Welcome

Business performance relies on supporting application infrastructure and good applications rely on good testing. Without rigorous testing of business and IT requirements, implemented applications will impact the bottom line through revenue loss and incurred costs. As business and IT requirements are defined or changed throughout the project lifecycle, the testing approach will need to adapt accordingly to meet the new drivers and constraints.

This edition of Perspective will look at the virtues of ‘best practice’ and ‘good practice’ for testing and will help you understand which is the right approach for your business needs. Technical Viewpoint addresses why a rigorous and well thought out test process is necessary and if implemented well can fit all development lifecycles - V-Model, RAD, Agile etc - across the organization.

The first featured Case Study looks at the key role AppLabs is playing in the faster payments scheme – an initiative that will significantly reduce bank transaction times. The second details an on-going managed testing service for performance testing that AppLabs is providing for a busy website.

Our WebEx schedule continues to look at important industry topics over the next month with ‘PDQ SOA SLA! - SOA Performance is a Critical Success Factor’ (register) and ‘Test Process Review (TPR) - The Final Step to Enlightenment: The First Step to Improvement’ (register).

We hope you enjoy this edition of Perspective

Makarand Teje
President and CEO
AppLabs

Business Insight

Defining your testing approach has to account for many factors, a lot of which are not within your control. It is therefore extremely important that the testing you decide upon should be aligned with your business objectives and be flexible enough to change should the objectives alter. The IT world pontificates about adopting best practice, but everyone knows that this is seldom a reality (or even necessary). This article offers pragmatic thoughts around adopting good testing practice as opposed to best practice to actually suit the needs of the business more+

Technical Viewpoint

A project can quickly descend into irretrievable chaos if the process is not properly defined or implemented. This white paper demonstrates that a sure fire way of avoiding anarchy is to have a test process which is fully understood by all stakeholders with defined roles and responsibilities. The paper will then look at three common lifecycles, the V-Model, Agile/RAD and Package Deployment and demonstrate how a single test process can be utilized to great effect in all three more+

CSR Update

The AppLabs Charitable Trust has continued its benevolent work with various initiatives. AppLabs has conducted its fifth blood donation camp which took place at the Hyderabad office on 18th April. AppLabs has also teamed up with Project 511, an NGO which helps the most neglected government schools in and around Hyderabad. A team from Project 511 visited the Hyderabad facility to generate support and encourage staff to partake in the schemes more+

Company News

AppLabs appoints new CEO

To support the next phase of AppLabs' growth, Makarand Teje has been appointed President and CEO. He assumes the role from his former position as President and COO which he has held since joining AppLabs in August 2007. Under Mak’s leadership AppLabs is organized to provide focus on client relationships as well as global delivery operations.

AppLabs certifies Adaptec Series 5 products

Adaptec, a global leader in storage solutions, announced that all seven products in the Adaptec Series 5 Unified Serial (SATA/SAS) Controllers have been certified with VMware ESX Server 3.02 and 3.5 through AppLabs. This certification ensures that system integrators and IT professionals can deliver the unmatched performance and scalability of Adaptec Series 5 RAID controllers combined with the features available with VMware Server ESX 3.02 and 3.5 more+

IEEE International Conference on Software Testing

Ian Londesbrough, Principal Consultant, AppLabs, presented his thought leadership paper entitled 'A Test Process for all Lifecycles' at the event in Norway on 9 April 2008. The workshop enjoyed a lively and challenging debate amongst IT and testing professsionals across Europe. The white paper is featured in 'Technical Viewpoint' above.

TestExpo 2008

Tim Durham, Principal Consultant, AppLabs presented at this event held at The Congress Centre, London on April 10 2008. Tim spoke on ‘Test Execution: That's the Easy Part'. In the session he emphasized the different technical and soft skills that a test professional needs and hence proving it a challenging profession with significant business importance.

AppLabs in the News

ST&P Magazine - Trust, but verify: Close-up on tester objectivity

The CTO Forum - SOA: The Best Policy

Global Investor - Spring brings fresh hope for Japan

Technology Times - Technology Company of the Year

To see all the articles in which AppLabs features, click here

Industry News

Poor software testing hits companies in the pocket

Web-based vulnerabilities worsening

Sun Latest to Help App Vendors Get 'SasSy'

UK phishing attacks up 200% in Q1 - APACS
Perspective Newsletter
Issue 06
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WebEx Schedule

PDQ SOA SLA! - SOA Performance is a Critical Success Factor, 7 May 2008

Delivering applications with SOA means that critical business processes must adhere to agreed SLAs. Rigorous Performance Testing is the only way to ensure that your SOA solutions will meet their SLAs ahead of deployment. This WebEx shows how to de-risk and validate SOA deliverables against the business requirements using best of breed tools and a proven Performance Testing methodology. To register, click here.

Test Process Review (TPR) - The Final Step to Enlightenment: The First Step to Improvement, 21 May 2008

Many organizations think doing a TPR is the final step. In reality it is the first step on which to build from. What is the point of doing a review if you don't plan to implement the recommendations? This WebEx describes the way in which organizations should plan the TPR as part of a wider improvement program and more importantly, how to get sponsorship for such a program. To register, click here.
Case Studies

VocaLink

The UK banking industry has created a system which reduces payment transaction times from 3 working days to having accessible funds within seconds. VocaLink were appointed to develop the central infrastucture and they outsourced testing to AppLabs to provide their specialist services more+

Royal Mail Group

With a varying range of services available on its website, and over 5 million unique users per month, Royal Mail Group issue upgrades twice weekly. They recognize the value of independent verification and employed AppLabs to focus on the testing to ensure website performance was not compromised more+
Employee Spotlight

Ralph Decker, AVP Performance
more+
Events

UKCMG, 19-21 May, Northants, UK

Gary Wilson, Service Architect, AppLabs, is delivering a presentation at this annual event entitled 'Introduction to Performance Testing'. Gary is speaking on the first day of the conference which will cover hot topics and issues in Performance, Capacity Management, Service Management, Distributed and Mainframe.