Mumbai University > Information Technology > Sem 8 > Software Testing and Quality Assurance

Marks: 10 Marks

Difficulty : Medium

Web-based software are different as compared to traditional systems. Keeping in view the environment and behavior of web-based systems. We face many challenges while testing them. These challenges become issues and guidelines when we perform testing of these systems. Some of the challenges and quality issues for web-based system are discussed as –

1. Diversity and complexity – Web applications interact with many components that run on diverse hardware and software platforms. They are written in diverse languages and they are based on different programming approaches such as procedural, 00 and hybrid languages such as Java server pages (JSPs). The client side includes browsers, HTML, embedded scripting languages and applets. The server side includes CGI, JSPs, Java servlets and NET technologies. They all interact with diverse back-end engines and other components that are found on web server or other servers.

2. Dynamic environment – The key aspect of web applications is its dynamic nature. The dynamic aspects are caused by uncertainty in the program behavior, changes in application requirement, rapidly evolving web technology itself and other factors. The dynamic nature of web software creates challenges for the analysis, testing and maintenance for these systems. Forex: it is difficult to determine statically the applications control flow because the control flow is highly dependent user input and sometimes in terms of trends in user behavior over time or user location. Not knowing which page an application is likely to display hinders statically modelling the control flow with accuracy and efficiency.

3. Very short development time – Clients of web-based systems impose very short development time, compared to other software or information systems project (eg: e-business system, etc.)

4. Continuous evolution – Demand for more functionality and capacity after the system has been designed and deployed to meet the extended scope and demands i.e. scalability issues.

5. Compatibility and interoperability – There are many compatibility issues that make testing a difficult task. Web applications often are affected by factors that may cause incompatibility and interoperability issues. The problem of incompatibility exist on both the client as well as server side. The server components can be distributed to different operating various versions of browsers running under a variety as can be there on the client side. Graphics and other on a website have to be tested on multiple browsers. The that executes from browser also has to be tested. The different versions of HTML they are similar in some ways they have different tags which may produce different