sss ssss rrrrrrrrrrr ssss ss rrrr rrrr sssss s rrrr rrrr ssssss rrrr rrrr ssssssss rrrr rrrr ssssss rrrrrrrrr s ssssss rrrr rrrr ss sssss rrrr rrrr sss sssss rrrr rrrr s sssssss rrrrr rrrrr +===================================================+ +======= Quality Techniques Newsletter =======+ +======= November 2002 =======+ +===================================================+ QUALITY TECHNIQUES NEWSLETTER (QTN) is E-mailed monthly to Subscribers worldwide to support the Software Research, Inc. (SR), TestWorks, QualityLabs, and eValid user communities and other interested parties to provide information of general use to the worldwide internet and software quality and testing community. Permission to copy and/or re-distribute is granted, and secondary circulation is encouraged by recipients of QTN provided that the entire document/file is kept intact and this complete copyright notice appears with it in all copies. 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(c) Copyright 2002 by Software Research, Inc. ======================================================================== Contents of This Issue o The Top Ten Trends -- 2003 o Even More Difficult Questions in a Difficult Time: Some Responses o eValid Ver. 4.0 Announced o Journal on Software and Systems Modeling -- Issue Contents o NJCSE Luncheon Talk Features John Musa o Managing Corporate Information Systems Evolution and Mainteance: Call for Chapters o IEEE Computer Special Issue on Agile Software Development (June 2003) o International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology: Special Issue on Web and Database Technologies in Business Solutions o QTN Article Submittal, Subscription Information ======================================================================== The Top Ten Trends -- 2003 The December issue of Red Herring (see <www.redherring.com>) is usually given over to industry pundits' projecting the top ten trends for the coming year. Most of the time this yearly ritual is something of a bore, but, in the IT industry's current state, it seems that future-oriented and optimistic predictions may be more important than ever before. Even if three quarters of the predictions are wrong, some may be right on. OK, it is a reach, but why not take a look and see what you think. Here are the ten, with some excerpts from their author's much longer arguments. #1 Carried Away: Wi-fi steals the wireless spotlight from third generation technology. Dan Briody suggests that Wireless LAN's (WLANs), aka wi-fi or 802.11, will take off, to the demise of the competing 3G type of phones. The implications for the quality community are the need for more testing because of the vastly increased bandwidth. #2 The Virtualizer: Technologies that transform a corporations IT infrastructure into one seamless unit become all the rage. Om Malik opines that "virtualization" -- process of making big user's infrastructure seamless -- will dominate IT spending. QA'ers, get your integration testing tools honed! #3 Back to 1990: Believe it or not, there won't be a shake out in the venture capital industry. Julie Landry argues that even though IPO's are nearly gone, and the Dot-COM bust is nearly complete, the VCers are alive and well. No shake-out among the VCs, but continuing "make money or else" on the part of 2nd stage and later firms. No mercy! Testers, get ready for a push to market of stuff that maybe shouldn't make it to market! #4 Protector Chip: Semiconductors become the first line of defense in the battle to increase security for cell phones, firewalls, and other technology products. Eric Pfeiffer claims chips will be the first line of defense to increase security for every device. The nay-sayers say no, do it in software. Our bet is on the software solution as cheaper, more reliable, and potentially as un-tamperable. #5 No Small Matter: A backlash against nanotechnology will gather steam and spawn a new discipline -- nanoethics. Stephan Herrera suggests there will be a backlash against nanotechnology and its unintended consequences in biotech and elsewhere will give rise to a new concern for ethics -- nanoethics. Based perhaps on nano-truth? #6 The Worst Option: Stock options impact the bottom line. Tech firms are finally forced to include options as expenses in financial reports. Geoffrey James argues this point as inevitable. Faked financials have made millions for the wrong people, and left lossy companies holding the bag. Back to basics: cash in has to exceed cash out. Makes sense, doesn't it? #7 The Bankrupt go Bankrupt: The worst is yet to come in telecom -- companies that have clawed their way out of bankruptcy will seek its protection again. Om Malik points out that the incredible drop in the price of bandwidth (from $10K for an 2.05 MBps line in 1999 to around $450 for the same bandwidth, a decrease of ~20:1) has bankrupted a number of firms, e.g. Pacific Crossing and WorldCom. The glut is good news for the consumer, but the price will continue to drop, he argues, and there will be some re-filings! Question is, what do you do with all that bandwidth? Testing across the web may be a real growth industry! #8 A Hot Zone: The fight against bioterrorism will help pull the biotech industry out of its funk. Stephan Herrera points out that the bioterrorism effort will affect the biotech industry by reducing competition. What do you think? #9 Soundbytes: Radio stations kick off the transition to 24/7 all digital radio. Justing Hibbard argues that radio will convert. Is there any QA/Testing upside here? #10 Home Alone: Cable companies will control how consumers access the Internet, watch television, and even use their phones. Mark Mowrey has the numbers to indicate that cable will win over DSL. You'll have to agree, coax will win over twisted pair, if the cable folks can get their act together. For testers and QA people this may be a second vote for increased remote, at home, testing projects. Overall, it would seem that several of these projects can have some pretty good impact on quality testing/QA issues. That's good news; we need all the help we can get! ======================================================================== Even More Difficult Questions in a Difficult Time: Some Responses Last year I asked QTN readers, and especially QW/QWE speakers and the QW/QWE Advisory Board Members, to suggest what they thought were the main concerns for the times regarding the general area of software quality, in these categories. * TECHNICAL ISSUES. It's hard to believe "everything has been invented", but could it be true? What are the real technical issues facing the software quality community? Are there really any problems remaining that need to be solved that are not addressed by current methods? * MANAGERIAL ISSUES. Test/QA people are, in many instances, "second class citizens" -- is this news to any of our readers? What keeps there from being more emphasis on systematic QA & Test? How do we "get respect?" * ECONOMIC ISSUES. Everyone in the QA/Test community is suffering -- is this news to any of our readers? What are the factors holding back QA & Test business. Below are three of the responses received. * * Response 1: Allen Olson * * (Allen.Olson@stpaul.com) I would like to respond to your issues listed in QTN for October. I have nearly 20 years of experience working in the IS industry the last seven have been as an IS Development Manager and the last three have been as the Manager responsible for software testing and quality. Technical Issues: There are so many technical issues I don't know where to begin. First off nearly all of the testing tools and products that are presented to test managers fail for some reason or other. They fail because they don't live up to their promises or they just technically break down. In my case the tools have not lived up to expectations as hard as I try, as hard as my staff may try we can not implement the tools in the fashion that they were designed. This causes my business partners to ask why, why can't we test cheaper, why can't we cut our testing time, why can't we do with less. Finding the right tools and technology is truly a science an art, one that is hard to master. Its like walking in a mine field if you take the wrong step you get blown up. Tools need to be more flexible, more able to fit different environments. Lets face it each and every IS shop is different and each and every IS department has different needs and requirements. No one tool, no one technology works in all of these conditions yet vendors pan off their products as silver bullets, the next golden goose. Managerial Issues: The issues here are very disheartening. As a testing manager I have had to fight for every inch I've been given. I have to justify every expense, every addition to staff, every late project, and every problem found. I have proven time and time again that problems we uncover in testing have saved the organization untold millions of dollars yet I am still questioned on the value of testing. It is easy to see why people in this area become burned out. On the up side of things I have found that the best testers are some of the newest people in the industry. These are individuals that have not been brain washed by their peers about how bad testing is. These individuals are hard working, highly motivated individuals that have a high degree of concern about their jobs. Economic Issues: Here's the road block, with the cut backs in IS nearly everywhere its impossible to allocate more budget to the testing development efforts of various organizations. There have been staff reductions that have put untold burdens on teams, not only in the development areas, but also the technical areas that are needed for support of testing efforts. Areas like DBA, Production Control, and File Management. There is a huge push to "do more with less". With fewer resources being available test teams are working longer hours, not getting as much done, and are making mistakes that cause our business partners to look for other solutions. * * Response 2: Praveen Kumar * * (kpraveenk_99@yahoo.com) The following is my opinion on Managerial Issues: Test / QA People. There are certain aspects that the Test and QA poeple need to be careful about with respect to their identity and profession. At the outset the job of Test/QA people as most of us are aware of, is to provide support for a well designed and developed Product. It is to ensure that the effort to design and develop a software product doesn't get rejected due to small errors. This responsibility however is not as simple as it appears. It is mistook by most developers, Project Managers and surprisingly by most testers. This results in instances of "second class citizenship". Let us not however blame the Project Managers or Developers for our (mis)fortune. Instead firstly the following care needs to be taken by every testing person so that an identity is established. Involvement in the Project at the initial stages of the project: understand the requirements clearly before taking up the testing part. Testing starts at the stage of Designing.One should get involved at various stages of Design. If a tester has coding skills and asked to take up Unit testing of work done by others,one should know that Unit testing is the job of the owner. It would be ideal to take up the coding itself in such case. Try and involve in the project as a Tester at various stages of the Project proactively. Do not wait for the application/modules to come for testing. Do not take up the testing activity as a stop gap option. The professional approach to the testing activities is lost in such cases. Plan a career in testing software with full involvement. It is an ever evolving discipline with a lot of challenges ahead. After all this care, one needs to understand that there is a lot of mis-interpretation of SQA as a an ad hoc activity. If your Company is part of this misguided group,a review of the management policy has to happen. If they care for positive client feedback on the software product the first thing that should happen is to respect the Client's technical representatives within the company, the SQA team. It is this team that gets thru there screening efforts, appreciation for the design and development effort, from the client. * * Response 3: M.K. * * I think you are right on track with those questions. The situation is generally insane! The vast majority of the IT industry is suffering from bad quality, and the quality professionals are suffering from lack of respect! We have a situation here! Let's try to stress the situation to the edge. Not that I think that the following model is true, but it may bring some insight to the key problem. Management Does Not Respect Quality Professionals and Vice Versa. So let's say that there are two approaches to SW development. The management way and the quality way. And they can't co-exist. In that case, the management way has proven to be wrong for a few decades by now. And the few examples where the management has been truly committed to quality has shown impressive results. (Have you by any chance seen Sanjiv Ahuja, President of Bellcore, give his presentation on "Process Improvement in a rapidly changing technical environment!" e.g. SEPG 98 Chicago. He stood there as a top manager really leading the way to quality. There where a quite a few in that room who said: "Gee - if only my boss would say things like that, I would be a happy man.) The quick and dirty conclusion is that the traditional management style of SW development is the last generation of dinosaurs. It is bound to change! But what will make the change happen as long as the dinosaurs sticks to their positions? I have just quantified the cost of bad quality to be 25% of the turnover in a small company, and the ROI on would be 5 times on improvement investments. And the manager think his problem will be solved by setting up the PVCS environment with some different promotion groups! (Right now I feel like crying :-( ) Please keep this note between you and me. If it goes out somewhere, I would appreciate a chance to put it in more political correct terms. (Editor's Note: Author's identity withheld in response to this request.) ======================================================================== eValid Ver. 4.0 Announced <http://www.e-valid.com> Software Research, Inc. has announced general availability of a major new release of its eValid(tm) Website Test Suite. It provides a cost effective, standard way to rapidly access and expose any number of defects or bottlenecks on your website. The new release expands eValid's capabilities to provide complete XML and multi- window support, introduces new thin and limited-fidelity test playback options and delivers website testing without the need for plug-ins, Java Scripts or VBScripts, proxies, or wrappers. It supports cookies, Flash objects and Java Applets in an intuitive way. The new version also introduces new dashboard controls, simplifies user preferences, and automates testing even further through seven major improvement areas. eValid Version 4.0 noticeably simplifies the complexity of the basic four pillars of web testing: testing and validation, site analysis, loading, and performance analysis. The new release provides instant access to QA results in enhanced reports and screenshots, thus creating an overall smoother experience for the technical and non- technical user. Keeping your websites error-free just became easier, faster, and hassle-free, yet remains 100% realistic. "eValid Version 4.0 adds powerful new features to the widely accepted eValid Website Test Suite. We're tracking with XML and complex sites that use loads of Java. With the fast pace of changing information on dynamic websites, it is important to have rapid access to any defects. The expanded capabilities make it very easy to test even the most-advanced website implementations," said Edward Miller, Chairman of Software Research. "Contrary to traditional client-side test software, this solution is entirely implemented in the browser, and assures 100% realistic, repeatable and context-preserving tests and analyses. It shows exactly what your website users experience." The eValid Version 4.0 Test Suite includes the following new features in a seven functional areas: Testing and Validation Multiple-Window Support. The latest websites tend to use JavaScript to communicate between windows. eValid now reproduces parent/child window interactions in full-browser mode. This new functionality, based on customer requests, supports XML-based websites that use multiple windows, which now are recorded with all of the context capabilities available in the parent windows. "The fact that eValid is a browser and will always behave like a browser is very important. When we're testing, we don't want to be spending energy understanding how our test tool is not like a browser. It's surprising how often differences arise with mainstream tools, particularly in the handling of cookies and JavaScript," said Peter Rowley, Director of Quality Assurance, Bell Globemedia Interactive, Canada Save & Validate Screens. This new capability allows saving screens (either the face of a window or the full window) to local files during playback. This feature expands the already powerful validation capabilities of the eValid product. An image difference utility that permits masking of images is also included. This feature adds the capability to save screenshots when a failure is detected while monitoring the site. "When you're using eValid to monitor a site, how do you explain to the customer what went wrong when an Alarm was issued? Now the answer is simple: just look at a screenshot and the answer's right there! " Miller added. New Dashboard Control Displays. There is a new floating control dashboard that provides basic activity information. The controls act in parallel to the eValid browser and give users special status and instant activity information that otherwise would only be seen from the event logs that eValid generates. Simplified Preferences Menu, GUI Face. The new release consolidates all preference settings into a single interface, and simplifies access to major eValid functions, including Record/Play, Load, and Site Analysis. "Our original goal was to keep eValid as simple as possible, but now that we have so many different operating modes, it makes sense to unify the preferences and split out some of the basic functionality," Miller continued. Site Analysis Interactive Viewing Mode. The powerful "spider in a browser" capability to review an entire website, a page at a time, is now under immediate user control. This feature feeds complete website page sets to the user at a constant rate, making it easy to survey the site (and check all the links). The user controls the rhythm of the pause between each page: for one or ten seconds, or till you click a key to continue this segmented survey. "We found ourselves using the Site Analysis feature to review customers' websites, and it helps a lot to pause after every page is complete. You'd be amazed how much you can learn about their products -- and how quickly you can learn it -- using the site analyzer in escapement mode," Miller said. "You browse the entire website at your own pace." Enhanced 3D-SiteMaps. SiteMaps in 3D are generated as part of the Site Analysis process to show how individual pages and images interconnect. This color-coded, conical graph received a number of enhancements. It now permits trimming the display by selecting types of content, annotating diagram elements with URL information, and choosing element size, based on page download speed or total size. "The biggest problem in maintaining a website is: finding the things wrong that your users find -- effortlessly, if possible! This is really hard if the website is generated dynamically -- the way most of the big websites now are implemented. But now you can look for strings and relationships between strings -- automatically. This will save webmasters and website maintainers a lot of time and effort, " Miller said. Server Loading New Playback Only Clients. To generate totally realistic loads, server loading experiments use eValid's unique ability to run multiple browsers on one client machine. Each eValid copy executes a complete user test, and the test scenario can use many copies of eValid -- the number is limited only by hardware resources. The new thin playback-only clients enhance the ability of a single machine to generate more real loading work; but by minimizing playback footprints, it takes very little RAM. "I can definitely say that eValid is the ONLY automated software test tool that lets us easily and effectively simulate a load based on 'real-world' users, which is critical based on our technology model. That, coupled with the easy-to-learn and understanding scripting, makes eValid the perfect choice for Finali's load and regression testing," reported Mike Kosel, Director of Quality Assurance at Finali, Colorado. eValid Version 4.0 licenses start at $495 for a basic record/playback capability suitable for most testing and monitoring applications. Separate licenses in various combinations are available. The eValid Web Analysis Suite (Site Mapping, Functional Testing, Data Generation, Loading, Timing/Tuning, Performance Testing, and Test Suite Management) is available in various combinations at special bundle discount prices. Evaluation versions are available for download at <www.e-valid.com>. ======================================================================== Journal on Software and Systems Modeling -- Issue Contents Robert France and Bernhard Rumpe Editors-In-Chief recently, the SoSyM journal (Springer International Journal on Software and Systems Modeling) has released its first issue at the UML conference. The papers in the issue are listed below: M. Jackson: Some Basic Tenets of Description L. Briand, Y. Labische: A UML-based Approach to System Testing A.L. Opdahl, B. Henderson-Sellers: Ontological Evaluation of the UML Using the Bunge-Wand-Weber Model P. Stevens: On the interpretation of binary associations in the Unified Modeling Language Early feedback indicates that the paper were of high quality -- a good start for a new journal. For further information please have a look at the website: <http://www.sosym.org/> ======================================================================== NJCSE Luncheon Talk Features John Musa by Larry Bernstein (lbernstein@worldnet.att.net) The latest NJCSE luncheon talk features John Musa at Monmouth University. There is no charge. He is the world class expert on Software Reliability. My projects have used his technology and improved the reliability of our software systems by one-to-two orders of magnitude. It would be wonderful to network together and discuss software reliability. I want to see you. Please RSVP by December 5, 2002. Please call Mrs. Karen Wyant at 732-571-7501 to confirm your attendance. Please join us at Monmouth University on Friday December 13, 2002 to hear John Musa discuss his work on a reliability model and the use of Operational Profiles. John has published many articles and the seminal book on this subject. In the past, I worked with John at Bell Labs and he is now an independent consultant. ======================================================================== Managing Corporate Information Systems Evolution and Maintenance: Call for Chapters Edited by Khaled Khan and Yan Zhang Ph.D., Idea Group, Inc. Introduction Information systems (IS) always change and evolve, some changes are more frequent, some are less. Evolution of information systems is unavoidable, and organizations need to support systems evolution to take advantage of the new technology and to address the changing business rules. The book will address the managerial and technical aspects that are often required for a corporate system evolution process. In the era of web based systems and e-business, organizations need appropriate maintenance processes and resources that are required to migrate their aging legacy information systems to web enabled contemporary systems. Managing system evolution and maintenance involves a great deal of technical, financial and management issues. One of the major concerns of organizations is to manage the evolution process with minimum cost for maximum benefits. Current practices of system maintenance activities revolve around ad hoc patching which do not follow any defined methodology. A more defined formalism describing various tasks, tools and methods is required to enable a clear understanding of the IS evolution and maintenance activities. The goal of this book is to examine key IS evolution and maintenance issues facing the IS community. Overall Objective Of The Book The book will also address how the system evolution has considerable impact on the corporate business process, personnel management, and the technological advantages. The book will document the technical and managerial aspects of systems evolution, providing insights into how a modification to a system could be initiated and justified. It will also include the cost-benefit analysis of the maintenance process, managing and tracking the impact of the changes. The purpose of this book is to disassemble the complex process of information system evolution and maintenance into related managerial and technical tasks so as to aid in the allocation of resources, acquisition of appropriate toolset, distributing responsibilities and managing the entire complex process. The book is intended to convey a high level understanding of managing IS maintenance process and its dimensions. Chapters proposals due: 31 January 2003 Please forward all inquiries and submissions to: Khaled Khan <k.khan@uws.edu.au> <http://www.cit.uws.edu.au/research/isl/bookchapters.pdf> ======================================================================== IEEE Computer Special Issue on Agile Software Development (June 2003) IEEE Computer seeks articles for a special issue on agile software development to appear in June 2003. Guest editors are Laurie Williams, North Carolina State University, and Alistair Cockburn, Humans and Technology. Agile development, a development model that has been gaining popularity and use rapidly in recent years, aims to deliver business value early. Agile methods enable the incorporation of late- changing product requirements, by accentuating, as core properties of the development process, the frequent delivery of running, tested systems, and the use of rich, informal communication channels. Proponents of the agile approach say that these practices lead to more satisfied customers and a superior success rate of delivering high quality software on-time. Agile approaches are gaining popularity in industry despite - or perhaps because of - their mixing accepted and controversial software engineering practices. It may happen that eventually, individual project characteristics will determine the prudence of using an agile, plan-driven, or hybrid approach. For this special issue, we invite wide-ranging articles on agile software development appropriate to Computer's readers. Desired topics include, but are not limited to: empirical examinations of agile software development practices and methodologies; experience reports; comparisons between emerging agile practices and established best practices; examinations of agile methodologies relative to established standards such as the CMM, CMMI, and ISO; issues of scalability; issues around teamwork and collaboration. Submission deadline is January 6, 2003. Papers, submitted in electronic (PDF) form, should conform to the IEEE Computer paper submission standards at <http://computer.org/computer/author.htm> and be sent to williams@csc.ncsu.edu. Please contact Laurie Williams <williams@csc.ncsu.edu> with questions. ======================================================================== International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology: Special Issue on Web and Database Technologies in Business Solutions <http://tdg.lsi.us.es/cfp/ijwet03> The International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology (IJWET) is a refereed international journal providing a forum and an authoritative source of information in the fields of web engineering and web technology. It is devoted to innovative research in the analysis, design, development, use, evaluation and teaching of web- based systems, applications, sites and technologies. It provides an interdisciplinary forum for the exchange of ideas concerning theoretical, technical, practical, social and pedagogical issues. Interscience is pleased to announce a new special issue on web and database technologies in business solutions. Aims and Scope The aim of this special issue of IJWET is to present the research that is being carried out at universities and in industry to solve problems related to the construction of innovative business applications. The stress is put on real-world industrial experiences and projects, as well as innovative technologies and infrastructures for building e-commerce and e-business solutions. This issue of IJWET aims also at developing a framework for better understanding the application of research achievements in modern information systems comprising web technologies, database and data warehouse technologies, data and applications integration, and decision support. Topics Of Interest Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following: - Web technologies and services: web services, orchestration mechanisms, advanced multiparty interaction models, standards. - Electronic contracts: service level agreements, requirements elicitation, automated and semi-automated negotiation, monitoring. - Data and application integration: federated systems, mediated systems, data warehouses, accessing legacy systems via web. - Management of evolution in information systems: temporal and multiversion databases, temporal and multiversion data warehouses, adaptive user interfaces. - New platforms for developing web, distributed and wireless systems: Microsoft .NET, Sun One, IBM Web Sphere, Oracle Internet Application Server. - Industrial and research IT projects: reports from finished and ongoing projects in the field of web and database technologies. Guest Editors * Rafael Corchuelo, who is a reader in Computer Engineering, and he has been with the University of Seville since 1994. He is the head of the Research Group on Distributed Systems of this University, and he has set up several cooperation and exchange programs with several European universities and research centers. His research activities focus on distributed systems: quality, fairness, coordination, information extraction, and so forth. Currently, he is a member of the editorial board of Springer-Verlag's Journal of Universal Computer Science, and serves as a reviewer for ACM's Computing Reviews and Wiley's Concurrency and Computation. * Antonio Ruiz-Cortes, who is a Doctor of Computer Science, and he is with the Department of Computer Languages and Systems of the University of Seville. Before joining the University, he worked for companies such as Informatica el Corte Ingles, which is a leading Spanish corporation with branches all over the world, and DEINSA, which is a local corporation that has specialized in building environmental information systems. His current research interests include non-functional requirements, software architecture, component-oriented software engineering, and multi- organizational web-based systems. * Robert Wrembel, who works as an assistant professor at Poznan University of Technology. In 2001 he received his PhD in computer science (databases). In 1996-2002 he took part in 3 research projects on databases and 4 industrial projects in the field of information technology. He paid a number of research visits including INRIA Paris-Rocquencourt (France), University Paris Dauphine (France), University of Klagenfurt (Austria), and recently as a visiting professor at the Loyola University (USA). His research interests encompass object-oriented databases, views, multiversion databases, object-relational data warehouses, and multiversion data warehouses. Robert Wrembel works also as a lecturer at Oracle Poland. He is an executive board member of the Polish Oracle Users Group and in 2000-2001 he was elected to the board of directors of "Europe, Millde-East and Africa Oracle Users Group". Papers and proposals should be e-mailed to <tdg@tdg.lsi.us.es>. ======================================================================== ======================================================================== ------------>>> QTN ARTICLE SUBMITTAL POLICY <<<------------ ======================================================================== QTN is E-mailed around the middle of each month to over 10,000 subscribers worldwide. To have your event listed in an upcoming issue E-mail a complete description and full details of your Call for Papers or Call for Participation to <qtn@sr-corp.com>. 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