Society, mobility and the next wave of times--enterprise group testing

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Saisubramanian Sivasailem has over nine years of experience in software quality assurance and has successfully tested and delivered several strategic contracts. His expertise spans automated testing consulting, end-to-end test evaluation, product engineering and mobile QA solutions. Currently he is a product manager at Cognizant Technology Solutions, responsible for managing the end-to-end QA product Lifecycle, from strategic planning, product evolution, to market entry.

Dilipkarthik Jayamohan, an engineer at the University of Illinois at Madras, has a master's degree in Business Administration from FMS and Delhi. Dilip has worked in various industries, such as advertising companies, FMCG companies and the software industry. He is a passionate industry commentator who shares views on different topics. He currently serves as a senior business analyst at Cognizant Technology Solutions. Dilip also manages a QA contract for an American underwriter.

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Information technology applications are becoming increasingly complex, and as mobile devices become ubiquitous, consumers now demand access to information from anywhere. SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) technology enables businesses to open up new, exciting ways to engage customers and create personalized products and services.
Social, local and mobile application testing is complex and quite challenging. Mobile presents its own problems with OS fragmentation, a variety of mobile devices, and different network patterns. Globally promoted products/services need to take into account localization content, such as content translation and local cultural norms. While traditional test patterns or third-party group testing services offer discrete advantages, they are not easily adapted to the changing needs of the industry. This paper proposes that "enterprise group Testing " is a hybrid of group testing and cloud infrastructure as a solution to the emerging challenges of large IT service providers. Enterprise group testing engages in cross-domain "captive" resources and, when needed, uses a test infrastructure to deliver operational and cost-effective project operations. This paper also gives an insight into the advantages of group testing compared with management testing.

History of violent evolution of testing
Today, applications are transitioning from a product-centric to a user-centric Ensuring flawless end-user experience is therefore essential to the success of an enterprise. An increasing number of applications focus on social, local and mobile aspects to provide customers with a seamless and personalized experience. Faster time-to-market is a big part of agile deployment and IT service providers face the following challenges in successful test delivery:
?? Ready to scale up  
?? Capacity flexibility  
?? Supply infrastructure on Demand  
?? Skill diversity  
?? Data security and confidentiality

management test vs Group Test
Let's take a quick look at the pros and cons of managing test patterns and group test patterns. In the management test mode, the test activity is performed by an independent QA team or outsourced to an IT service provider. The management test mode has obvious advantages, such as having test experts, best practices, effective tracking of data records, and ensuring the security and confidentiality of data. Some of the key constraints to managing test patterns are that resource deployment and infrastructure provisioning require significant development time. In addition, real-time end-user experience and effective validation of localization are a big challenge.
in group testing, applications are tested by a wide variety of people around the world. These different people take turns giving the product an end-user perspective. As a result, more and more leading organizations are beginning to adopt group testing. Google, Facebook and other bug bounty programs and beta tests have proven the success of group testing. Group testing enables enterprises with lean resource allocation/infrastructure models to test and obtain a large amount of product feedback in real-world scenarios. Data security is critical because applications are shared with public users. In addition, there is a need to invest a lot of effort in management and oversight to analyze product feedback, as group testing is not done by experts.

　　Proposal: Enterprise Group Testing
Enterprise group testing is a collaborative process that leverages a managed group within an enterprise and uses a secure cloud infrastructure. It is a hybrid approach that incorporates the main advantages of both the management and group testing models. The controlled group is an internal resource distributed across the world. These resources are not limited to testers, they may be developers, domain experts, or business analysts who work on different projects but are formally involved in enterprise group programs. A secure private cloud infrastructure can support mobile devices and desktop systems that can be used through third-party service providers (such as Perfecto Mobile, Device anywhere, etc.) or by building your own cloud infrastructure.
Enterprise group testing is the next evolution of group testing mechanism. Figure 2 lists the collaboration details of how groups and clouds coexist. Figure 3 analyzes the various key parameters of different test patterns and highlights why Enterprise group testing is best suited for projects that require faster turnaround time and involve social, mobile, and local aspects.

　　Enterprise Group platform: constituent elements

Figure 1. Enterprise Group Testing

Figure 2. Collaboration between groups and the cloud

Figure 3. Test model Comparison

Figure 4 describes in detail the various components of the Enterprise group platform. The first step is to create a network platform on which the Enterprise Group resources can register their skills (test professional, geographic location, device model, language skills, etc.) and mark themselves as group testers. The platform can also share test anomalies, communicate real-time test results, and work with enterprise stakeholders through a variety of channels, such as e-mail, instant messaging, and more. Group testers can download and evaluate applications/products in a similar way to the application marketplace so that the enterprise can get real-time feedback before the application is launched. When the private cloud infrastructure is integrated, group testers can use mobile devices or desktops placed on cloud servers in addition to BYOD. Data privacy and security is a critical significant factor that only authenticated users can sign in to and execute the enterprise Community platform for that project.

　　Key factors in enterprise group testing

Figure 4: Components of the Enterprise Group platform

Key factors required for successful deployment of the Enterprise group:

1) Management
?? Control and find groups: strict management practices and project managers are needed to find and control the right groups according to different project requirements.
?? A platform based on the digital end-to-end process: From the outset and the customer signed a confidentiality agreement until the exchange of the test summary report, the process is digitized need a faster cycle.  
?? Real-time status: Stakeholders should develop a requirement to view the test progress on a test instrument in real time: a management instrument that indicates progress and cost variances and emphasizes key issues that affect the project.  
?? Best practices: Build and implement best practices based on what you learned from previous engagements.

2) operation and pricing
?? Find ' right ' group: ability to identify and find ' right ' groups based on expected user skills
?? Flexible capacity Model: one of the least time thin provisioning modes.  
?? Pricing by results or by Labor: Flexible pricing options, either by results (number of test cases executed, number of bugs found, etc.) or by number of group testers involved.  
?? Training/Forum/Skills Enhancement Workshop: Group testers regularly organize seminars to improve their skills.

3) Basic Facilities
?? On-demand infrastructure provisioning-devices + desktops: Leverage a private cloud infrastructure to manage mobile devices and desktops that require software configuration.
?? Test tools: SaaS use, such as automation or performance testing tools installed on a cloud desktop system.  
?? Security Authentication: Only authenticated Enterprise group testers can log on to the platform.  
?? Upload and share apps through the platform: You can upload apps and share them with group testers through the Enterprise group platform.

4) People
?? Deployable resource Pools: develop resources in projects like group testers.
?? Increase resource utilization: resources in the deployment pool are marked as group tests and assigned to short-term tasks, which increases resource utilization.  
?? Provide diverse, updated opportunities: Enterprise Group testing provides resources with resources to update more exciting learning and contributing opportunities.  
?? Incentives, rewards and recognition: either by money or by identifying their group testing participation to reward everyone.

?? Leverage in-house technology/Domain knowledge: Companies can leverage technical/domain knowledge that is valuable for product feedback.

　　Faster delivery with enterprise groups
Taking immediate steps to make the group test Model A success is an adjustment process that allows for greater success in group outsourcing. The current delivery model needs to change from a management testing service or core project delivery mechanism to a crowdsourcing test delivery.

　　Where does the enterprise group work?
In application development projects, group testing can complement system testing by bringing product feedback and insights to the forefront of user acceptance testing and production deployments as early as possible by pushing them to the group.

In app maintenance projects that require minimal improvement, apps can be used directly by the enterprise community to save significant development time with resource and infrastructure configurations.

　　The challenges of the future
The Enterprise group testing model is best suited for large IT service providers with significant market share across the region. On the operation, the enterprise group testing needs to make detailed prophase project planning for the project scope, schedule and resource requirement. Sourcing the right resources is quite challenging if the resource is already assigned and used in another project. Since this is an emerging service model, enterprises also need additional time to consider resource availability, project allocation and affordability.

　　Key Benefits
In summary, Enterprise group testing benefits both IT service providers and customers by the following points.
?? Supply of resources and infrastructure on Demand
?? Ensure security/data confidentiality
?? Real-world scene testing at multiple locations across multiple devices
?? Collect valuable feedback from multiple real users on product UI/usability
?? Significantly lower test costs with faster turnaround times
?? Enable ' last mile ' testing before the app is put into production

　　The road ahead
As SMAC and agile delivery become the focus in the way apps are developed and delivered, test delivery models need to reinvent themselves to match changing trends. While the Enterprise group test is still in its infancy, it is expected to be the next wave of social, mobile and local.

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