrum, the developers think that starting from a highly prioritized feature is not always a good option. They think that working up on low priority items makes more sense.

Difference #4:

- Under the concept of the scrum development process, no particular engineering practices have been stated. 

- But the extreme programming does prescribes some engineering practices like the TDD or test driven development, automated testing, simple designing, programming in pairs, refactoring and so on. 

But following the same practices is not always desirable! It is needed that the teams should incorporate their own values.

The above mentioned differences are quite small but they do make considerable set of difference and can have a profound impact on the development team. 

The extreme programming works well when it is not mandated and the teams are left to discover their own practices. Scrum methodology when worked out with time boxed iterations and additional focus can work wonders.