Explain Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)?

- BGP or Border gateway protocol is the set of rules that is implemented for making the routing decisions at the core of the internet. 

- It involves the use of the IP networks table or we can say prefixes which are used for designating the reach-ability of the network to the autonomous systems. 

- This protocol falls under the category of the path vector protocol or sometimes classified as a variant of the distance vector routing protocols. 

- The metrics of the IGP or the interior gateway protocol are not used by the border gateway protocol rather paths, rule sets or polices are used for making decisions for routing. 

- This is why the border gateway protocol is often called a reach-ability protocol rather than being termed as a routing protocol. 

- The BGP has ultimately replaced the EGP or the exterior gateway protocol. 

- This is so because it allows the full decentralization of the routing process for making transition between the ARPANET model’s core and the decentralized system that consists of a NSFNET backbone and the regional networks associated with it. 

- The present version of the BGP that is being used is the version 4. 

- The earlier versions were discarded for being obsolete. 

- The major advantage is of the classless inter-domain routing and availability of a technique called the route aggregation for making reductions in the routing size. 

- The use of the BGP has made the whole routing system a decentralized system.

- BGP is used by most of the internet service providers for establishing a route between them. 

- This is done especially when the ISPs are multi-homed. 

- That’s why even though it is not used directly by the users; it is still one of the most important protocols in networking. 

- The BGP is used internally by a number of large private IP networks. 

- For example, it is used to combine many large open shortest path first or OSPF networks where these networks do not have the capability to scale to the size by themselves. 

- BGP is also used for multi-homing a network so as to provide a better redundancy. 

- This can be either to many ISPs or to a single ISP’s multi access points. 

- Neighbors of the border gateway protocol are known as the peers. 

- They are created by manually configuring the two routers so as to establish a TCP session on the port. 

- Messages called the 19 byte keep alive messages are sent to the port periodically by the BGP speaker for maintaining the connection. 

- Among the various routing protocols, the most unique is BGP since it relies up on TCP for transporting. 

- When the protocol is implemented in the autonomous system among two peers, it is called IBGP or the internal border gateway protocol. 

- The protocol is termed as the EBGP or the external border gateway protocol when it runs between many autonomous systems.

- Border edge routers are the routers that are implemented on the boundary for exchanging information between various autonomous systems.

- BGP speakers have the capability for negotiating with the session’s option capabilities such as the multi-protocol extensions and a number of recovery modes. 

- The NLRI (network layer reach-ability information) can be prefixed by the BGP speaker if at the time of the creation itself, the multi-protocol extensions are negotiated. 

- The NLRI is advertised along with some address family prefix. 

The family consists of the following:

Ø  IPv4

Ø  IPv6

Ø  Multicast BGP

Ø  IPv4/ IPv6 virtual private networks

- These days the border gateway protocol is being commonly employed as the generalized signaling protocol whose purpose is to carry information via the routes that might not form the global internet’s part. 

What are Software Process Improvement resources?

A supportive and effective infrastructure is required for facilitating the coordination of various activities that place during the course of the whole program. In addition to these qualities the infrastructure should be quite flexible so as to be able to support the changing demands of the software process improvement with time. 

Resources for this program include:

1. Infrastructure and building support
2. Sponsorship
3. Commitment
4. Baseline activities
5. Technologies
6. Coordinate training resources
7. Planning expertise
8. Baseline action plan and so on.

- When this program is initiated, a primitive infrastructure is put in to place for the management of the activities that would be carried out by the organization under SPI. 

- The resources mentioned above are also the initial accomplishments that tell how well the infrastructure has been performing. 

- It is the purpose of the infrastructure to establish a link between the program’s vision and mission, to monitor it and guide it and obtaining resources and allocating them.

- Once the SPI program, a number of improvement activities will be taking place across the different units of the organization. 

- These improvement activities cannot be performed serially rather they take place in parallel. 

- The configuration management, project planning, requirements management and reviews etc. are addressed by the TWGs (technical working groups). 

- But all these activities are tracked by the infrastructure.

- Support for the following issues must be provided by the infrastructure:

1. For a technology that is to be introduced.
2. Providing sponsorship
3. Assessment of the organization impact

- As the program progresses, the functions to be performed by the infrastructure increase. 

- There are 3 major components of the SPI program:

1. SEPG or software engineering process group
2. MSG or management steering group
3. TWG or technical work group

- It is third component from which most of the resources are obtained including:

1. Human resources
2. Finance
3. Manufacturing
4. Development

- However, the most important is the first one and is often called the process group. 

- It provides sustaining support for the SPI and reinforcing the sponsorship. 

- The second component i.e., the MSG charters the SEPG.

- This is actually a contract between the SEPG and the management of the organization. 

- Its purpose is to outline the roles and the responsibilities and not to forget the authority of the SEPG. 

- The third component is also known as the process improvement team or process action team. 

- Different work groups created focus on different issues of the SPI program. 

- A software engineering domain is addressed by the technical work group. 

- It is not necessary for the TWGs to address the technical domains; they can address issues such as software standardization, purchasing, travel reimbursement and so on. 

- The team usually consists of the people who have both knowledge and experiencing regarding the area under improvement. 

- The life of TWGs is however finite and is defined in the charter. 

- Once they complete their duties, they return back to their normal work. 

- In the early stages of SPI program, the TWGs might tend to underestimate the time that would be required for the completion of the objectives assigned to them. 

- So the TWGs have to request to the MSG for allotting them more time. 

- Another important component could be the SPIAC or software process improvement advisory committee. 

- This is created in organizations where there are multiple functioning SEPGs. 

What is meant by Behavior Driven Development (BDD)?

BDD or Behavior Driven Development is one of the most important development approaches in the field of software engineering and is just a modified implementation of the TDD or test driven development. It actually combines the guiding principles and general techniques of the test driven development with the combined ideas from two sources namely:

1. Domain – driven design
2. Object – oriented analysis and design

- The behavior driven development thus provides a shared process and tools to business analysts and software developers for their collaboration on the software development process.

- Ideally, behavior driven development represents an idea regarding the management of the software development process by both technical sight and business interests.

- It is assumed in this approach that the specialized software tools are being used to provide support to the development process. 

- The specialized tools thus involved have been developed especially to be used in projects following the BDD approach. 

- They can be considered as special tools that supports test driven development. 

- The primary purpose of these tools is to automate the ubiquitous language statements around which the BDD process is centralized. 

- Agile software development gets successful only when it is considered from the beginning. 

- On the contrast, in some projects this is the last thing to be considered which means that there is no sustainable operation in the websites that serve purposes other than blogging.

-  A blogging web site is just a software that is just modified by the users as it is ready for use. 

- However, BDD and TDD provides the only ways for achieving this goal. 

- The word ‘driven’ in TDD signifies that the test cases are written first and then the code for passing the test. 

- TDD is actually a low level methodology of accomplishing tasks and is sort of developer oriented. 

- On the other hand in BDD, the description of the tests is written in a natural language, thus making the tests more accessible to people outside the development team. 

- Such descriptions can describe the functionality in the same way as done by the specifications. 

Dan North was the person who actually brought the concept of behavior driven development in response to the issues experienced in implementing the test driven development such as:

1. From where to start testing?
2. What is to be tested?
3. How much should be tested in one turn?
4. How the reason for the failure of the test is to be understood?

- At the heart of the behavior driven development approach lies the approach to acceptance testing and unit testing which were again identified by North. 

- He emphasized that the acceptance tests should be written using the user story frame work. 

- Thus starting from the scratch, the development of the BDD approach continued over a couple of years and finally we have it as a communication and collaboration framework. 

- It has been designed especially for the QA people and business participants involved in a project.

- The agile specifications, BDD and testing eXchange meet highlighted the following characteristics of BDD:

1. Second generation methodology
2. Outside – in approach
3. Pull based
4. Multiple stake holder support
5. Multiple scale generation
6. High automation process
7. Agile methodology

- Further, it was said that it involves a cycle of interactions with outputs that are well defined and results in delivery of working software that makes sense. - First, BDD frame work that came in to existence was Jbehave which was followed by Rbehave–a story level BDD ruby frame work.

- All these frameworks were later replaced by cucumber testing tool. It was developed by Aslak Hellesoy. 

What is Selenium software testing framework?

Selenium software testing framework is portable frame work that has been developed exclusively for the development of the web applications. It actually works as a record and play back tool for the guiding of the tests without having to learn about a TSL or test scripting language. 

The selenium software testing frame work comes with its own test domain – specific language known by the name of selenese which can be used for developing tests in a no. of prominent programming languages such as the following:

1. C#
2. Java
3. Groovy
4. PHP
5. Perl
6. Python
7. Ruby etc.

The tests thus developed can be executed against a number of modern web browsers. The selenium frame work can be deployed on the following three platforms:

1. Windows
2. Linux
3. Macintosh

- Selenium is one of the best open–source software that are available to us today. 

- It was released as an OSS under the license – apache 2.0 and so you won’t be charged for downloading and using it.

- The software got its name for a joke cracked by Jason in an email in which he mocked his competitor by saying that he can cure mercury poisoning with the help of supplements from selenium. 

- The other people who received this email began using this name and eventually the software was named so. 

- The selenium grid represents the latest side project which is known to provide a hub enable execution of the multiple selenium tests on a local and remote system and that too concurrently. 

- This is being done as an effort to minimize the time taken for execution. 

- The selenium provides you with a number of robust tools which one use for the rapid development of the automated tests for testing the web based applications. 

- Plus, it also comes with a number of rich features and functions which have been exclusively for designing the web applications. 

- The operations which are carried out by the selenium framework are highly flexible in nature and allow for the location of the UI elements with supported by a number of options. 

- Also, the selenium frame work accounts for comparing the actual and the expected test results. 

- Selenium’s key feature lies in the support it provides for the execution of one test on a number of browser platforms. 

- The selenium frame work is composed of three major tools each of which plays an important and unique role in the development of the tests for web applications:

1. Selenium IDE
2. Selenium remote control
3. Selenium grid

- There are number of ways in which functionality can be added to the selenium’s frame work to further customize the tests in order to suit one’s specific needs.

- This characteristic that makes the selenium frame work outstanding among the rest. 

- The RC support from the selenium assists the test writes in multiple programming by helping them develop any logic they require for automated testing by using their preferred language. 

- On the other hand, the user can add his own defined extensions via the selenium IDE for creation of additional customized commands. 

- The selenium RC code generated by the selenium IDE can be reconfigured easily which lets the testers generate code that would fit their testing frame work. 

- Also, since the selenium is open to all, all are free to submit their contributions for its enhancement and modification. 

Explore Test Director Window, Test Director Modules and elements?

The test director is a web based application and it provides well support to communication of a very high level. Further, it regulates collaboration between the testing teams which are widely distributed. Overall, it helps in driving a global application testing in a more effective and efficient manner. 

Being the global test management tool, it is also counted in the list of the industries’ best test management solution.

Features of Test Director

Test director comes with a whole lot of features to make software testing a better experience:

1. Web based site administrator
2. Domain management
3. Collaboration module
4. Advanced reports add – in
5. Automatic trace-ability notification
6. Hierarchical test sets
7. Work flow for all modules of the test director
8. User industry standard repositories
9. Link test plan to requirements
10. Integrates with MS office
11. Manages automated and manual tests
12. Accelerates testing cycles
13. Supports test runs across boundaries
14. Integrates with third party and internal tools
15. Structured information sharing
16. Easy defect reporting
17. Customization reports
    

Here we shall about the following:
1. Test director window, 
2. Elements and 
3. Test director modules.

Test director helps in the following tasks:

1. Organizing and managing all the phases of testing.
2. Specifying the test requirements
3. Planning tests
4. Executing tests
5. Tracking the defects and so on.

- The test director launched from one’s web browser by requesting the url of the test director. 

- When you enter this URL and press enter the test director window pops up.

- If you are running the test director, it will take some time to get downloaded in your system. 

- Whenever the test director is launched a version check is automatically carried out and the latest version is downloaded. 

- Once done with this, you will get a test director log-in window. 

- Now you select a domain among the list of domains provided by the test director or you can select default. 

- In the project list go for testdirector _ demo. 

- You need to log-in as a QA tester. 

Test Director Modules

- In the test director window click on the requirements tab. 

- This requirements tab represents the requirements module which enables you to define the test specifications which includes the following things:

1. Defining purpose of testing
2. Defining requirement topics
3. Analyzation of the requirements

- Similarly, the test plan tab represents the test plan module which powers you to create a test plan based on the requirements specified above. This module facilitates the following tasks:

1. Defining goals and strategies
2. Dividing the plan into categories
3. Development of  the tests
4. Analyzation of the plan.

- With the test lab module the tests can be run on the software system or application and the result can be analyzed. The defects module you can carry out the following tasks:

1. Add the defects
2. Determination of the repair properties
3. Repair of the open defects
4. Analyzation of the data

Elements of Test Director

Now coming to the elements of the test director, there are some elements that are common to all the test director modules and these are:

1. Test director tool bar
2. Menu bar
3. Module tool bar
4. Tools button
5. Help button
6. Log out button

All of these elements can be found in the top level of the test director window. Module tool bar consists of the buttons for the commands that are frequently employed in the current module. 

How to run the silk scripts?

Silk test as we know is a test automation tool from the Borland which was launched in the year of 2006. This tool facilitates the automated regression testing and functional testing. However, the credit for the original creation goes to the segue software.

Various clients are offered by the silk test as described below:

1. Silk test classic: This client of the silk test makes use of the domain specific language called “4test” for scripting of the test automation scripts. This language just like the C++ language is an object oriented language. Just like C++ it also makes use of the Object Oriented concepts such as following:

a)   Inheritance

b)   Classes and

c)   objects

2. Silk 4J: This client of the silk test enables one to follow test automation by using java as the scripting language in eclipse.
3. Silk 4 net: This client of the silk test also enables one to follow test automation by using VBScript or sometimes using C# as the scripting language in the visual studio.
4. Silk test work bench: This client of the silk test enables the testers to carry out the automation testing using VB.net as the scripting language as well as on a visual level.

What kind of files a silk script consists?

In this article we are going to see how the execution of the test scripts takes place in silk test.

-  A basic or a typical silk script consists of two files namely:

1. Include file and
2. Script file

- The include file of the silk script is saved with an extension .inc and is particularly for the declaration of the following:

1. Window names
2. Window objects
3. Variables
4. Constants
5. Structures
6. Classes and so on.

- The second file i.e., the script file contributes in writing of the scripts. 

- It is saved by the extension .t and is used for defining of the body of the scripts. 

- Test cases meeting the various test conditions are defined in this script. 

- The two different types of files have been used to maintain the clarity of the code as much as possible. 

- If the include file of the test script does not consists of any of the test cases then the file may be compiled but cannot be executed. 

- If tried for the execution an error will be generated saying that there are no test cases. 

- Only the include file which consists of some test case can be run. 

- Before you run the script always make sure that you make separate declaration for the files:

1. For the declaration of the objects and
2. For creation of the scripts using declaration file.

Steps for running Test Scripts

After the two declarations have been made you should proceed for their compilation. Below we are stating the steps that are to be followed for running the test scripts:

1. Launch the silk test automation tool.
2. Open the script file of the script to be executed.
3. Compile the above script by using the compile option from menu bar.
4. Once the compilation of the file is complete the status of the script can be checked by the progress status.
5. Any errors present in the script will be displayed at the end of the compiling process.
6. Now run the silk scripts by clicking the run option in the menu bar.
7. For running the test scripts you have two options: either you can run all of them at a single stretch or you can run them selectively.
8. If you have opted for the latter option then you need to specify which all tests have to be executed.
9. After selection you can again give the run command. 

What is meant by DNS? What does it contain?

DNS or domain name system is a well known distributed system which is quite hierarchical in nature and is used for the following:

1. Computers
2. Services
3. Resources that are connected to some private network or internet and so on.

What does DNS contain?

- With the aid of DNS, the domain names with various participating entities contains various information. 

- A domain name system is also known as domain name service and has taken up the responsibility of resolving the queries for the above discussed domain names into the corresponding IP addresses. 

- The basic purpose of this whole process is spotting the location of devices and computer services on the World Wide Web.

- The domain name system had lately become quite an essential part of the functionality of the internet because of the world wide service it provides regarding the distributed key word based redirection. 

- To put it simply it acts as a phone book in disguise for the internet. 

- It serves as a phone book in the way that it translates the human friendly computer host names in to their corresponding IP addresses. 

For example,

The domain name: www. Abc. Com translates in to the following IP address (say): 192. 0 . 34 . 11 (IPv4) and 2630 : 0 : 2c0 : 201 : : 10 (IPv6) etc.

- Though DNS serves all the purposes of an ideal phone book in terms of the internet, it differs from the phone book in one respect which is that the DNS can be frequently updated and these updates in turn can be distributed but in phone book these tasks cannot be performed so.

- With the help of such a process the location of a particular service on a network can be easily changed without having any affect on the end users who keep on continuing with the same host name. 

-This advantage is further reaped by the users while they recite the meaningful e- mail addresses as well as the URLs (uniform resource locators) without even knowing the way via which the services are actually located by the computers. 

- With the help of domain name system, each and every domain in the network is assigned with an appropriate domain name and this domain name is mapped to corresponding IP addresses through the designation of the authoritative name servers for each and every domain. 

- These authoritative name servers hold the responsibility of their particular domains and also it helps in assigning the sub domains with their respective authoritative name servers.

- Such a mechanism has helped a lot in making the domain name system quite fault tolerant and distributed. 

- This mechanism in another way has eliminated the requirement of a single central register to be used continually for updating and consultation. 

- There is one more additional feature of the domain name system which is that the responsibility of the updating and maintenance of the master record of the domains is distributed among many domain name registrars.

- These domain name registrars are known for their competition for the domain owner’s and end user’s business. 

- The facility of moving the domains from one registrar to another has been very well provided in the domain name system.

- The technical functionality of the data base service as well as the DNS specification is also specified by the domain name system.

- This DNS protocol is a kind of detailed specification of the communication exchanges and data structures that are used in the domain name system which in turn forms a very important part of the whole internet protocol suite. 

What skills needed to be a good software test automator?

If you have studied the history of the test automation process you might have observed that there have been so many failures which have now become the lessons for the entire testing community. Because of the lessons learnt it was decided, that the scripts that will have to be developed must be reusable. 

In order make most of any testing methodology, it is required that it must be made manageable as well as reusable. 

There are certain things that a tester should keep in mind to be a good tester:

1. Test automation is not a sideline but rather a full time effort.
2. Test frame work and test design should be treated as separate individual entities an not as the same one.
3. The test frame work should be independent of the software system or application that is under testing.
4. It should be easy to expand, perpetuate and maintain the test frame work.
5. The test design as well as the test strategy should be independent of the frame work.
6. The test strategy should be so effective that is should be capable of removing the complexities related to the test frame work from the testers.

Skills needed to be a good software test automator

In this article we have focussed up on the skills that are needed to be a good software test automator. Some other skills are:

1. Good logic for programming code of the scripts.
2. The automator must have good analytical skills.
3. The automator must have adequate knowledge about the testing tools that are to be used in the automation process.
4. He/ she should have the habit if thinking out of the box.
5. Critical in nature
6. A good automator can think well from the user’s point of view.
7. A good automator keeps an eye on the details of the test automation process.
8. The knowledge about domain is a must.
9. Good judgement skills.
10. Good code writing skills.

Qualities of a good Test Automator

- A good test automator is the one who implements a test strategy that supports development of the intuitive tests and can be executed both via automated tests and manually.

- The test strategy that a good test automator uses will allow the tests to highlight the steps to be performed.

- A good test automator develops a frame work to harness the benefits form the implementation of the key word drive testing scripts and tradition testing scripts. 

- A good automator implements a test automation frame work in such a way that it is completely independent of the software application that is under question. 

- A good automator fully documents and publishes the test automation frame work.

- One thing that should always be kept in mind is that the testers are only testers and not programmers. 

- Good testers and automators are those who have both the testing as well as programming skills. 

- Most of the testers are domain experts only having zero or very little technical skills that are an immediate requirement for the software testing. 

- Many testers also have a habit of splitting the time between testing and development phases and so they do not require to learn a complex scripting language. 

What is meant by Domain engineering? What activities are involved in domain engineering?

Domain engineering is nothing but also known as product line engineering. This article is focussed up on the domain engineering and the activities that are involved with it. 

About Domain Engineering

- This is the process that re- utilises the entire domain knowledge in the production of the new software systems or applications.

- The domain engineering is an important concept under the systematic re- use of the software systems and applications. 

- There is a domain by the name of “application domain” consisting of the systems that share commonalities.

You must be wondering how it is possible to cater to the varying needs of the customers by working with just a few domains. 

- The developers make it possible by repeatedly building similar software systems or applications in one domain with many variations to cater to the wide needs of the customers and clients.

- They do not develop a new system starting again and again from the scratch. 

- Effective development is achieved by re- using the portions of the already existing software system or application in the domain. This way time is also saved.

- One of the activities in domain engineering is domain analysis and it involves:

1. Identifying domains
2. Bounding the identified domains
3. Discovering commonalities and variabilities among all the systems in a particular domain.

Purpose of Domain Engineering

- Domain engineering aims at improving the quality of the software systems and applications through the re- cycling of the already existing software artifacts. 

- Thus, the new software systems and applications developed with the domain engineering are not actually new as a whole but are variants of the other systems and applications within the same domain that were built earlier. 

- Domain engineering has helped in maximizing the business profits and a reduction in the time to market has been observed. 

- The overall cost of the project is also reduced and is evident in the implementation phase of the domain engineering. 

- With the domain specific languages, the code size can be restricted both in the terms of numbers and methods. 

- In the domain engineering the developers are forced to use their knowledge that they gathered during the previous software engineering processes. 

- With the development of the re- usable artifacts, the cost of the software is reduced and the quality is improved. 

Domain engineering consists of three phases and the above principle applies well to all these three phases.

1. Domain Analysis 

- This phase involves defining the domain and collecting information about it and produce model based on the collected info. 

- With such a model, the common points as well as variant points of the domain are identified and thus the development of configurable requirements is facilitated.

- Domain analysis is not be confused with the requirements engineering.

- The effectiveness of the domain engineering stays only when the re- use of the software artifacts is deployed in the earlier phases of the software development life cycle of that software product. 

- Potential sources of the domain analysis include:

(a)  Design documents

(b)  User manuals

(c)   Requirements documents

(d)  Standards and

(e)  Customers as well.

     2. Domain Design 

   - This phase makes of the domain model produced in the first phase and produces a generic architecture appropriate for this model and to which all the systems within the domain can adhere to. 

    - With the configurable requirements produced in the previous phase, a standardized solution is obtained. 

  - The solution that is generated in this phase is common for all the systems within that particular domain.

     3. Domain Implementation

     - This phase involves creation of a customized program in that domain.