Budgetary restrictions affect many organisations, especially when it comes to software quality; for this reason we’ve selected a group of free/open source software tools which present a great alternative to commercial tools.
Having little or no budget does not mean departments should continue working with text files or worksheets in order to manage quality; there are alternatives, that, whilst not offering all the functionality and ease of use of commercial tools, can offer great advantages to QA departments.
Test Management
Test Link
Test link allows you to create and manage test cases with ease, as well as aiding test plan creation. These test plans allow team members to execute test cases and track test results dynamically; generate information sheets, allow for traceability of software requirements, prioritise and assign tasks. It is a web tool based on PHP and compatible with MySQL, PostGreSQL and MS SQLServer, carries a GPL/GNU licence and is developed and maintained by the Open Community Testers, mostly a team of developers who know and understand the needs of test teams.
Testlink is available at http://www.teamst.org
Mantis
Mantis is a complete Incident management/tracking tool which allows for the creation of projects, assigns incidents as well as a high level of reporting and tracking. It is a web tool based on PHP and supports MySQL PostGreSQL and MS SQLServer, and also carries a GPL/GNU licence.
Mantis is available at http://www.mantisbt.org/
Mantis-TestLink Integration
TestLink allows traceability in requirements and test cases, but this is not enough; to complete traceability tracking must include defects: Requirements > Test Case > Defect This traceability becomes possible when we integrate Mantis and TestLink. The process is as follows:
- When the tester has found a defect or incidence in the application being tested is shown in Mantis; with tool integration the test case which has generated the defect is then marked as failed in TestLink
- When the defects’ state changes in Mantis (eg, from ___ to ___), the test case can be picked up in TestLink to validate that the defect has been fixed.
The tester can check the state of the test case and track and access associated defects at any moment, as both tools keep a tracked reference to these. This integration helps test teams work more efficiently, eliminating the doubling up of errors, “orphan” test cases, and many other common problems when working with separate tools.
Functional Testing
Selenium IDE
Selenium IDE is a Firefox plug-in that belongs to Selenium HQ group of tools, and allows for functional testing on web applications. This tool allows developers to save time and money each time an incident is resolved or a new version is generated. It allows for test automation and realisation of the tests, whether specific (a particular action) or grouped (a group of actions).
Selenium is available at http://www.seleniumhq.org
Performance Testing
JMeter
Apache JMeter is designed for the execution of functional and performance testing. It’s a desktop application in 100% Java, designed originally to run web application testing, now expanded in scope.
JMeter is available at http://jakarta.apache.org/jmeter/
Security Testing
Backtrack 4
Backtrack 4 is a Linux-distributed application, that is based on Ubuntu and includes numerous applications which run security tests and forensic IT analysis. Thanks to the applications included, Backtrack has become an essential to systems administrators and IT auditing professionals. The toolset includes utilities for the auditing of wireless networks, port scanners and vulnerability sniffers, exploit archives, etc.
Some of the tools included are: dnsmap, Netmask, PsTools, TCtrace, Nmap, Protos, utilities which detect vulnerabilities in Cisco, SQL Inject, SMB-NAT, SNMP Scanner, Pirana, Dsniff, Hydra, Sing, WebCrack, Wireshart, NSCX, Airsnort, aircrack, BTcrack, SNORT, Hexedit networks, among 300+.
Backtrack 4 is avaliable at http://www.backtrack-linux.org
Sonar is a platform which allows for the management of code quality by controlling the following 7 component areas:
Sonar makes various analysis of code through other tools (Checkstyle, PMD, “Cobertura”) and presents (through its simple interface) the results of analysis in metrics form.Static Code Analysis Testing
Sonar
Sonar is avaliable at http://www.sonarsource.org/
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