For decades, the proliferation of different IT solutions and
quality software has resulted in a diverse and complicated quality management
system (QMS) landscape. Until now, the price of testing and upgrading monolithic
IT solutions has been quite expensive. Moreover, the scarcity of IT support
teams, repetitive workflows, and evolving regulatory requirements have severely
challenged application/software deployment.
In recent years, however, innovative digital and intelligent technologies have made it easier for quality teams to test applications from different sources and in various formats, without replacing existing systems. By combining such technologies with Test Automation, companies can now deploy dynamic user experiences in applications at a fraction of the rate of traditional or manual testing. There are also innovative smart testing tools out there that leverage artificial intelligence or machine learning, and help enterprises create intelligent testing scenarios.
The Need For Smart Testing Tools in Test Automation
Smart testing tools are computer-aided software engineering
tools that support to speed up the Test automation life cycle. Testing Tools
are available to facilitate the development as well as the Test Team in
seamlessly performing code reviews and unit testing. These tools are also
capable of supporting the testing team and assisting them in performing
regression testing, performance testing, and test management, and so on.
The test automation tool market can be categorized into two
types:
1. a)
Proprietary Software Test Automation Tools
These tools are software developed by companies that require
licenses to be purchased to work with them. Some of the leaders in developing
proprietary software include HP, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Borland, and so on.
The Proprietary Software Test Automation tool market is highly matured and
companies provide various features for testing done by both the development
team as well as the testing team. Companies offering proprietary software
provide excellent support for the tool and the tools can be easily integrated
with other test management, defect management tools using third-party plug-ins.
These smart automation tools have many advantages, two major limitations of the
proprietary software are:
1. Source
code of the software is a copyright of the company offering these tools and
cannot be modified/customized
2. The cost
of licenses is very high for SME companies to adopt them.
3. b) Open
Source Test Automation Tools
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Open Source Software Test Automation tool market is an
emerging market with companies offering intelligent taxing paraphernalia free
of cost and the Source code of the tools is available for
modification/customization. Support is similarly available for these tools from
the Open Source development community. With more and more agile development
happening, the trend is to use open source tools for testing, as it is
cost-effective and gives results much faster. Many open-source testing tools
are getting adopted and are gaining momentum. The drivers for the growth of the
open-source testing tool market include affordability, availability,
user-friendliness, reliability, smooth integration with other tools & no
lock-in period.
How Do Enterprises Adopt Smart Testing Tools?
IT Companies designing and developing systems have started
adopting testing tools extensively. One of the major reasons for adoption is
that the testing tools facilitate them to improve productivity, provide
accurate results, deliver timely reports, platform-independent, reduce testing
staffs such that they can be used in other productive activities, and so on.
Typically open source testing tools are adopted by companies
who are moving from manual testing to automation or by companies who would like
to supplement their existing commercial tools with open source tools. The steps
in testing tool adoption are as shown below:
1. The tool
selection and evaluation process starts with a business case justifying the
need for test automation
2. The
analysis of tools in the tool market, identifying potential tools, evaluating
the tools based on specific parameters
3. Ranking
the tools and selecting the best tools for the company
4. Once the
tools are selected, Implementation of the tool for a pilot study is done
followed by company-wide implementation.