Testing solutions for network equipment

News was released earlier this week from Fanfare, who deliver innovative testing solutions to network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) and service providers (SPs), that it has launched its latest test automation software product -- Fanfare iTest(TM) Team.
iTest Team isthe latest product offering in the iTest suite of products designed to simplify and accelerate product and system testing. Using iTest Team, SPs can test and verify the functionality,performance and behaviour of a device or group of devices purchased from NEMs. SPs can now perform complex system testing by executing simultaneous commands to a multitude of different devices in their network to simulate real-life network testing.
In addition, iTest Team's Test Audit feature captures and records all testing information. This allows testers to go back in time and access, re-create and re-run every test, action and command that was entered -saving valuable time and resources.
iTest Team is designed to simplify and accelerate device and network testing throughout development and Quality Assurance (QA) teams and between companies. iTest Team provides a communication platform that overcomes barriers such as language, location, and non-existent reporting templates that have made the basic communication of finding and reporting a bug,reproducing it, and verifying the fix a challenge. Fanfare's products serve as the common language between feature testers and developers, enabling them to seamlessly share test assets to quickly improve product quality and speed the deployment of new equipment and services to market.
Additional features of iTest Team include:

• Multi-platform support for Windows, Linux and Solaris
• Multi-threading for complex system testing
• Plug-ins for developers using Eclipse, bringing this emerging platform to commercial use
• Support of SNMP, Web and SSH protocols that enable testers of all skill levels to build automated test scripts for capture/replay capabilities.

ISEB Software testing qualification changes

ISEB software testing qualifications are changing. It used to be just two: the ISEB foundation certificate in software testing and the practitioner certificate in software testing. But on reflection ISEB have decided that there was too big a gap between these two levels and the latter tried to cover to much. So what was the practitioner is being replaced with three courses.

First up is the Intermediate Certificate in Software Testing. This certificate is the next level up from the foundation qualification and covers the key topics which are needed as a prerequisite for either of the two new practitioner level exams. It's just becoming available with a lot less organisations currently able to offer this course.

The next level up has been split into two:

• Practitioner Certificate in Test Management - this certificate examines knowledge and skills required for the management of Software Testing.
• Practitioner Certificate in Test Analysis - this certificate examines knowledge and skills required for the technical analysis of Software Testing.

Why two? Well not all software testers want to be test managers but they still want to gain more advanced skills in this field and have them recognised.

You'll need to obtain the intermediate certificate in software testing before you can sit these exams. Incidentally, both of these exams are available (so you can sit them) but you'll be hard pressed to find a training course covering them at the moment.

If you want to know more about these changes try the BCS site or this PDF which covers a whole host of frequently asked questions about these software testing qualification changes. It also covers the differences and aims of ISEB software testing qualification framework and those of ISTQB.

Testing with OpenTTCN

OpenTTCN have announced here the launch of a new OpenTTCN Trinamite TTCN-3 testing tool. OpenTTCN Trinamite is an affordable TTCN-3 development and run-time environment for creating in-house test systems using standardized TTCN-3 testing and test control language and programming TTCN-3 adapters using, for example, C# programming language.

OpenTTCN Trinamite product offers a number of key benefits for testers and test system programmers including increased productivity when creating new test cases using standardized high-level TTCN-3 testing language requiring fewer statements for expressing the same test logic, possibility to re-use test cases programmed by others with TTCN-3 and also publicly available test suites, and sharing user's own test cases. A simple to use test management for running test cases reduces the need for training, when starting to use the software.

OpenTTCN Trinamite allows the user to run automated test campaign executing TTCN-3 test cases for testing reactive systems. The testing tool produces a detailed test log that helps to keep record of performed testing and in case of errors it helps to determine the cause of any errors found using the provided analysis capabilities. The testing tool allows user to connect diverse set of System Under Tests to the testing tool using a user programmed SUT adapter and network or software connection.

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