I am writing this newsletter as we move towards the end of yet another eventful quarter. The first few months of the year were busy with several exciting wins and I am elated they continue. To me these numbers are incredibly exciting and mean one thing - the software testing industry is nowhere close to slowing down. Having said that, while the economic crisis may be a thing of the past, business, I believe won't be 'as usual' anymore.

The financial crisis has had several fallouts, but in my view, disruption in customer behavior is among the most potent ones, which I see clearly impacting the way customers perceive value. Today, more than ever, organizations seek to improve productivity and reduce application operating and maintenance costs while speeding time to benefit and improving quality of the applications they move into production.

It is in this context that cloud testing is seen as the next technological wave in the software testing industry, and why not? This is a sure-shot way to reduce cost and infrastructure spend. Cloud testing enables organizations to set up much larger test labs, which without the cloud was unimaginable.  Tests like load testing can be done as close as possible to real life, almost as if the system were up and running. Now, add to this the appetizer benefit - pay only for what you use!

We are excited about the possibilities that we can offer our customers on and from the cloud. We see security and privacy concerns among the major obstacles restricting businesses from embracing the cloud.  This edition of our newsletter focuses on cloud testing and addresses some of these concerns. The success of cloud computing is dependent upon delivery of consistent, reliable, and secure services through next-generation data centers. Therefore, it is critical that organizations establish and maintain security processes as well as testing procedures to ensure that these services comply with the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and corporate security policies. Organizations wishing to link to the cloud need to ensure that the risk-control processes and the level of testing are of high quality so as  to guarantee that the service and control processes are functioning as intended.  AppLabs presents an approach and methodology paper, 'Security in the Cloud', in the Business Insights section of this edition of Perspective.

In the Business Insights section we also have an article on how organizations can look at reducing cost and duration of the test phase. Under Technical Viewpoint header, we have put together a whitepaper that delves in detail on the challenges faced by companies moving to a cloud environment, in terms of security, reliability, and manageability. Also, in this section we have an Industry comment on Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance and its growing need.  The featured Case Study in this issue is an example of how a well architected testing solution and rigorous test processes delivered tangible business benefits for one of the largest independent charities in the world.

As is the practice, the issue also covers our company news and has details of events in which we have made presentations

To conclude, I'd say the first quarter of 2010 was a significant one for AppLabs in more ways than one. I am also happy to share with you that AppLabs has been ranked on top in the key areas of customer references, company certifications and company recognitions in the Global Outsourcing 100, 2010 listing.

I hope you find this newsletter insightful and intuitive. If you'd like to share something with me, or have any questions or comments, I look forward to hearing it. You can write to me directly at sashir@applabs.com.

Best wishes,

Sashi Reddi
Founder and Chairman
AppLabs

 

Web Performance Testing - Agile or Waterfall?  

Agile and Waterfall approaches have been the topics of endless discussion in the testing world. Opinions vary leaving experts to carefully examine the two and provide the right answer and solution.

In this live webinar, Ralph Decker AVP of the AppLabs Performance Testing Service Line, discussed the approaches and methodologies for performance testing applications that are developed using Agile and Waterfall methods as well as the Agile and Waterfall approaches to performance testing. Please click here to listen to the recorded webinar.

Increasing Efficiency: Advantages of Release based Testing Framework

In most organizations, the IT development has release-based software models and testing is believed to be an integral part of it. Establishing a release-based testing framework enables standardization of testing deliverables, formation of global regression test suite, setting up of overall test automation approach and helps create processes to streamline testing across Releases. This is extremely effective in multi vendor outsourcing model.  In this webinar, Neha Kalantri, Delivery Manager at AppLabs, provided an overview of how setting up a testing framework for a release helps the organization reduce IT development costs and time to market, hence improving quality. Please click here to get the copy of the presentation.

Risk based testing approach to complex capital market systems

In the fast paced financial services industry, organizations must do all they can to remain competitive. Stephen Massel, Solutions Head for Financial Services vertical at AppLabs, in this webinar showcased a practical example of how to plan the functional testing of a complex trading application. In the live webinar, Stephen Massel provided a detailed overview on testing of a major stock exchange application with complex order management rules, multiple order flow entry points and output interfaces. Please click here to listen to the recorded webinar

Financial Express - AppLabs tops in key categories of Global Outsourcing 100

CIOL- AppLabs partners with AutomatedQA

TMCNet - AppLabs attains ISO 13485:2003 accreditation

The Hindu - Software Testing Market Calling

Express Computer - Cloud testing: attracting demand