Software quality assurance testing

When any enterprise develops new system software, they test it on multiple layers to understand and ensure appropriate functioning in host environment. These softwares undergo various tests and analysis which deem them fit for use in a real world. However, it’s not just about the quantity, but also the quality of software that matters. This is where software quality assurance comes into picture. It basically consists of monitoring the software engineering processes and methods used to ensure quality. It is a process which guarantees that the developed software meets and complies with defined or standardized quality specifications. Software assurance gives a very valuable insight into the production lifecycle. This also ensures that the software-intensive systems we produce are more secure. Many industries, like national defense, banking, healthcare, telecommunications, and aviation depend on a secure and reliable software programming to function which is met by assurance testing.

It is important to reduce possible defects in every stage of the software development life cycle. Thus, software engineers have to test the software at each layer and eliminate the problems or threats that the software can be exposed to when used in an organization. The spotlight of software quality assurance is to supervise continuously throughout the software development life cycle to ensure the quality of the delivered products. Agreement with established requirements, standards, and procedures is evaluated through process monitoring, product evaluation, audits, and testing. 

Along with assurance, it is also significant to determine how a system performs in terms of responsiveness and stability under a particular workload. It is imperative that the system meet the performance criteria, also is reliable and scalable in terms of resource usage. This can be done through load testing, soak testing, spike testing, configuration testing, isolation testing and stress testing, all of which are a part of software performance testing. The best part of performance testing is that it can test 2 different systems simultaneously and determine which is better in meeting your pre-defined criteria to meet the goals of concurrency, serer response time, performance specifications etc.

It focuses on the changing level of product quality within each phase of the life cycle. The need for software to be error-free with superior quality gave rise to software quality assurance which is a fundamental building block in system testing in any enterprise wanting to develop finer technology.