What is Testing Anywhere software product? What are its uses?

Testing anywhere software product was developed by the Automation Anywhere Inc. based in San Jose. This is another software in the category of test automation tools. This software has proven to be a boon for the software testers and developers who have to test the web sites, applications, GUI front-ends, objects and controls. The product has got many uses from recording to the execution of the test cases. It is used for the following major purposes:

1. Recording of the tests
2. Debugging them
3. Scheduling their execution
4. Executing the tests

The above mentioned operations can be carried out for a number of application types such as:

1. Java
2. Silverlight
3. Mainframe
4. C++
5. .NET and so on.

Testing anywhere product provides option for automating the test case creation. Testing anywhere offers you 5 different methods for creating the test cases namely:

1. Web recording
2. Object recording
3. Image recognition
4. Smart recording and
5. Editor

- The test cases thus created using any of the above methods can be later recorded, edited, saved and can also be enhanced. 

- The editor is used for editing the test cases. 

- People who don’t have programming skills can use the wizard for creating and editing the test cases. 

- Testing anywhere software lets you create files with .exe extension i.e., the executable files which later can be deployed by the software testers on remote machines. 

- The creation of a high level IT and business processes is the responsibility of the workflow manager. 

- Further, workflow manager only takes care of the ability by virtue of which these processes are managed. 

- It supports a number of platforms:

1. Microsoft windows 7 (both 32 and 64 bit)
2. Microsoft windows vista (both 32 and 64 bit)
3. Microsoft windows XP (both 32 and 64 bit and along with service pack 2)
4. Microsoft windows server 2008 R2
5. Microsoft windows server 2003

- Testing anywhere supports the following kinds of testing:

1. Integration testing
2. Compatibility testing
3. Performance testing
4. GUI testing
5. System testing
6. Java application testing
7. Automated flex testing
8. Silverlight application testing
9. Mainframe application testing
10. WPF testing
11. Third party .NET supported testing
12. Automated software testing
13. Automated web testing
14. Regression testing
15. Distributed testing
16. Functional testing
17. Black box testing
18. Acceptance testing
19. Unit testing
20. Keyword driven testing
21. Data driven testing
22. Smoke testing

- The product has been named because of the facility that it provides for running the tests on any remote machine present in the network. 

- Further, it reduces the testing cost by a huge margin since it cut down the money being spend up on the software licenses, resources, and training and time of course.

- Testing anywhere provides you a SMART recorder for creating new tests.

How would you export a Script from one PC to another in QTP? Can launch two instances of QTP on the same machine?

While working on a collaborative project in quick test professional it becomes necessary to import some scripts from one machine to another. But how this to be done will be discussed and also how two instances of quick test professional can be launched on the same machine.

Exporting a script from one PC to another

- If you would have noticed the quick test professional comes with a tab titled “export”. 

- For doing so just mark the code that you want to export, copy and paste it in a text file. 

- The copied code may consist of references repository items, part of tests, part of settings, parameters, environment variables and so on. 

- However, it is another fact that the export option is not directly available in the quality center’s test script lab.

- A suitable version of quick test professional needs to be installed. 

- Then, you need to connect it to the quality center project. 

- Next step would be to open the test via quick test professional. 

- Once you are done with these 3 basic steps you can now export the file via “export to zip file” feature of the quick test professional either in to the quick test professional data base or some other location and either on the same machine or on some different machine. 

- One may have a bulk of test automation quick test professional scripts on a local machine which might be required to be exported from local machine to  QC. 

- Exporting some times becomes necessary when there are too many scripts and it takes a whole lot of time to open each and every script and then save it in the quality center.

- Some third party tools are available which serve the purpose of uploading many quick test professional scripts at once from one PC to another PC.  

- There is one more method which makes use of the “generate script” function that comes in built with the quick test professional. 

- This function is available in the object identification section under test settings, tools and options tab. 

- Using this function of the quick test professional, a zip file of the scripts to be exported can be created. 

- The zip file of the specified scripts is created at the source computer itself. 

- Later, this zip file can be easily exported to quick test professional on destined computer.

Now let us answer the second question of this article regarding the launch of two instances on the same machine. 

- The answer is no since the quick test professional only has the ability of working with the multiple instances of the AUT or application. 

- An example of this can be multiple windows of the internet explorer browser that can be handled by the quick test professional. 

- Therefore, at a time only a single instance of the quick test professional can be launched on the same machine. 

- To say, actually two instances cannot be launched on the same machine but yes you can go for virtualization option. 

- Today, there are many tools available for virtualization such as sandboxie, Altiris SVS and so on. 

- These two tools have been used for running two Mozilla Firefox profiles on the same PC and for testing some software in isolated PC environment but have not been put to use for launching two instances of the quick test professional on the same machine. 

- But the possibilities are that these two tools can be used for running multiple instances of quick test professional on the same machine. 

What is meant by storm worm?

Storm worm? You may not recognize this worm at the first instance since you might be knowing it by one of the following other names:

1. Small. Dam
2. Trojan- downloader. Win 32. Small. Dam
3. F secure as dubbed by the finnish company.
4. W32/ Numwar@MM
5. Downloader BAI (McAfee’s specific variant)
6. Trojan. DL. Tibs. Gen! Pact13
7. Trojan. Peacomm (Symantec)
8. Win32/ Nuwar (ESET)
9. W32/ Zhelatin (kaspersky, F secure)
10. Trojan. Peed (Bit Defender)
11. Trojan. Tibs (Bit Defender)
12. Win32/ Nuwar. N@MM! CME- 711 (windows live one care)
13. TROJ_SMALL. EDW (trend micro)
14. Trojan. Downloader – 647
15. Loland Mal/ Dorf (sophos)
16. CME- 711 (mitre)

Evolution of Storm Worm

- It was recognized as a back door Trojan horse that had most of its impact on the computer systems that use the Microsoft operating systems or applications or extensions.

- This worm was first observed on the date of 17th January in the year of 2007.

- The storm worm first took its affect in the countries of the United States and Europe infecting millions of computer systems starting on the date of 19th January 2007.

- It was usually sent to the users as an e-mail message having the subject as a headline about the recent weather disaster like “230 dead as storm batters Europe”.

- At the starting of this cyber epidemic, there were around 6 waves of attack subsequently.

- At the end of the January 2007, the storm worm was said to account for 8 percent of all the world wide malware infections.

- According to the PC world, the history or origin of the storm worm can be traced back to a Russian business network.

- Mostly the European wind storm “kyrill” was used as the subject of the infected e- mails.

- This email usually had an attachment accompanying it which when opened, automatically installed this malware on to the system of the users.

Steps involved in installing the Malware

The malware was installed via the following steps:

1. Installation of the wincom32 service
2. Injection of payload
3. Passing of the packets to destinations as mentioned in the malware code.
4. Download and run the W32. Mixor. Q@mm worm and Trojan. Abwiz. F Trojan.

These downloaded Trojans then attached themselves to spam like flashcard.exe, postcard.exe and so on. Other changes regarding the original attack wave were made as the mutation of the attack carried on. Below mentioned are some other prominent spam attachments:
1. Ecard.exe
2. Fullstory.exe
3. Read more. Exe
4. Greeting postcard.exe
5. Read more.exe
6. Full news.exe
7. Arcade world.exe
8. Fullvideo.exe
9. Video.exe
10. Full clip.exe
11. More here.exe
12. Click here.exe
13. Nfl stat tracker.exe
14. Arcade world game.exe

Later the storm worm came to be spread by subjects regarding love such as “touched by love”, “love birds” and so on. These e- mails had the links referring to the malicious web sites containing virus like:

1. With love.exe
2. With_love.exe
3. From me to you.exe
4. Fck2008.exe
5. Fck2009.exe
6. Love.exe
7. Iheart you.exe

The storm worm has an exceptional ability to stay resilient. The affected machine or system used to become a part of botnet networks which was controlled through a central server. A botnet is seeded by the storm worm that acts as a P2P network without any control. The connected systems then act as a host and share the list of other hosts. One peculiarity was observed in the working of these machines which is that none of them shared the whole list of botnets.

What are different terminologies used in LoadRunner ?

Application performance testing requirements are divided into scenarios using LoadRunner.
- A scenario defines the events that occur during each testing sessions.
- A scenario defines and controls the number of users to emulate, the actions that they perform, and the machines on which they run their emulations.

Vusers
LoadRunner works by creating virtual users who take the place of real users operating client software. LoadRunner works by creating virtual users who take the place of real users operating client software. Vusers emulate the actions of human users working with your application. A scenario can contain tens, hundreds, or even thousands of
Vusers.

Vusers Scripts
The actions that a Vuser performs during the scenario are described in a
Vuser script. When you run a scenario, each Vuser executes a Vuser script. Vuser scripts include functions that measure and record the performance of the server during the scenario.

Transactions
Transactions are defined to measure the performance of the server. Transactions measure the time that it takes for the server to respond to tasks submitted by Vusers.

Rendezvous Points
Rendezvous points are inserted into Vuser scripts to emulate heavy user load on the server. Rendezvous points instruct multiple Vusers to perform tasks at exactly the same time.

Controller
LoadRunner Controller is used to manage and maintain your scenarios. Using the Controller, you control all the Vusers in a scenario from a single workstation.

Hosts
The LoadRunner Controller distributes each Vuser in the scenario to a host when the scenario is executed. The host is the machine that executes the Vuser script, enabling the Vuser to emulate the actions of a human user.

Performance Analysis
Vuser scripts include functions that measure and record system performance during load-testing sessions. During a scenario run, you can monitor the network and server resources. Following a scenario run, you can view performance analysis data in reports and graphs.

Network Interface Cards (NIC)

A Network Interface Card (NIC) provides the hardware interface between a computer and a network. A NIC technically is network adapter hardware in the form factor of an add-in card. Networked computers communicate with each other using a given protocol or agreed-upon language for transmitting data packets between the different machines, known as nodes. The network interface card acts as the liaison for the machine to both send and receive data on the LAN.
Some NIC cards work with wired connections while others are wireless. Most NICs support either wired Ethernet or WiFi wireless standards. In new computers, many NICs are now pre-installed by the manufacturer. NICs can be differentiated by their type of connectivity to the computer itself.

- 10/100 Ethernet : These cards are networking cards that are used most frequently in the home or small office setting. They are capable of speeds up to 10 or 100 megabits per second.
- Gigabit Ethernet :These NICs provide network transfer speeds of up to one Gigabit per second.
- Fiber Optics : These NICs use fiber optic cabling to reach speeds of 10 gigabits per second currently, with a specification under review to push this limit to 100 gigabits per second.
- Wireless NICs : These NICs provide the same networking capabilities as their wired counterparts, however, they have their own transfer capabilities. Speeds of 54 Mb/s are the most commonly available to wireless NICs without teaming several NICs together to combine bandwidths.
- Wireless Dongles : There is a wireless networking device used by individual machines that have access to a main computer that is connected to a wireless router. This wireless router allows the user to install wireless dongles instead of entire routers with each additional machine on the network.

Overview Of Distributed Systems

A distributed system is a collection of processors that do not share memory or clock. Each of the process has its own clock and memory and the processors communicate with each other through various communication lines. These processors are referred to by different names such as sites, machines, hosts, nodes, computers and so on.
A distributed system provides the user with access to various resources that the system maintains. A distributed system must provide various mechanisms for process synchronization and communication, for dealing with the deadlock problem, and other failures which are not encountered in a centralized system.

There are 4 reasons for building distributed systems :
- Resource sharing : If a number of different sites are connected to one another, then a user at one site may be able to use the resources available at another.
- Computation speedup : If a computation can be partitioned into sub computations that can run concurrently, availability of a distributed system may allow us to distribute the computation among various sites, to run the computation concurrently.
- Reliability : If one site fails in distributed system, the remaining sites can potentially continue operating. The failure of the site must be detected by the system and the appropriate action may be needed to recover from failure.
- Communication : Information can be exchanged when several sites are connected to one another by a communication network.

The advantage of a distributed system is that these functions can be carried over great distances.

Overview of Distributed File Systems (DFS)

A distributed file system or network file system is any file system that allows access to files from multiple hosts sharing via a computer network. This makes it possible for multiple users on multiple machines to share files and storage resources.
In order to understand the structure of a distributed file system, the terms service, server and client should be defined. A service is a software entity running on one or more machines and providing a particular type of function. A server is the service software running on a single machine. A client is a process that can invoke a service using a set of operations that forms its client interface.
A distributed file system (DFS) is a file system whose clients, servers, and storage devices are dispersed among the machines of a distributed system. A service activity has to be carried out across the network, and instead of a single centralized data repository, there are multiple and independent storage devices. the distinctive features of a DFS are the multiplicity and autonomy of clients and servers in the system.
A DFS should look to its clients like a conventional, centralized file system. The client interface of a DFS should not distinguish between local and remote files. The most important performance measurement of a DFS is the amount of time needed to satisfy various service requests. In a DFS, a remote access has the additional overhead attributed to the distributed structure. This overhead includes the time needed to deliver the request to the server, as well as the time for getting the response across the network back to the client. DFS manages a set of dispersed storage devices which is the DFS's key distinguishing feature.