A Bird’s-eye view into Server Testing

 

When it comes to server testing, testing will be restricted to client/server I/O, network stress, CPU consumption, and memory consumption. But the significance of the process in SDLC is huge and cardinal.

The process helps servers to go down, record lock, Input-Output errors. It can test addresses system performance and understand how the servers can best respond to heavy workloads and what causes the failure during peak loads.

This article will help to understand and get an overview of service testing and the advantages behind conducting the testing.

 

Why is test services required?

Several advantages surround around the idea of server testing which justifies the need for investment of time and finances for this process. Firstly, the team becomes responsible and knowledgeable to understand the services and functions of them.

They can hence make observations and expose bugs immediately. It speeds up the performance and speed.

Secondly, before the developing work even begins, one can point out and understand the flaws of the service.

With the testing scripts, one can identify the bugs and flaws immediately before the issue is caused at latter stages. This henceforth helps saving time. Thirdly, these test scripts are enhanced faster than manual testing hence they require only seconds to understand complex issues.

They are consistent and allow teams to understand changes effectively and quickly. Since one can observe what is changed and what needs to be changed, the issues can be identified and corrected immediately.

Finally, server testing makes the tasks easier on part of the team leading to less time consumed to identify bugs and issues and also manually debug the problems.

What needs to be understood before doing Server Testing?

• Time taking

Developing the process of server testing takes time in order to prepare and write scripts. However, one can be assured that the team can save rest lot of time in long run scenario.

• Maintenance

It is not easy task to maintain scripts if any of the change. Hence maintenance issues exist and one needs to keep this on mind to avoid headache at later stages

• Documentation

Appropriate service documentation is required to be able to write the scripts and develop the process.

Testing techniques

There are several testing techniques which can be useful while testing server programs. It is important to have effective techniques so as to identify bugs at early stage.

Since companies and brands also prefer to get their products to market as soon as possible, it helps to prioritize the risks and errors in engine and solve them.

First one among the techniques is risk driven testing. In risk driven testing, the tester will take the part of server or system he intends to test and examines the impact of errors and likelihood ratios.

This testing prioritizes potential errors in the service and probability of failure during testing processes.

Secondly, the performance testing is a method to test client and server programs. It evaluates and examines components of system such as software, parameters for performance and speed, resource utilization, time and transaction rates.

Due to its features, it is also called stress testing or load testing. But before performance testing an application, several issues should be known and understood beforehand such as, the number of users working on it simultaneously, stress felt on the server, peak user performance, function of the system during maximum workload timings and so on.

These information helps to understand workload stress on the server.  Later, the performance testing verifies scalability and reliability factors and can look into if the product can work according to the expectations or not for commercial use.

Further, this testing also helps to understand if any part of the program is causing trouble or delayed performance and comes up with a solution to the error.

Different types of Testing

There are types of testing which can be relevant for client server applications. These are the unit testing, integration testing and system testing.

Unit Testing

Unit is the smallest component which is testable in a program. It separates small parts of program and tests the individual parts or units separately to understand and prove if they work efficiently and correctly.

The documentation provides all required records of the test that can incorporate the characteristics which helps to make the unit successful. It also documents positive and negative uses of the unit and highlights the negative issues or errors which may trap the program.

However, the unit testing single handedly cannot test and catch all the bugs. It should be combined with other testing techniques since it is just a phase of three layer testing.

Integrated Testing

Integrated testing, otherwise called as I&T combines individual components and tests them as a group. They take components that the test has released and they test this input with a plan.

This output is hence an integrated system which can be then given for final layer of testing, which is, system testing. Hence the integration testing verifies the functionality, reliability, and performance of the server or system.

It shows if any inconsistencies are occurring between or within the components or groupings of the units which are integrated through testing plans and outputs.

System Testing

Finally, system testing is the layer of testing which is conducted after the system is integrated.

The input here is integrated elements which has passed integrated testing. System testing detects hence the inconsistencies, if any, between assemblages in the system. It is final testing and hence known to be aggressive.

It is known to be as destructive testing as it can run the system almost up to the point of failure. This testing covers reliability, usability, maintenance, performance and compatibility.

This article highlighted the benefits of server testing from both business and development angle.

Although it takes a while to maintain and make the time as initial investment, it totally helps to complete the projects at later stage more quickly and efficiently. It speeds up the development and helps ship better products.