Month: January 2014
Software Tools That Your Quality Testing Team Must Have
All businesses that build software today have three important concerns about the building process. Is it really cost efficient? Can it be produced in time? Will it produce a software which is of high quality? Delivery teams today have adopted agile development practices, using plug and play development environments to help deliver on all these three criteria. Within the space of quality testing functional testing tools are seen to be not enough. Quality has now moved from being the concern of just the quality team but also a very integral part of the software development life cycle. This helps in reducing the rework required, greater customer satisfaction and reduces the risk of bugs in non functional areas like performance & security. To do this there are a number of software tools and practices that your quality testing team should have today.
Let us discuss some of the groundbreaking and highly effective tools available in the market today that promise high quality returns without affecting the cost of the product or services.
Having a source control system
There are a number of paid source control packages that you can choose from; also there are a few free ones like CVS which can perform the needful. Nevertheless, the key thing is to have a source control package. This is because you will have a hard time getting all the programmers to operate together. No one will know who did what, and rolling back mistakes will become impossible. Also the best thing is that with these systems the source code directly is checked out on each hard drive. This means you will lose very little code in the entire project life. This will not only save valuable research material but also make your company more organized and cost efficient.
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A bug tracking software
Irrespective of how many people are developing a code, it is extremely important to have a database which tracks all the bugs in the software. Without this you will end up delivering a code which is of low quality. It is very important to have a system in place to detect the bugs instead of letting the programmer do it manually, because even a small error can undo years of work and jeopardize the whole project.
Many programmers feel that they can track their bugs in their heads. Aside from the sheer futility of a human mind being able to do this on a regular basis, in a team environment this is not a good practice. If you keep a centralized bug tracking software for each project, then every tester can be in the loop. It is also easy for the QA team to check the software for all reported bugs without hassling the development team.
Testing web applications
When testing web applications it helps if you can move away from context switching when you are manually testing them. This means it allows the tester to directly report any bugs straight from the application using simple browser extensions. This reduces the amount of time they take to test a web application. Also if you can attach a screen shot with annotations it makes it easier for the developer to track the mistake faster and fix it. Finally if your testing teams are distributed geographically you should be able conduct combined test sessions together. All the issues raised can be captured and dealt with together so that solutions can be found sooner.
Finally remember, you may have the best testers in your company, but if you don’t have the appropriate software in place, the quality of your software may suffer. This is because underperforming testing solutions will make your testers grumpy and unproductive. So invest in some quality software testing tools to ensure good quality product is delivered.
IBM beefs up big data tools and analytics software
IBM has announced a series of updates to its big data insight and analytics platforms at its annual Information on Demand conference.
The firm said the series of updates were part of its ongoing push to bring ‘cognitive computing’ to the masses to help benefit from ever-growing data sets. One key new product is the IBM SmartCloud Analytics Predictive Insights tool that Big Blue claims is able to sift through vast amounts of data in real time to spot patterns and trends.
IBM said this could prove valuable for firms looking to track IT requests and issues by providing more insights into problems that slow productivity. The service will be offered on IBM’s SoftLayer cloud service as part of the firm’s ongoing cloud push.
Another new tool announced is SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center, which IBM said is designed to automatically analyse and store data types in a firm’s cloud storage infrastructure, to remove the need for manual processing.
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The software is said to learn patterns and spot data types to understand how it is being used by a business so it can be stored in the right location. IBM said it is using this service itself in one location and this reduced storage costs by 50 percent.
IBM is also taking its data analytics services to the cloud, with the release of a preview version of BLU Acceleration for Cloud. This is designed to bring the firm’s in-memory database analytics services to more firms by allowing access in a simple, self-service manner.
Steven Mills, senior vice president for Software and Systems at IBM, said the release of this array of tools should help firms of all size and type to make more of their data.
“As the value of data continues to grow, the differentiator for clients will be around predicting what could happen to help transform their business with speed and conviction,” he said.
“IBM’s latest set of solutions allow clients to help predict customer behavior and outcomes with speed and ease, all delivered from the cloud.”
The updates are just the latest in a series of announcements from IBM around analytics services and the cloud as it pushes to keep pace with rivals such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft.
Adapting to Canada’s Changing Ag Landscape
Posted in Agriculture Industry, Know-Risk Updates
Farming has been going through a lot of changes in recent years especially as the internet and handheld devices have landed on the farm and inside the tractor. Farmers are connected to the world and the markets on a daily basis they are no longer just talented crop growers they are small business owners and IT specialists. When speaking with people outside of the agricultural industry; it amazes them to learn that farming now uses GPS, satellite imagery, various sensors and the online applications on a daily basis to grow wheat and other crops. To a farmer this is hardly a surprise; farming has long been more than just knowing when to put the seed in the ground. Farmers need an understanding of how to sell and buy inputs in an increasingly volatile market. Government programs are great ways to cut costs but knowing how to utilize them fully can be difficult. The Ag industry is seen; to those not intimately connected to it, as standing still but we know it has decided to catch up and is doing it in a hurry. Continue reading here…
The Fiscal Farmer: Canada’s Changing Agricultural Landscape — an Infographic by the team at FBC.ca
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iAgri | Online Farm Software 