What is meant by production verification testing?

Production verification is also an important part of the software testing life cycle like the other software testing methodologies but is much unheard of! Therefore we have dedicated this article entirely to the discussion about what is production verification testing? 

This software testing methodology is carried out after the user acceptance testing phase is completed successfully. The production verification testing is aimed at the simulation of the cutover of the whole production process as close to the true value as possible. 

This software testing methodology has been designed for the verification of the below mentioned aspects:

1. Business process flows
2. Proper functioning of the data entry functions
3. Proper running of any batch processes against the actual data values of the production process.

About Production Verification Testing

- Production verification testing can be thought of as an opportunity for the conduction of a full dress rehearsal of the changes in the business requirements if any. 

- The production verification is not to be confused from the parallel testing since there is a difference of the goal.

- We mean to say that the goal of the production verification testing is to verify that the data is being processed properly by the software system or application rather than comparing the results of the data handling of the new software system software or application with the current one as in the case of parallel testing. 

- For the production verification testing to commence, it is important that the documentation of the previous testings is produced and the issues and faults that were discovered then are fixed and closed.

- If there is a final opportunity for the determination of whether or not the software system or application is ready for the release, it is the production verification testing. 

- Apart from just the simulation of the actual production cut over, the real business activities are also simulated during the phase of the production verification testing. 

- Since it is the full rehearsal of the production phase and business activities, it should serve the purpose of the identification of the unexpected changes or anomalies presiding in the existing processes as a result of the production of the new software system or application which is currently under the test. 

- The importance of this software testing technique cannot be overstated in the case of the critical software applications.

- For the production verification testing, the testers need to remove or uninstall the software system or application from the testing environment and reinstall it again as it will be installed in the case of the production implementation.

- This is for carrying out a mock test of the whole production process, since such kind of mock tests help a lot in the verification of the interfaces, existing business flows. 

- The batch processes continue to execute alongside those mock tests. 

- This is entirely different from the parallel testing in which both the new and the old systems run besides each other.

- Therefore in parallel testing, the mock testing is not an option to provide accurate results for the data handling issues since the source data or data base has a limited access. 

Entry and Exit Criterion for Production Verification Testing

Here we list some of the entry and exit criteria of the production verification testing:

Entry criteria:

1. The completion of the User acceptance testing is over and has been approved by all the involved parties.
2. The documentation of the known defects is ready.
3. The documentation of the migration package has been completed, reviewed and approved by all the parties and without fail by the production systems manager.

Exit Criteria:

1. The processing of the migration package is complete.
2. The installation testing has been performed and its documentation is ready and signed off.
3. The documentation of the mock testing has been approved and reviewed.
4. A record of the system changes has been prepared and approved.

What is the entry and exit criterion for production verification testing?

Some entry and exit criteria have been predefined for all the software testing methodologies and in the same way some criterion have been defined for the production verification testing also.

For a software system or application to process from one phase of the software testing life cycle to the other one, it has to satisfy all the exit criteria of the previous software testing methodology and entry criteria of the software testing methodology that it is about to undergo.

So this article states the entry and exit criteria for the production verification testing and before that we have given a discussion about the production verification testing.

About Production Verification Testing

- Production verification is also an important part of the software testing life cycle like all the other software testing methodologies and is carried out after the successful completion of the user acceptance testing phase.

- The entire production verification testing deals with the simulation of the cutover of the whole production process as close to the true value as possible.

- Production verification testing also serves as an opportunity for the conduction of a full real like full dress rehearsal of the changes in the business requirements if any.

- The production verification is not like the parallel testing since there is a difference of the goal.

- The goal of the production verification testing is to verify that the data is being processed properly by the software system or application rather than comparing the results of the data handling of the new software system software or application with the current one as in the case of parallel testing.

- This software testing methodology has been designed for the verification of the following aspects:
a) Proper running of any batch processes against the actual data values of the production process.
b) Business process flows
c) Proper functioning of the data entry functions

Here we list some of the entry and exit criteria of the production verification testing:

Entry Criteria for Production Verification Testing

- For the production verification testing to commence it is important that the documentation of the previous testings is produced and the issues and faults that were discovered then are fixed and closed.

- If there is a final opportunity for the determination of whether or not the software system or application is ready for the release, it is the production verification testing.

- The completion of the User acceptance testing is over and has been approved by all the involved parties.

- The documentation of the known defects is ready.

- The documentation of the migration package has been completed, reviewed and approved by all the parties and without fail by the production systems manager.

- For the production verification testing, the testers need to remove or uninstall the software system or application from the testing environment and re-install it again as it will be installed in the case of the production implementation.

Exit Criteria for Production Verification Testing

- The processing of the migration package is complete.

- Apart from just the simulation of the actual production cut over, the real business activities are also simulated during the phase of the production verification testing.

- Since it is the full rehearsal of the production phase and business activities, it should serve the purpose of the identification of the unexpected changes or anomalies presiding in the existing processes as a result of the production of the new software system or application which is currently under the test.

- The installation testing has been performed and its documentation is ready and signed off.

- The documentation of the mock testing has been approved and reviewed.

- A record of the system changes has been prepared and approved.

What are different characteristics of beta testing?

Beta testing is carried out after the successful completion of the alpha testing. As alpha testing can be regarded as the internal form of user acceptance testing, similarly beta testing can be regarded as the external form of the user acceptance testing.

- A few versions of the finished software application are released. These testing versions are called the beta versions of the software system.
- These beta versions of the software system are released to a certain limited audience.
- The audience consists of the people who are not a part of the programming team or the software development team.

- This is done so because the more number of people, there will be more exploitation of the software. This is done to ensure that the number of bugs is minimum.
- Sometimes, the software manufacturer company may decide to release the beta versions of the software to a huge open public so as to get more feedback on the quality of the software application.
- Alpha testing is the internal pilot test and beta testing is called the external pilot test.

- Beta testing is carried out on only on the software that has successfully passed the first level unit testing, integration testing, system testing, internal pilot test and removal of the faults or the bugs.
- Beta testing is carried out because the finished software product may still have some minor errors and bugs. In order to find them, user participation is very much needed.
- The beta versions are released to some selected customers only to simulate a normal execution environment for the software application to make it run normally and to spot the problems in such an environment.

- Beta testing phase starts when the software development is complete.
- Beta testing can be thought of as a way of incorporating usability testing.
- The process of releasing the beta versions to the selected customers and other suitable audience is known as beta release.

- Usually after the development of the software system, this is the first time for which the software becomes available to the public.
- The audience selected for carrying out beta testing on the beta version of the software system is called beta testers.
- Beta testers are generally the prospective customers of that particular software manufacturing company who are willing to test the software system free of charge. As a reward for this, they are given the completed and finished software free of cost or sometimes at a reduced price.

- The beta testing phase is known by many names such as prototype, preview, early access or technical preview (TP).
- One is normal beta testing, there’s one more kind of called perpetual beta testing.
- In perpetual beta testing, new features and functionalities are continually added to the software system and therefore, not declaring the beta version as the final release of the company.

- In the context of software development, beta testing is considered as the second phase of the software testing stage.
- Beta testing is nothing but the pre release testing. Beta versions provide a preview of the final release of the firm.
- Alpha testing and beta testing collectively form the acceptance testing. So we can say that the beta testing is the second phase of the acceptance testing.

- Beta testing is conducted in the customer environment by multiple customers.
- Beta testing also ensures that the behavior of the software system is same in the development environment and in the customer environment.
- Beta testing is time consuming and may take weeks and months. The whole application is installed in the customer environment and the development of the software system has been 100 percent completed.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Black Box Testing and what are its types.

In black box testing, the internals of the system are not taken into consideration. The testers do not have access to the source code. A tester who is doing black box testing generally interacts through a user interface with the system by giving the inputs and examining the outputs.
The advantages of black box testing includes that it is very efficient for large segments of code. It clearly separates user's perspective from developer's perspective. The code access not required. It is very easy to execute.
The disadvantages of black box testing includes limited code path coverage as limited number of inputs can be checked. It cannot control targeting code segments or paths which may be more error prone than others.

There are different kinds of testing that are associated with black box testing :
1. Smoke Testing
2. User Input Testing
3. User Acceptance testing
It includes :
- Alpha testing
- Beta testing
4. System Testing
- Functional testing
- User interface testing
- Usability testing
- Compatibility testing
- Model based testing
- Error exit testing
- User help testing
- Security testing
- Capacity testing
- Performance testing
- Sanity testing
- Regression testing
- Reliability testing
- Recovery testing
- Installation testing
- Maintenance testing
- Accessibility testing

Overview of User Acceptance testing - what does it mean and what are its forms.

User Acceptance Testing is often the final step before rolling out the application. Usually the end users who will be using the applications test the application before ‘accepting’ the application.
A formal product evaluation performed by a customer as a condition of purchase. The testing can be based upon the User Requirements Specification to which the system should conform. Use Acceptance testing is black box testing.

USER : System developers cannot do it, as although they are expert in writing software, they are unlikely to know anything about the realities of running the organisation, other then what they have acquired from requirements specifications, and similar documents.

Acceptance : The acceptance of a system means you are confident it will give benefit to the organisation. It does not mean that it only meets the original specification as requested.

Testing : Whenever people are asked what testing is, many of them say it is to prove the system works.
The point of UAT is for business users to try and make a system fail, taking into account the real organisation it will be working in.

User Acceptance testing can be in the form of :
Alpha Testing - Tests are conducted at the development site by the end users. Environment can be controlled a little bit in this case.
Beta Testing - Tests are conducted at customer site and development team do not have any control on the test environment.

What are different types of black box testing ?

The base of the Black box testing strategy lies in the selection of appropriate data as per functionality and testing it against the functional specifications in order to check for normal and abnormal behavior of the system. These testing types are again divided in two groups:

Testing in which user plays a role of tester.

- Functional Testing : The testing of the software is done against the functional requirements.
- Load testing : It is the process of subjecting a computer, peripheral, server, network or application to a work level approaching the limits of its specifications.
- Stress Testing : The process of determining the ability of a computer, network, program or device to maintain a certain level of effectiveness under unfavorable conditions.
- Ad-hoc testing : Testing carried out informally; no formal test preparation takes place, no recognized test design technique is used, there are no expectations for results and randomness guides the test execution activity.
- Smoke Testing : It is done in order to check if the application is ready for further major testing and is working properly without failing up to least expected level.
- Recovery Testing : Testing aimed at verifying the system's ability to recover from varying degrees of failure.
- Volume Testing : Huge amount of data is processed through the application in order to check the extreme limitations of the system.
- Usability Testing : This testing is done if User Interface of the application stands an important consideration and needs to be specific for the specific type of user.

User is not required.

- Alpha Testing : Testing of a software product or system conducted at the developer's site by the end user.
- Beta Testing : The pre-testing of hardware or software products with selected typical customers to discover inadequate features or possible product enhancements before it is released to the general public. Testing of a rerelease of a software product conducted by customers.
- User Acceptance Testing : The end users who will be using the applications test the application before ‘accepting’ the application. This type of testing gives the end users the confidence that the application being delivered to them meets their requirements.