What is meant by Holographic Data Storage?

Currently the conventional magnetic and optical data storage dominates the field of high – capacity data storage. But another technology called the holographic data storage holds the potential to lead this area. Now what is this technology? We shall discuss about it in this article. 

Difference between Conventional storage methods and Holographic Data Storage

- The conventional methods such as the optical storage and magnetic storage technologies depend up on the recording of the individual data bits on the distinct optical and magnetic on the medium’s surface. 

- In the holographic technology, the information is recorded throughout the medium’s volume.

- Multiple images can be recorded in the same medium area via utilization of the light at varying angles. 

- Further, in the conventional storage methods the recording takes place in a linear fashion whereas, 

- In holographic storage, millions of bits can be recorded and read in parallel thus increasing the rates of the data transfer more than what are offered by the conventional methods.

Features of Holographic Data Storage

Data Recording: 

- The information is stored in a thick photosensitive optical substance with the help of an optical interference pattern. 

- A laser beam is divided into two un-identical optical patterns (formed of light and dark pixels) and is projected towards the medium. 

- A multitude of holograms in one volume is recorded by making adjustments in the wavelength, reference beam angle, media position etc.

Data Reading: 

- For reading the stored data, the same reference beam is reproduced for the creation of the hologram. 

- This light beam is focused up on the photosensitive material that illuminates the interference pattern which leads to the diffraction of the light. 

- The pattern is then projected to the detector. 

- The data is then read in parallel at a rate more than that of millions. 

- This means high data transfer rate. 

- It takes less than 0.2 seconds for accessing the information from a holographic drive. 

- Holographic data storage has offered a solution to many companies for preserving and archiving the information. 

- The WORM (write – once, read many) approach provides assurance about the content security, risk of modification and overwriting of the information. 

- This technology provides hope for storage of data without degradation for 50 plus years which is quite more than the current options.

- However, if the same trend is followed, and it becomes possible to store data for 50 – 100 years in same format, that would still be irrelevant. 

- This is so because the format will be changing in less than 10 years.  

Types of Holographic Media

- Holographic media is of two types namely:

1.  The re-writable media and
2. The write once medium.

- In the former type, the changes can be reversed but in the latter can the changes are irreversible.

There is no point in the competition between the holographic storage and the hard drives since the former can find a market that is based up on the virtues like access speed. 

- The holographic data storage technology does seems to have a future in the video game market. 

In the year of 2009, the GE Global Research did came up with their own demonstration of the holographic storage medium that could stand the discs that had read mechanisms somewhat similar to that of the blu–ray disc players. 

Explain Fabasoft app.test - Web Functional/ Regression Test Tool

About Fabasoft app.Test

- Fabasoft distribution GmbH has developed a web testing tool called the fabasoft app. Test.

- It can be used to create tests based up on the patterns that are effective in reducing the complexity of the java and HTML applications.

- These tests do not contain any CSS and XPath expressions but they do contain statements that are meaningful and can be easily understood. 

- The features of this tool can be extended by connecting with it the eclipse plug–in that is a point–and-click editor. 

- This plug–in can be used for designing effective patterns for web sites. 

- Fabasoft app. Test supports web browsers such as Mozilla firefox, internet explorer, and safari and so on. 

- In all these browsers, tests can be recorded using the above point–and–click recorder.

- The recorded test scripts than can be replayed immediately after recording in the other browsers and there is no need for modifying those scripts.

- The tool is even capable of generating various reports in formats such as PDF or html, documentation of the errors consisting of various dumps and screen shots. 

- It supports various platforms such as:

1.   Win

2.   Linux

3.   Mac OS – X

Features of Fabasoft app.Test

 

Some of the characteristic features of this web testing tool are:

1.   Recorder

2.   Multi – browser support

3.   Script and dialog error handler

4.   Documentation of the errors along with screen shots

5.   Various dumps

6.   Several reports in formats such as pdf and html.

- If you have opted for using fabasoft app. Test, you can just sit back and relax and let the tool take on the testing process. 

- The tests that are created with fabasoft app. Test are easy to understand and there is no requirement of the programming skills.

- It can be considered to be the next generation web testing. 

- You can teach fabasoft app. Test about your application in just a few clicks. 

- The fabasoft app. Test can test the application further for omissions and errors. 

- The tool is quite easy to install and use.

- Large scale web sites are developed through standards such as content management systems (CMS) including red dot, liferay, joomla and so on. 

- Since these web sites represent the reputation of the companies, it is important that they should remain highly accessible all the time and free of errors. 

- The web developers often end up looking for GUI testing tools for testing their sites. 

- Fabasoft app. Test can be used for the automated testing of the web applications no matter what technology has been used for building these applications such as ASP, PHP, flash, JavaScript and so on. 

- The fabasoft app. Test can be taught about the structure of the application to be tested. 

- Once done with this, you can start with the recording of the test and obtaining reports. 

- It ensures that your application is can run on all the platforms and web browsers. 

- Stay automatically informed about the status of your application testing. 

- You get to know about a problem as soon as it is encountered and solve it well in time.

1.   Fabasoft app. Test studio

2.   Point and click recorder

3.   Multi browser support

4.   Control specification designer

5.   Internationalization of the tests

6.   Test player

7.   Console player

8.   Remote agent

9.   Commander

10. BIRT report support

11. Html reporting

Explain Jubula - Web Functional/Regression Test Tool

Today we have around 100 tools available for functional and regression testing of the web based applications. Jubula is one among such tools and will be discussed here in detail. 

About Jubala

- This is an open source tool that is available both as a standalone application and as a part of the eclipse package.  

- The former comes with an installer that is quite easy to use and the latter one can be downloaded from an update site. 

- Jubula client can be used for viewing the actual and the expected results and also it can be used for viewing the current as well as the previous results. 

- Here, you can easily the automatic screenshots whenever an error occurs. 

- Jubula supports many applications such as:

1. Html
2. Swing
3. SWT/ RCP/ GEF and so on.

- Some features of Jubula tool have been listed below:

1. Heuristic object recognition
2. Command line client
3. Context sensitive help in client
4. Multi – user database for storing projects
5. Portability
6. Version control

- Command line has been included in this tool so as to facilitate continuous integration.

- Version control is achieved via the exports in XML format. 

- The contribution in this regard was made by BREDEX GmbH (also the developer of GUI dancer). 

- The GUIdancer was actually built up on the lines of Jubula core and offer some more features. 

- Jubula is not dependent on any platform windows, unix, linux or MAC. 

- A project by the name of ‘jubula functional testing tool’ was created as an open source project. 

- This project was a part of the eclipse technology project. 

- Other functional testing tools work up on the thing that the saving and management of the scripts is done through coding. 

Now depending up on the testing approach you are following, your test automation process may involve steps like recording, generation or straightaway writing of the code. 

What differentiates Jubala from other testing tools?

- It considers the importance of the automated acceptance tests as same as that of the project code. 

- According to Jubula, same best practices (reusability, modularity, readability etc.) should be used for creating these tests as well without requirement of any extra code. 

- Thus, the power of testing is given in the hands of the software testers and at the same time for the customers the access improves for monitoring the tests. 

- This results in a code free approach that minimizes the need for test maintenance, thus allowing the users to write the tests from their perspective. 

- If the team focuses on the software from the viewpoint of the user, it can gains a whole lot of quality info which often goes un-utilized when only JUnit tests are run.

- Jubula comes with a library of actions which is used for creating the tests. 

- You can combine the actions contained in the library using drag and drop.

- This library contains all the necessary actions that one may require for writing the tests. 

- This library is also independent of platform and application which implies that you can start writing the tests before the software is actually made available to you. 

- When you work with Jubula, you save on time since as soon as the code is committed the tests can be executed. 

- The time between the introduction of an error and catching it is reduced.

Objectives of Jubala

Jubula has got the following objectives:

1. Providing tooling for carrying out automated GUI testing on html and java based applications.
2. Specifying and maintaining a model specifications and requirements of the tests.
3. Providing API for projects so that the test scenarios can be generated, test can be executed and results can be obtained. 

What kind of testing engines are supported by Fitnesse?

Fitnesse testing tool is typically a testing method designed for providing a highly usable interface around the frame work called FIT. Therefore, it is mostly intended to support the agile style of regression testing and acceptance testing. In this style of regression and acceptance testing, all the functional testers collaborate together with the developers in order to come up with a good testing suite. 

- Fitnesse testing revolves around the idea of the black – box testing. 

- The system under test is taken to be a black box. 

- Output generated in response to the already defined inputs is used to perform tests against the considered black box.

- The job assigned to the functional tester is to design the tests in function specific sense and use fitnesse testing tool to express them. 

- On the other side a software developer is assigned the job of making a connection between the SUT and the Fitnesse tool so that the execution of the tests can take place and the two outputs could be compared. 

- The basic idea behind this whole testing process is to develop a forced collaboration among the developers and the testers so that the mutual understanding of the system’s requirements can be improved.

- Four components constitute the testing process through fitnesse namely:

1. A wiki page
2. A testing engine
3. A test fixture
4. System under test

Types of Testing Engines supported by FitNesse

- A piece of java code is used to establish a link between the SUT and the generic testing engine.

- Testing engine is responsible for carrying out most of the mapping and invoking the fixture methods. 

- Two engines are majorly supported by the fitnesse testing tool:

FIT Testing Engine 

- This engine serves more than just a testing engine. 

- It is more like a testing frame work in itself that makes use of a combination of functionality for invoking tests; carry out an interpretation of the wiki pages and generation of the output pages. 

- This is the testing engine around which the testing engine was built originally to serve initially as a user interface.

- And this is the story behind the name of the tool ‘fitnesse’. 

- This testing engine combines a number of responsibilities in to one unlike others that divide one responsibility in to many smaller ones.

- But software developers need to pay price for this since in this an FIT engine requires an inheritance from the base classes of the FIT frame work.

- However, java counterpart can experience some sort of difficulty since one chance of class inheritance of a developer is claimed by the frame work. 

- This also coveys a fact that the test fixtures are actually heavy weight constructs in nature. 

- Because of these considerations only, it was decided to adopt an alternative to FIT testing engine called SLIM testing engine.

SLIM Testing Engine

- Simple list invocation method is abbreviated to SLIM and serves as the best alternative to FIT testing engine. 

- It does not focuses on the combination of the wiki – based testing elements rather it emphasizes up on the invocation of the testing fixtures. 

- Unlike the FIT testing engine, it is invoked under the remote control of the Fitnesse wiki engine and then runs as an individual server. 

- Interpreting a wiki page and generating its result is now considered to be a part of the wiki testing engine. 

- Further the light weighted fixtures are allowed in the SLIM testing engine, which are nothing but simple POJOs. 

- One does not need to extend the fixtures or put any other frame work classes in to use. 

How is test execution done by Fitnesse Testing Tool?

FitNesse testing tool based on the integration testing frame work is now widely used for acceptance testing more than unit testing since it has the ability to facilitate a description of the function in a detailed manner. 

In this article, we shall discuss about how the execution of the tests is carried out using the Fitnesse testing tool. 

The testing process using the fitnesse testing tool involves 4 major components for every test:

1. Wiki page that is used to express the test in the form of a decision table.
2. A testing engine for interpreting this wiki page.
3. A test fixture that is invoked by the engine and itself invokes the SUT or system under test in turn.
4. SUT(system under test) that is currently under test.

- Out of the above 4 mentioned components two are produced by the software development team namely the fixture and the wiki page. 

- The team produces the system under test but it is not considered from the point of view of the black box test.

- Decision tables which express a test are included in the wiki page.

- The test fixture is the link that is made between the SUT and the generic testing through a piece of code written in java. 

- Mapping that is done between the fixture and the wiki page is an example of simple convert – to – camel case mapping. 

- Such kind of mapping is applicable to almost all the headings and is used for the identification of the name of the class of the fixture and its methods as well. 

- Whenever a heading ending is encountered, its value is to be considered to be read from the fixture while values from the other headers are considered as input for the fixture.

- The column order of the table i.e., left to right order is followed for calling the methods of the fixtures. 

- Testing engine is the component that actually carries out the mapping process. 

- It also invokes majority of the fixture methods. 

What kind of engines are supported by Fitnesse Testing Tool?

Two types of engines are supported by the fitnesse testing tool:

The FIT Engine: 

- This is more like a frame work rather than just being an engine. 

- It carried out the following purposes:

a)   It combines the functionality for invoking the tests,

b)   Interpretation of the wiki pages,

c)   Generation of the output pages.

- This engine was named so because the tool originally developed around this. - This engine works by combining the responsibilities rather by separating them.

The SLIM Engine: 

- SLIM stands for simple list invocation method and is used as an alternative to the FIT engine. 

- This engine implements the slim protocol. 

- Like FIT, SLIM does not combine all of the elements of the wiki – based testing, rather its focus is on invocation of the fixture. 

- This engine works as a separate server that is invoked by the fitnesse wiki engine remotely. 

- Simple POJOs like light–weighted fixtures are allowed by this engine. 

- These fixtures neither use any frame work classes nor extend it. 

- This leads to a simplified design thus allowing the designer to focus up on the call of the SUT properly and in as simple way as possible.

- This also keeps the ways for inheritance open, thus allowing the fixtures to be developed whenever necessary. 

- Inputs and expected output are coupled together to form the tests described in Fitnesse. 

- These couplings are considered to be a kind of variation of the tables. 

- A number of such variations are supported by the Fitnesse testing tool.

Explain FitNesse testing tool? What are principles of Fitnesse?

- FitNesse is an automated testing tool that has been developed to serve as a wiki and a web server for the development of software systems and applications. 

- This testing tool is entirely based up on the frame work for integrated testing that has been developed by Ward Cunningham. 

- It has been designed to support acceptance testing more than unit testing. 

- It comes with the feature of facilitating the description of the system functions in detail.

- With FitNesse testing tool, the users using a developed system can enter the input when it has been specially formatted i.e., non – programmers are able to access this format. 

- FitNesse tool interprets this input and automatically creates all the tests. 

- The system then execute these tests and returns the output to the users. 

- The main advantage of following this approach is that a very fast feedback can be obtained from the users. 

- Support in the form of classes called ‘fixtures’ is provided by the developer of the SUT i.e., system under testing. 

- The credit of writing the code for the fitNesse tool goes to Robert C. Martin and his colleagues in java language. 

- Since the program was developed in java, therefore initially it supported only java but now over the time it has got versions in a number of languages such as Python, C++, Delphi, ruby, C# and so on. 

Principles of FitNesse Testing Tool

This software works on certain principles which we shall discuss now:

FitNesse as a testing method: 

- Originally, it was designed as an interface using the fit frame work and it proved to be highly usable. 

- As such it is known to support the regression tests and black box acceptance tests in an agile style.

- This style of testing involves all the functional testers working in collaboration with the software developers in a software development project in an effort of developing a testing suite. 

- FitNesse testing revolves around the notion of black box testing.

- This involves considering the system to be a black box and testing it in the terms of the output that is automatically generated by the tool in accordance with the given inputs. 

- The responsibility of the functional tester is to design tests in a sense of functionality and expressing the same in the fitNesse tool. 

- On the other hand, the responsibility of the software developer is to connect the tool to the SUT so that tests can be executed and the actual output can be compared to the expected one. 

- The idea that drives this tool is forcing the functional testers and software developers to come up with a common language for an improved collaboration which will eventually lead to an improved mutual understanding of the SUT.

Fitnesse as a testing tool:

- Fitnesse defines the tests as inputs and outputs coupled together. 

- These inputs and outputs coupled together are expressed as variations of a decision table. 

- It supports a number of variations that range from tables that execute queries to tables for literal decision and to tables that express the testing scripts. 

- A free form table is the most generic variation that the designers can interpret in any way they like. 

- However, some sort of table is always used to express the tests. 

- The primary focus of FitNesse is on the easy creation of the tests, thus allowing the testers to maintain a high quality for the tests rather focusing on how the tests are to be executed. 

- Three factors are involved in the creation of the tests through fitNesse:

a)   Easy creation of the tables.

b)   Easy translation of the tables in to calls to SUT.

c)   Maintaining flexibility in the documentation of the tests. 

What is data driven automation testing? What are data driven automation frameworks and data driven scripts?

What is Data Driven Automation Testing

- Data driven automation testing or DDT as the term itself explains is a type of testing that involves tests which are exclusively driven by data. 

- A set of conditions is directly fed to the application as input and the output obtained is verified.

- The process which involves soft coded test environment controls and settings is also verifiable. 

- Input is supplied in the form of a row of the table by the tester in its utter simplest form. 

- This table consists of the values corresponding to the partition or boundary input spaces.

- According to the control methodology of data driven testing the test configuration is read from the data base. 

- This is one king of software testing for which you have so many methodologies to implement it. 

- All the methodologies call for different efforts for creation and subsequent maintenance and hence these methodologies are known to co -exist.

- The basic benefit one can get from the data driven testing is the ease with which the additional inputs can be added to the table on the discovery of the new partitions in it or addition to the SUT or system under test or software product. 

- One aspect of the data driven testing that makes it quite popular in the field of test automation is the cost. 

- Though being quite cheap when it comes to automated testing, the data driven testing can soar high on the cost if carried out manually. 

Methodology of Data Driven Testing

- Data driven testing can be considered to be a testing involving the creation of test scripts to be executed along with the data sets corresponding to them in a frame work. 

- A re-usable test logic is offered by the testing frame work that helps a lot in the reduction of the maintenance part of the software system or application and brings about improvement in the test coverage. 

- For an application, there can be one or more than one central data sources where all this stuff such as input and result data values can be stored. 

- In data driven testing the actual organization and format can be made specific to implementation. 

- Both input and output verification values are included in the test data.

- The facility of harvesting data from a running system has been provided via a ‘sniffer’ or a purpose – built custom tool for the automation environments which are quite advance or we can say mature. 

- The play back of the harvested data is performed by the frame work of data driven testing thus resulting in a automated regression testing tool that is quite powerful. 

- There are certain tasks that are to be carried out during the data driven testing and are coded in the test scripts:

1. Navigation through the program
2. Performing read operations on the data sources
3. Logging of the test status
4. Logging of the test information and so on.

- Anything that carries a potential to vary or to change variably (for example, end points, locations, test data, environment and so on.) are segregated from the test scripts or logic. 

- These elements are then placed in what is called an external asset. 

- This external asset comprises a test data set or configuration. 

- The logic which the test scripts execute is operated by the data values. 

What is a Test Fusion Report in QTP?

This article gives a detailed description of what a test fusion report is. Once a test has been executed, all the aspects of that particular test report are displayed by a certain report that has been termed as the test fusion report. 

What are Test Fusion Reports?

Basically the below mentioned aspects of a test run are displayed by the test fusion report:

1. A high level overview of the results.
2. Tree view of that particular test specifying the exact point where the application software actually encountered failure and this tree view is expandable.
3. The data that was used during the test run.
4. The screen shots of the steps of the test run where the application software showed some discrepancy.
5. Explanation of each check point in high detail along with the fail and pass criteria.

- These test fusion reports can be combined along with the quick test professional. 

- The main advantage of this is that on combining these reports with the quick test professional, they can be shared among the whole development and quality assurance team. 

- The test fusion report displays at what all exact points the application software failed. 

- The test fusion report consists of a data table. 

- This data table gives a record of the whole test data. 

- A screen view is also presented in the test fusion report which provides one with the actual screen view. 

- With the aid of the test fusion report, even the success or failure of the check points can be determined. 

- The test fusion report proves to be quite a handy tool while the developer has to report to its client or customer. 

- There are some other components of the test fusion report as mentioned below:

1. Name of the test
2. Test case
3. Start of the test run
4. End of the test run
5. Name of the result
6. Iteration
7. Status

- A different aspect of the test run is displayed by the test fusion report and can also be considered to be a kind of compilation of the whole application testing process. 

- The screen shots provided by the test fusion report provides a solid support for any inconsistencies that are present within a software application. 

- The test fusion report is represented in the tree format and displays all the aspects of the test run in the same format. 

- You can find detail for each and every step of the iterations here in the test fusion report. 

- All the results of a test are collected by the test fusion report. 

- Test fusion report can also be categorized under the instances of the collecting parameter return. 

- There is a big difference between the errors and the failures which is distinguished by the test frame work. 

- Anticipated problems are called failures whereas the un- anticipated ones are the errors. 

- All these are listed by the test fusion report. 

- The results of the testing have to be reported at various stages like unit testing, integration testing and system testing and so on. 

- The test fusion report provides the state of the software product that is under development through different angles. 

- Producing this test fusion report takes around 5 – 10 percent of the total development effort. 

- This percent though being quite less is of great significance, after all an organization cannot give a certification about the readiness of the software product in just one line. 

- Producing a test fusion report becomes much more important especially when the software encounters some problem.

- There are several other aspects of the software system or application that the customer would like to know apart from the functional requirements like a few mentioned below:

1. platform
2. dependence
3. performance and so on. 

What are some common tools for installation testing?

Introducing a new student to the rest of the class gives us a practical example of the installation testing. The new student should be properly introduced to the rest of the class so that he/ she feel comfortable. Same holds true for software systems and applications. The effectiveness of any testing however also depends up on the type of the testing tools used. In this article we shall be discussing about some common tools for installation testing. 

If the installation of your software product fails, what impression it will make of you on the customer? Obviously it will cost you your reputation. How can you avoid such pathetic and embarrassing conditions? "Answer is by testing the software system’s or application’s installer with an appropriate combination of both the automated and manual processes on different machines and with different configurations". 

The factor of which you should be most concerned is nothing but “time” since installation testing eats up a lot of time, so you got to be wise and use testing tools that can save up your time. Execution of even a single test case takes a lot of time in installation testing. Now imagine if you are going to perform installation testing on a big software system or application? How much it is going to cost you? Before you start installation testing you need to decide on how many systems and configurations you are going to install the application software. Prepare a basic hard disk drive for this purpose with some other basic necessary components.

Role of Installation Testing Tools

- There are testing tools available that will help you in making sets of each of the configurations like file format and operating system that are used in the further installation testing.

- There are many other tools that can be used to automate the whole installation testing process.

- This involves setting out some systems for creating basic images of the base configuration. This can be done by using testing tools like Norton ghost which can create exact image of the operating systems very accurately and quickly.

- This step is guaranteed to save a huge amount of your time for each test case.

- Creating images takes only 5- 10 minutes whereas installing one Operating System with basic configuration takes up to one hour.

- There are some other tools that allow you to use one operating system with multiple attempts of installation.

- But in this case you will need to uninstall the application again and again and prepare the base state for the next installation.

- Apart from all the other testing tools, use flow diagrams also serve as a great aid for performing the installation testing.

- Use flow diagrams simplify the whole task so amicably.

- These flow diagrams can be further used for automating the test efforts since very easily these diagrams can be converted in to the automated scripts.

- Some test tools have been developed that test the installer scripts which are further used to check the disk space required for the installation.

- These tools make sure that only the required amount of space is utilized and not more than that otherwise an error is flagged. You should be careful with the fact that the space required is different for different file system formats.

- Another tool that can help you a big deal with installation testing is “distributed testing environment”.

- Adopting this methodology you can very effectively handle all the different test cases from just one machine and it saves you a lot of time.