All You Need to Know About Software Quality Assurance
What is Software Quality Assurance?
Quality assurance is important for software providers and their products, developers and clients. The procedures and standards specified by a QA, or Quality Assurance program, prevent product defects before they arise.
The term Quality Assurance (QS), the English name is Quality Assurance (QA), is fundamentally associated with systematic processes. The focus of the consideration is the question: Does a product to be created meet the requirements placed on it? Corresponding security practices have existed for generations.
Today ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, deals with the mapping and certification of quality assurance practices. In a formalized form, QS has its origins in the manufacturing industry, where quality assurance processes are described in the ISO 9000 family of standards. Corresponding security concepts now determine the processes in most industries and quite explicitly in software development.
Quality: assurance versus control
A basic definition of the term is used to distinguish between the terms “quality assurance” and “quality control”. There is no doubt that the two terms have functional similarities, but there are notable differences in content:
- Quality control is a production-oriented process. This includes processes such as testing and troubleshooting.
- Quality assurance refers to a systematic process to ensure a specified requirement profile. The point is to prevent faulty program code and to deliver error-free products in this way.
The software developer and QA models
Quality assurance is central to software developers. After all, it is a matter of avoiding errors in software products before errors manifest themselves. On the one hand, this approach reduces development time and, on the other hand, it has a cost-reducing effect. Strategies for ensuring software quality are correspondingly diverse .
A model geared towards performance optimization bears the abbreviation “CMMI” for Capability Maturity Model Integration. This is an evaluation scheme that is based on degrees of maturity, which are ranked with the aim of optimization. Other models, all of which have the goal of increasing work efficiency, have the following names:
Waterfall model : traditional, linear development approach. In the classic step-by-step approach, functional processes such as program design, code implementation , test phase, corrections and final approval are lined up.
Agile: team-oriented development methodology; the so-called ” sprint ” represents a step in the work process.
Scrum : A combination of a waterfall and agile model, in which development teams are formed for special tasks. In this model, each task is divided into several sprints.
Tools and methodology in quality assurance
How can the software developer ensure that a high quality end product is delivered to the client? Testing the software program is an elementary part of software quality assurance. Today the developer has numerous modern tools and work platforms at his disposal, which guarantee a high degree of automation of the test procedures. Proven tools that are frequently used in software houses are (listed in alphabetical order):
Jenkins: This open source quality assurance program offers the possibility of executing and testing code in real time. Thanks to its degree of automation, Jenkins is predestined for use in fast-moving program environments.
Selenium: another open source product. It enables tests to be carried out in numerous languages such as “C #”, ” Java ” or ” Python “.
Postman: Tool specially designed for web applications. This test tool is available for the Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. It supports editors and description formats such as Swagger and the RAML formatting.
Conclusion: quality assurance as a distinguishing feature
Quality Assurance (QA) differs from the actual test routine. Rather, it defines the standards to be specified for testing. Ultimately, this is done with the aim of ensuring the suitability of a software product for the requirement profiles specified in the order. Quality assurance teams make a valuable contribution to product quality – a differentiating factor in the competition that should not be underestimated.