Changxiang automated network testing platform and process management

Author: Walking sun

Yesterday, I had the honor to attend the spirent's global seminar in Beijing, focusing on its automation solutions. Later I talked with the company's automation expert manager for a long time, which was quite rewarding.
Its Automated Testing is mainly for automated testing of communication network testing, and its framework and process are worth learning from.
The difference between automated network testing and automated software testing is that it is difficult to build a physical topology environment and to automatically control a series of network devices and instruments, compared with automated software testing.
After acquiring fanfare, Cisco established the overall automated testing process, a global automated testing lab. The previous Automated Testing Solution for network testers is nothing more than three layers-hardware device layer and adaptation layer (interface parameters called by scripts) and secondary encapsulation layer (secondary encapsulation of the adaptation layer script). Then, the automated tester can write a script based on the API to control the tester for testing.
The current overall solution is called the nocode automation solution, which includes the physical architecture, application environment, test cases, and test cycle. To put it bluntly, a physical switch is used to control the cabling and power-off processes in the automated test environment, thereby controlling the test topology. The application environment integrates a test case editing tool; the test example includes the script editing of the image, and the test period is the management of the test results.
Later, when talking with the automation testing manager, I talked about the automation testing process and architecture of small and medium-sized companies, such as Huawei, ZTE, Cisco, and other large enterprises, because of its R & D level and investment, its automated testing has been successful. The success lies in its understanding of the entire automated testing from the platform perspective. In fact, the principle is very simple, the reason why automated testing is not very successful in many small and medium enterprises is that it only uses automated testing as a simple tool, and its automated testing only happens in the execution process, instead of grasping automated testing from the entire process; To achieve automated testing, you need to grasp it from the very beginning, not necessarily from the whole process, the key lies in
1. automated test case management process
2. automated test case Execution Process
3. automated test case result management process
However, many of our companies just find it okay to use case-based automated programming scripts. I don't know how much maintenance is waiting for you (because of the update of automated cases, communication product command line or function update issues)
Therefore, I personally think that for small and medium-sized enterprises to perform automated testing
1. At the beginning, we started to focus on Requirement Analysis. Instead of performing automated testing for the purpose of automated testing, we should analyze the entire process. For example: ratio of automated product testing (cost value ), the positioning of automated product testing and, more importantly, the relationship between automated testing and manual testing (how to balance and make these two parts work together to achieve the best results ).
2. In the middle stage, after the number of automated test cases reaches a certain level. The automated test execution can be divided into test method layer, test configuration layer, and interface layer (the interface layer can be implemented as appropriate, such as the Huawei automated test platform, the interface is well separated from the logic layer)
2. In the middle and late stages, after the test cases are added to a certain number, you need to grasp the entire process. In fact, the most important platform is to be developed, centralized management of automated test cases, centralized management of automated test scripts, and centralized management of automated test results can be specifically responsible for the modification and improvement of automated test cases, and then directly applied to the modification of automated scripts, and output, view, and analyze the results.
In this way, the entire automated testing process will be grasped as a whole, and the automated testing will be applied to the workshop.
In short, without platform and process management, automated testing can only be used in one form of spare time; while the platform is not necessarily big, it is an idea; process management is not much difficult, it is a kind of control;
Therefore, to do a good job in automated testing, we must grasp the overall situation and analyze and control the details.