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Software testing an emerging, evergreen industry

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE, INDIA: Indian test engineers will take the responsibility of ensuring high-quality software used by rest of the world, says Ashwin Palaparthi, vice president, Innovation, AppLabs. Excerpts:

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CIOL: Can you share the role of AppLabs in Agile testing environment?

Ashwin Palaparthi: As the world’s largest software testing company, we not only find bugs in software but also we try to prevent them in the first place. Agile environments make this much easily accomplished.

Also read: Trends in software testing for 2011

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The Enterprise Application Lifecycle Management has started to adopt Agile methodologies to some degree and as a natural consequence we at AppLabs have embraced the ideas of sharing test cases in advance to the developers.

CIOL: Cloud-based testing is a new terminology used by many companies which help enterprise in reducing cost. What are the solutions that you are offering to Indian enterprises using cloud?

AP: At AppLabs, we set up test labs on the cloud for customers who want a scalable solution. We expose our own test labs as a private cloud (using AppLabs’ proprietary tool named AIM AppLabs Infrastructure Management).

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Also read: 27 pc of software testers dont use a bug tracker

We do performance testing using the cloud (AppCloud) with no software cost to the customer and enabling on-demand pricing for resource usage.

CIOL: Reducing cost and duration of a test phase are the main concerns of any enterprise. How do you address this?

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AP: We have a custom-built methodology to reduce the scope of regression testing (the most troublesome exercise). We automate the tasks performed by a tester besides just tests; for example automated reporting, integration of bug trackers with test case repositories for quick correlation and so on.

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CIOL: According to you, what are the major differences that you have identified when compared to other countries as against India when it comes to offering testing solutions?

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AP: Availability of trained workforce at the entry level who see software testing as a critical function and an excellent career path. We have groomed ‘Career Testers’, understanding the business functionality with minimal guidance from the customers.

CIOL: What is your take on the much-debated topic in software testing, manual vs. automation software testing?

AP: On a related yet different note, we automate many other activities regardless of whether it is manual testing or traditional test automation. So the bottom line is we are increasing test productivity.

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We have strong automation planning wizards and frameworks that guide our customers in careful adoption of automation testing while cases remain where manual testing stands as the best.

CIOL: What kind of tips would you offer to fresh engineering graduates who plan to opt for software testing?

AP: Study what things go wrong in software and build your own intellectual classification for failures. Certifications like ISTQB are also important so that your theoretical foundation is standardized.

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CIOL: How do you see the talent level in India, which can help Indian software testing to scale new heights?

AP: There are a lot of engineers who make an entry into software testing by choice as they see it as an emerging and evergreen industry.

CIOL: How do you see the future of software testing industry in India?

AP: Very promising and accelerating in terms of the volume (revenues) and variety (mobile apps testing, cloud testing etc). Indian test engineers will take the responsibility of ensuring high quality software used by the rest of the world.

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