Welcome

Dear Friends:

Welcome to the latest edition of AppLabs Perspective!

Spending on specialized testing services is growing at a healthy pace. Overall, businesses have started carrying out testing independently from the development teams. The software testing industry has evolved significantly in terms of service offerings, processes, methodologies, delivery models as well as business models.

Today the testers get into the shoes of the end-users; every application is developed considering the end-user experience. Defect prevention is emphasized at every stage, more so right at the design phase rather than finding defects in the final stages of the SDLC. 'Don't make users your testers!' seems to be the mandate running on the CIO's mind.

From the business point-of-view, more and more customers are looking at agile methodologies, which are more receptive to customer requirements, reduce the cost of delivery, improve quality and result in faster time to market. On the technology front, the industry is embracing developments around virtualization, business intelligence (BI), data warehousing, SOA, SaaS and Cloud computing.

This edition of our quarterly newsletter presents a range of business and technical views on all these developments. Our Industry Comment focuses on why realistic performance testing is critical to achieving flawless user experiences. In our Case Study, we discuss the success of testing an array of products for a technology giant. Lastly, the Whitepaper presents a detailed understanding of why establishing trust and rapport with a client from day one is crucial in establishing successful test projects and longer term client/supplier relationships.

We hope you will enjoy reading the newsletter. I would love to get your feedback at info@applabs.com.

Best wishes,

Sashi Reddi
Founder and Chairman
AppLabs

Business Insight

Performance: Still the Cinderella of the Testing World?

Over the last decade or so the importance of software testing has grown enormously. This has been reflected in the massive Investment in people, training, methodologies and tools. Such investment is now seen as critical by many organizations in today's highly competitive world. Please click here to read more. 

 

 

Technical View point

Managing Expectations: The Hidden Art in Test Consulting

One of the greatest challenges in test consulting is engaging the client; establishing a shared vision, understanding their requirements and meeting their expectations. For test professionals, the focus is often steered entirely towards technical competence and expertise, when, in reality, more attention should be focused on consulting skills. The ability to establish trust and rapport with a client from day one is crucial in establishing successful test projects and longer term client/supplier relationships.  Please click here to read more.

Company News

AppLabs in Forrester Report

AppLabs is the only independent testing company mentioned in the recent Forrester report entitled 'Why Do You Need Tier Two Providers?, highlighting the importance of engaging  midsize service providers. The report says, firms like AppLabs, in order to deliver incremental value, build specialist domain capability by hiring experts, develop proprietary tools and methodologies to improve efficiency, and create reusable software components to assist rapid solution deployment.

AppLabs Joins SAP® PartnerEdge™ Program as an SAP Services Partner

AppLabs has joined the SAP® PartnerEdgeTM program as an SAP services partner. The program gives partners access to resources, services and benefits that will help AppLabs build and maintain a successful partnership with SAP AG, which will help it to optimize business results for clients and further strengthen its testing practice in support of SAP solutions. Please click here to read more.

AppLabs partners with Original Software

AppLabs has entered into an agreement with Original Software, the Application Quality Management (AQM) vendor to take to market the latter's innovative quality management suite. The agreement will likewise allow Original Software to position AppLabs' services into its own customer base.  Please click here to read more.

AppLabs attains PCI QSA and ASV Certifications

AppLabs has become certified with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council (SSC) as a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) and as an Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV).  These two certifications will allow AppLabs to help credit card merchants reach their PCI compliance objectives.  These services compliment AppLabs' other security offerings:  web application penetration testing, network security assessment, and source code review.  Please click here to read more.

Faster Throughput and Increased Transactions using MaxIQ SSD Cache Performance Solution Demonstrated by AppLabs Performance Testing

AppLabs found that Adaptec MaxIQ (with MaxIQ SSD cache enabled) improved read and write throughput by eight times and increased transactions per second by 6.9 times when compared with a non-cached environment. Please click here to read more.

AppLabs Named as one of the 50 Fastest-Growing Technology Companies in Deloitte’s Fast 50 Program

AppLabs, has been named to Deloitte's prestigious Fast 50 2009 Program for Greater Philadelphia, a ranking of the 50 fastest growing technology, life sciences and cleantech companies in the area by Deloitte LLP, one of the nation's leading professional services organizations. Rankings are based on the percentage revenue growth over five years from 2004-2008.

AppLabs Named a Red Herring 100 Asia Company

AppLabs has been named one of the Red Herring 100 Private Companies of Asia. This award program recognizes the most promising and innovative private technology companies in Asia with high growth potential. Red Herring's lists of private companies are an important part of the magazine's tradition of identifying new and innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs.

Global Testing Village – Blog

AppLabs has recently launched its blog- Global Testing Village, which is a community of quality and testing professionals, who can connect with each other, share their views on important topics, grow, explore and learn from an ever growing and evolving field of testing and quality management from their fellow peers globally. Please click here to access the blog.

AppLabs to exhibited at STARWest 2009

Ralph Decker, Head of Performance Testing Practice of AppLabs spoke on 'Testing in the Cloud' at STARWEST 2009 in California. AppLabs also has exhibited here. Please click here for more details.

TMMI Foundation Day Event

Martyn Pyke, Senior Consultant of AppLabs spoke recently at the TMMI Foundation Day event in London on 'AppLabs and The Case of Test Maturity Model Integration'. Please click here for more details.

AppLabs collaborated with eoLogic to host a webinar

AppLabs has recently collaborated with eoLogic and have hosted a webinar on 'Eliminating Architectural Barriers to Software Performance'. Please click here to listen to the recorded WebEx.

AppLabs and Grid-Tools hosted a joint webinar on Meeting Compliance Challenges

AppLabs and Grid-Tools have hosted a joint webinar recently on 'Meeting Compliance Challenges in Test and Development Environments''.  The webinar looked at the issues businesses are facing while meeting compliance regulations in non-production environments. The host, Huw Price, Managing Director of Grid-Tools, a strategic partner of AppLabs, took the participants through the following solutions:

  • Database Subsetting, creating secure, broken down versions of a production database used for non-production environments
  • Data Masking, using obfuscating functions to anonymize production data so that when it is used in non-production it is unrecognizable and compliant with regulating bodies
  • Synthetic Test Data Generation, through a modeling and sampling process, data that has all of the referential integrity and likeness of production environments is generated from scratch

Please click here to listen to the recorded webinar.

AppLabs' webinar on Security in the Cloud

Rich Corbridge, Head of Security Testing Practice of AppLabs hosted a webinar entitled Security in the Cloud '. Cloud computing is growing in popularity as it presents the promise of cost savings associated with efficient asset utilization and the reduction in capital investments. However, Security and privacy concerns are the major obstacles restricting businesses from embracing the Cloud. The webinar looked at the security challenges businesses are facing while shifting to the Cloud and how to over come those while deploying a secure Cloud. Please click here to listen to the recorded webinar.

AppLabs at EuroSTAR 2009

AppLabs has once again been selected to present at the EuroSTAR 2009, Europe's most successful and widely acknowledged gathering of software testing professionals. Scott Andress, Vice President and Global Head, Alliances and Service Lines  of AppLabs is speaking on 'Collaboration not Competition' on Tuesday, December 1, '09 at Stockholm.

For more information on the event, please click here.

AppLabs in the News

Reuters - AppLabs Joins SAP PartnerEdge Program

Reuters - AppLabs Performance Benchmark Testing Shows Faster Throughput and Lower Response Times with MaxIQ SSD Cache Performance Solution

Silicon India - IITs & Entrepreneurs

Express Computer - Embracing the Cloud

Express Computer - Valuing vs. recognizing employees

IT Jungle - Original Software Teams with AppLabs for Software Testing

ZDNet Asia - AppLabs and the Test Maturity Model Integration

Silicon India - AppLabs partners with Original Software
Perspective Newsletter
Issue 14
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WebEx Schedule

The Practicalities of Requirements Testing

15 December 2009, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM GMT

Software testing is an established part of the project lifecycle and today, testing has moved ahead in the development lifecycle as the companies understand better that pushing the testing process to the end of the product lifecycle may result in costly errors. Testing early means testing your requirements, but how exactly do you test a requirement?  In the live webinar, Jane Tooze, Principal Consultant at AppLabs will set the assessment criteria that can be used to test requirements either individually as they are being written or as a document.

 To register for the webinar please click here.
Case Study

Novell Inc

novell “A successful outsourced relationship relies on having access to the right people and having the correct processes in place. From the CEO down, AppLabs understands the testing discipline and our business issues. This is why AppLabs is different, they lend strategic consultancy as well as providing operational testing capabilities." - Dipto Chakravarty, Vice President Engineering, Novell.  

Please click here to read the complete case study.
Employee Spotlight

Ravi Ramachandran, Vice President, Strategic Account Management, USmore+