Automated Regression Testing is Crucial for Safety and Business-Critical Systems

Many organizations have a limited ability to refactor application code because they lack sufficient test cases and an automated regression testing capability.  Without the tests to document correct behavior and the infrastructure to easily run all tests on demand, tests cases and application source code can quickly diverge resulting in missed release dates, QA backlogs, and bugs being deployed to customers.

Even when tests stay in sync with the application, the long life cycle of many code bases will result in thousands of test cases.  Managing these tests, capturing results, and reporting release readiness can be overwhelming.

Historically this has been a costly and time-consuming process. Leaving regression testing in the hands of even the most capable software engineers is problematic, because the sheer number of repetitive tests with similar results creates opportunity for overlooking errors. Automation with VectorCAST/Manage helps software development organizations maintain a high level of code quality as the source code evolves.

Continuous Test and Accurate Reporting = Constant Release Readiness

Another challenge for software development organizations, even ones with very stringent test standards, is to enable accurate status reporting of the current state of testing. It is only with access to complete and accurate reporting that release decisions can be made. Additionally, organizations need a way to ensure that their test results are improving over time, and not regressing. Continuous integration and test is a way to accomplish this.

With continuous integration and test, testing is not a single schedule phase but rather a constant activity.  Rather than using separate code and test phases, builds are created constantly, and the entire regression test suite is run on each new build. This ensures that what worked yesterday still works tomorrow. It also means that if an error is introduced, it is found immediately and the code change which caused the error is easily identified.

Detailed Reporting with Powerful Regression Trend Analysis

VectorCAST/Manage is the key to organizing large test suites, controlling the execution of these suites, and providing detailed status reports which summarize the current state of testing.  Equally important, the built-in SQL database and graphing allow for regression trend analysis.