Database Assisted Testing For Software Applications

The next time you plan to install a new software application, you should seriously consider designing a database-assisted test configuration. The table-records of the new database can then be populated with values that contribute to a strenuous requirements-validation and verification series of tests.

This configuration will provide you with a handy tool that can generate test-values to compare against the new system performance values. In addition, the configuration can be expanded, as necessary, to include all future testing.

The first time you use the newly constructed database will be as a test-value generator. This mode of usage will allow you to ensure that your new program performs within the parameters of your requirement specifications. The performance values matched against your preset requirements will provide you with an ample supply of analysis reports. It would be an easy matter to rerun the tests as many times as necessary to satisfy your level of acceptance.

The database-assisted approach will of course include screen dialogs and action scripts that will give you the opportunity to adjust both the test-database and the new software system so as to let you take advantage of fine tuning the acceptance parameters.

The same test-configuration can also become highly useful when adding new software features at a later date. The values representing the new features can be added to the new test-tables with your dialog screens and when the new features are activated, the same acceptance parameters can be reviewed and adjusted to suit your needs.

In addition to feature modifications, each time an error appears in the normal processing or an application performance problem disrupts your normal business activity, your test-configuration system again becomes handy. This testing scenario is probably the best way to restore working values which were captured and maintained by your original-database designed as a performance-acceptance tester.

This entire testing scenario is possible only because of your original effort to plan your business requirements in advance of software selection and installation. This preplanned set of application performance-values is thereby available for translation into table record layouts and dialog screens which are necessary to handle the data-streams that activate your business transactions.

The testing software should always be in place before any new software application is either built by your company or purchased and installed by outside vendors. The database-assisted approach gives you the opportunity to have real requirement values to test long before you make any build or buy decision.

In effect, your test-database becomes a specification vehicle with your business requirements embedded as dynamic value representatives.

By Tom Gruich