QMetry, a leading provider of software quality management solutions, today announced a major update to its advanced test management platform, which will help agile development teams to bring newer efficiencies to their testing processes. The update will also enhance collaboration and reduce the development time, regardless of the SDLC process. In addition, the improved integration capabilities will help QA groups to improve the ROI on their existing ALM tools.

“You don’t need to scrap your existing ALM tools”, emphasized David Silva, Product manager at QMetry “QMetry 5.0 provides seamless integration with almost all popular defect management and test automation tools. Our goal is to help you leverage your existing tool investments”.

QMetry 5.0 adds many new features to give QA groups more flexibility. QMetry’s new drop feature allows QA groups to quickly add a new “drop” at the time of testing. “Many organizations, agile and otherwise, receive many iterations of software weekly and sometimes daily and want to track them as part of one development or test cycle. Our new ‘Drop’ feature allows you to do that,” added Silva “whether you are testing a new code drop, bios version, development build, or patch your QA group can quickly test it and view the results either separately or cumulatively.”

QMetry 5.0 now allows QA groups to test against specific versions of a Test Case. This will enable them to test a patch against an old version of the test case.

The new version also helps QA groups better organize their Test Cases and Requirements by organizing them at a project, release, and cycle level. In addition, groups that use agile methodology can store unscheduled Test Cases and Requirements in the backlog to be quickly accessed and reviewed with the next cycle or sprint.

QMetry 5.0 also includes further improvements on its industry leading bi-directional JIRA integration. This will allow users to create or link existing issues from QMetry as soon as they discover them, or pull issues from JIRA as Test Cases or Requirements through QMetry’s ‘Advanced Search Query’. Users can also view and create Test Cases and Requirements from QMetry directly in JIRA. This will save developer’s time logging in and learning a new tool, and they will be able to view the data they need where they need it.

In addition to QMetry Professional version 5.0 also introduces two new product Editions: QMetry Core for the smaller organizations looking for a powerful streamlined version; and QMetry Enterprise a more robust edition for the larger organizations. QMetry Core is SaaS only and is available for evaluation now with a release date of December 5th. QMetry Enterprise is SaaS as well as On Premise and is in beta for a Q1 of 2012 release.

If you would like to learn more about QMetry 5 and the key features, please contact sales at             408-727-1101       or email sales(at)qmetry(dot)com for free evaluation/ online demo.

SQS Software Quality Systems, the largest independent publisher of software testing and quality management programs, today announced the launch of its SQS-TEST®/Professional 10.2 test suite. The new suite offers test plans that include a wealth of additional information to support and simplify the planning and management of software testing projects.

“Test managers need to maintain an accurate overview of the current status of their projects at all times,” says Vincenza Pignataro, CEO of Software Testing Products at SQS. “The new test plans answer many of the questions a test manager will face during a project.

“For example, the new features indicate test preparation stage and how many / which tasks are incomplete. In addition, the plans provide real-time visibility of the current tester’s capacity, as well as the distribution of workload within a testing assignment. The new features also provide simple access to data on test performance quality levels.

“These are just a few of the issues that are addressed in the reports within the new suite,” explains Pignataro. “As this information is critical to testing project management, we have invested significantly in improving test plan design and the user interface.”

Expanded multi-release testing

In parallel, SQS has expanded the suite’s multi-release testing features, enabling users to merge test specifications of a software package, even where different versions are used. Test cases, test objects and requirements from different versions can also now be compared directly with each other.

Test Log Editor with new graphical interface

SQS has also improved the graphical interface of Test Log Editor in SQS-TEST®/Professional Version 10.2. It is now more user-friendly with step-by-step guides on how to conduct manual tests. It can be used independently of SQS-TEST®/Professional as well as flexibly, at a range of locations.

SQS-TEST®/Professional

SQS-TEST®/Professional is an integrated platform designed to support software system quality assurance. It supports the work of employees involved in testing and their roles via different layers and, thanks to the range of interfaces offered, can easily be combined with tools published by other suppliers, as well as embedded in existing test processes and infrastructures.

SQS-TEST®/Professional covers all tasks and stages of the software development process, from planning through to automation and monitoring.

SQS-TEST®/Professional 10.2 is available now. For more information, please visit: www.sqs.com/en/group/sqs-software.php.

Wind River, a world leader in embedded and mobile software, today announced that it has achieved “Ready for IBM Rational Software” technical validation for Wind River Test Management, a test automation system for monitoring, executing and managing embedded device software testing. This validation provides IBM Rational customers with assurance that Wind River Test Management has met IBM Rational’s requirements for safety, interoperability, and user experience, and integrates seamlessly with IBM Rational Quality Manager.

“A lifecycle quality management solution based on the integration will help companies improve their ROI and collaboration across the development lifecycle, reduce costs by increasing automation, and provide better visibility to project status, leading to higher quality and on-time deliveries.”

The Wind River integration enables bi-directional traceability between requirements and tests as part of the overall software development lifecycle in the Rational Software and Systems Engineering solution. Wind River Test Management allows users to discover un-tested requirements and automatically identify test suites that are impacted by requirements changes. It then generates an optimized test suite comprised of the minimum set of tests that are required to run based on code changes. By focusing test time and resources on what really needs testing, these features provide optimal balance between cost, time, quality and risk, and increased quality of software embedded in complex devices.

“We are very pleased to announce this formal validation between Wind River and IBM Rational Quality Manager, which allows us to extend our test automation specialization to Rational customers,” said Ido Sarig, vice president of product marketing at Wind River. “A lifecycle quality management solution based on the integration will help companies improve their ROI and collaboration across the development lifecycle, reduce costs by increasing automation, and provide better visibility to project status, leading to higher quality and on-time deliveries.”

“The integration of Wind River’s patented technology with Rational Quality Manager will help product development teams manage business risks using a lifecycle quality management approach,” said Michael Loria, vice president, IBM Rational Business Development. “With this integrated solution, users can provide quality management across the whole development lifecycle through the Rational Software and Systems Engineering solution, as well as execute testing where it matters most.”

Wind River will present and exhibit at IBM’s Innovate 2011 Conference in Orlando, FL this week. Please visit Wind River Booth #524 to see a demonstration of Wind River Test Management and the integration with IBM Rational Quality Manager. Additional information about Wind River Test Management is available at www.windriver.com/products/test_management.

Grid-Tools, the leading test data management tools and solutions vendor, is pleased to announce they will be attending the 2011 EuroSTAR software testing conference. The event is scheduled from the 21st to 24th of November. For more information please visit: www.eurostarconferences.com.

The event will be one of many internationally for Grid-Tools this year, with a significant push on events in the Americas. After investing significantly in resource in the USA, and with their Head of Marketing and PR relocating to Chicago, the company plan to expand there. Grid-Tools also attended the EuroSTAR event in 2010, which was highly successful for the company.

Suzie Adlington, a recent addition to the Grid-Tools UK team, commented on how she was looking forward to the event: “Luckily I was able to attend last year’s EuroSTAR event with Grid-Tools in Copenhagen and found it to be an excellent conference. Considering EuroSTAR will take place in Manchester this year, I imagine we’ll have an even more successful event. We’re really looking forward to it.”

Grid-Tools plan to exhibit at the event alongside their partner, Parasoft, who will have an adjoining booth. The two companies have a joint SOA testing solution and the event will help with promotion of the product.

For more information about Grid-Tools visit: www.grid-tools.com

About the EuroSTAR Software Testing Event
For nearly two decades EuroSTAR has been the leading European software testing conference, attracting delegates and speakers from around the globe with a common denominator – a passion for software, testing and improving the state of the practice.

About Grid-Tools Limited
Visionary, innovative and academic in their approach, Grid-Tools has developed test data management strategies for some of the largest and most important organizations internationally. Their experienced personnel have been writing and developing solutions for large companies in both the private and public sectors for nearly 30 years. Specializing in test data generation, data masking and test data management solutions and tools, Grid-Tools has re-defined how organizations go about provisioning secure, high quality data for testing and development.

The Grid-Tools Datamaker™ suite includes a wide range of tools and solutions for complete test data management. Their signature solution, Datamaker™, creates and publishes test data with the referential and business integrity of production environments for testing and development. Datamaker™ also offers three methods for managing and generating data in testing and development inclusive of database subsetting, data masking and synthetic data generation. The ability to use all three techniques alone or in combination offers the flexibility needed for successful test data management strategies.

The Grid-Tools methodology consists of offering a data-centric approach to test data management. Their focus is to ensure the quality of the data you are using is of the right quality for successful testing and development.

TestLodge allows an entire team to manage their test plans, input their requirements, test cases and test runs all in one place.

At the end of a project it provides an evaluation report, helping to measure success and failure.

Developed by Scott Sherwood a web developer, it took six months to design and develop.

A soft launch helped him expose the new software to a small group of users who then fed back on what they liked, as well as what they didn’t, providing him with a list of features or additions they would like to see. Those suggestions then fed into the ongoing design of the product.

Scott identified a gap in the market with other testing tools, many of which were designed for larger organizations and projects but were still adopted by freelancers and small businesses. He realized designing a testing kit that better reflected how an SME operates might prove popular.

“The bloat”, says Scott, “meant managing the testing kit was actually a project in itself. I thought about what an SME with a small team, or an individual, would need. It has to be software that can be adapted easily and has a simple interface. The strength of a SME is its streamlined and adaptable, that ethos was at the center of my design for TestLodge”.

ReadWriteWeb have featured an article on Affordable Testing Tools for samll business.

In the article, titled 3 Affordable A/B Testing Tools For Small Businesses , the author identifies the rationale of using an A/B Testing Tool and identifies 3 great tools at an affordable cost.

Sure, your company’s website could be improved. But with time and resources in such short supply, how do businesses know where to focus their energy? One answer is A/B testing, or the practice of publishing two variations of a Web page and measuring which one performs better.

A/B testing has been used by large enterprises for years. Amazon uses it to optimize product listing pages. Google was once criticized by an outgoing designer for relying too heavily on data-driven methods like this.

In general, A/B testing involves segmenting site traffic into different groups and showing each group a different version of the same landing page. Perhaps one page will contain different headline text or a different call-to-action button style. Another page will serve as the “goal” for the desired conversion. For example, a newsletter sign-up confirmation page or the final check-out page in an e-commerce shopping cart. The software will figure out which version of the page resulted in more clicks or conversions.

A/B testing hasn’t historically been cheap, but in recent years, more affordable solutions have become available, enabling smaller businesses to take advantage of it. Below are a few options worth checking out.

To find out more go to: 3 Affordable A/B Testing Tools For Small Businesses .

informit.com have featured an extract from a new Visual Studio Software testing book.

The book is titled Software Testing with Visual Studio 2010: Planning Your Testing and published by Addison-Wesley Professional

To begin, you need a plan. The plan does not need to be 500 pages of documentation or a massive Gantt chart. This chapter covers how to create a Test Plan with Microsoft Test Manager (MTM) and the various options that the Test Plan provides to you. More important, this chapter covers what to test and how to get involved as a tester early in the development process. In addition, Microsoft provides a little-used Test Plan Word template that can help answer some questions about the testing process up front.

Another key item covered here is how to plan and test for multiple iterations. Can you reuse your Test Cases, and does it make sense to do that? Many items come into play when planning the testing for an entire release versus a single iteration. By the end of this chapter, you will know how to use the Plan tab of MTM, create new plans, and create a framework for testers to work in for a given period of time.

SC Magazine has featured a great article on the importance of designing secure software with an eye to alleviating potential security issues in the future.

The ramifications of bringing to market an application that is not secure have become painfully clear for far too many organizations.

In fact, a recent Ponemon Institute survey of 45 breached companies actually put a number on it, calculating that the average cost of a data breach in 2009 was $6.75 million.

With vulnerable applications serving as the No. 1 cause of data breaches, it seems obvious that organizations need to take a proactive approach to security. Not only will this help reduce costs, it can also save a company from the potential damage on their reputation that a security breach can cause.

To help prevent this, organizations must take the steps to help ensure applications are designed securely from the initial stages of development, not added on as an afterthought.