Levels of testing (Week 8)

There are different levels in a testing  process. Levels of testing include different methodologies which can be used during the process of software testing. There are two main levels of testing : functional testing and non-functional testing. One of my previews posts talks about black-box testing, functional testing is a type of black-box testing which is based on the specifications of the software that has to be tested. The software can be tested by providing input and then the results are examined in order to conform to the functionality which it was meant for. Functional testing of a software is conducted on a complete, integrated system to evaluate the system's compliance with its specified requirements. 

Functional testing includes five steps : 

Step 1 The determination of the functionality that the intended application is intended to perform.

Step 2 The creation of test data based on the specifications of the application.

Step 3 The output based on the test data and the specifications of the application.

Step 4 The writing of test scenarios and the execution of test cases.

Step 5 The comparison of actual and expected results based on the executed test cases.

In order to have an effective testing process all the above steps have to be followed and applied to the testing policies of every organization for this reason it will make sure that the organization maintains the strictest of standards when it comes to software quality. This part is about testing an application from its non-functional attributes. Non-functional testing includes testing a software from the requirements which are nonfunctional.  Performance, Security, User interface are some requirements examples of non-functional testing. Performance testing is one important and mandatory testing type in terms of the following: Speed, Capacity, Stability and Scalability. Performance testing can be either qualitative or quantitative. Security testing includes testing a software in order to identify any gaps from security.

Security testing should ensure the below list of features: 

Confidentiality, Integrity, Authentication, Availability, Authorization, Non-repudiation, Software data is secure, Software is according to all security regulations, Input checking and validation, SQL insertion attacks, Injection flaws, Session management issues, Cross-site scripting attacks, Buffer overflows vulnerabilities and Directory traversal attacks.

The levels of testing are important because in order to meet the functional and technical specifications  we have to follow all the steps and features that I listed above. 

Citation

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/software_testing/software_testing_levels.htm