Monthly Archives: May 2014


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Automated Testing in an Agile Environment

By Nadine Parmelee, Senior Quality Assurance Engineer

Nadine-Parmelee1-bWhen it comes to software quality and reliability, there are many benefits to be gained from a switch to an agile development environment. Agile helps teams stay focused; it helps them deliver a quality product more quickly. It drives efficiency and leads to improved results throughout the software production process.

Automated Testing: A Must-Have in an Agile Environment

An agile environment requires automated testing. And with more and more development teams moving to agile processes, the need for automated testing has grown exponentially. Agile test cycles tend to limit the amount of testing that can be accomplished, so getting a good regression set of tests automated is more crucial than ever for you to reach your goals of increasing product quality and reducing costs associated with product defects. Continue reading →


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3 High-Octane Tools for Performance Testing

By John Cavazos, Senior Performance Test Engineer

John-Cavazos_cropAt one time, it was very common for companies to use a homegrown solution to performance test their software. This was mainly due to two factors:

  • the lack of available, cost-effective commercial testing tools
  • the complexity of their software

The situation is different today as it is common to find excellent, free, open-source tools online. These high-quality, stable, easy-to-use tools don’t have the inherent maintenance costs associated with using homegrown solutions.

There are now several industry standard tools available that can be used to performance test most, if not all of the features a company might need. What isn’t readily available can typically be added to these tools with minimal effort due to their open-source nature. Here are a few I have used: Continue reading →