News, Articles & Events

• IDT participated in the 8th Navy Opportunity Forum® sponsored by the Navy Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program Office (http://www.navyopportunityforum.com/about.php, held June 2nd – 4th in Crystal City, VA. Bernie Gauf had the opportunity to present IDT's Innovative Application of Commercial Automated Testing Tools for Rapid Insertion or Adaptation of Combat System Capabilities. IDT also provided a booth at the event to present additional information about automated testing..
• IDT participated in the 2007 George Mason University Job & Internship Fair.
• GMU Job Fair: IDT participated in the 2007 George Mason University Job & Internship Fair held on the Fairfax Virginia Campus in Johnson Center, Dewberry Hall.

"Comparing Open Source Defect Tracking Tools" (by Elfriede Dustin). An Epic Battle Between Two Top Open Source Defect-Tracking Tools - STP Magazine Testers spend too much time testing published September 2007 – SDTimes The Business Case for Automated Testing published November 2007 – DACS Security Testing Tools to be published November 2007 – Software Test and Performance Magazine

IDT Automated Software Testing survey
IDT conducted an Automated Software Testing survey. The goal of this survey was to gather information regarding percentage of software testing time spent in relation to the overall software development lifecycle; determine automated testing needs; determine successes and common themes of automation in various organizations. The outcome of this survey has been summarized in various publications, including in the publications The Business Case for Automated Testing and Testers Spend too much time testing. A summary will also be provided during Bernie Gauf's keynote at VERIFY 2007.

• Number of survey respondents: 300 respondents from various demographic backgrounds
• Company or Organization size: 59% respondents work at larger than 300 employees organizations

Here are is a summary of key survey findings:

• Too much Time is Spend on Software Testing: 46% of respondents state up to 50% of overall development lifecycle is spent on software testing. Almost 20% of respondents state that 50 – 75% of time is spent
• 72% state that automation is useful and management agrees, BUT either they have not implemented it at all or have had limited success
• Main Reasons for Not Implementing Automation: Time and Experience

• Google Test Automation Conference:
  We attended the Google Test Automation conference, a two–day conference on test automation sponsored by Google and held at their New York office. Conference attendance is by invitation only, based on an essay that has to be submitted, describing why one wants to attend and hopes to get out of the Google Test Automation Conference.
  Several topics were discussed in multiple sessions, a reflection of their importance, including automated testing on multiple machines, testing web applications, and various open source and vendor provided frameworks were discussed.
  
  
• Department of Homeland Security Software Assurance Workshops (DHS SWA)
  We are a member of the DHS SWA workshop and will continue to support this DHS organized SWA workshops/forum. The intent of this Forum is to continue to bring together members of Government, industry, and academia with vested interests in software assurance to discuss and promote integrity, security, and reliability in software. Progress updates on the DHS and DoD Programs and Initiatives were presented. Additionally, the forum continues to collaborate in examining alternatives to mitigate security risk attributable to software.

• IDT presented a brief at the Object Management Group (industry standards consortium) about the need for automated software testing standards. (see http://www.omg.org/)
  

  • 25–29 June 2007, Belgium, Brussels: OMG Technical Meeting to various task forces
  • 10 July 2007 Washington, DC: OMG Real–Time and Embedded Systems Workshop

• Discussed automated testing standards with tool vendors.
• Initiated development of an OMG Request for Information (RFI) to solicit industry comments on standards needed for automated testing

• The Business Case for Automated Testing: The Challenge: Typically, too much time of the overall effort in developing and delivering software products is spent on testing. Test time and cost is expected to continue to increase as the complexity of software applications is continuing to grow and as is the desire to deliver products more quickly. This presentation discusses the use of test automation to help reduce test efforts and testing costs. The presentation focuses on describing how the test automation increases the efficiency of the testing team, allows last minute releases to be tested quicker, and reduce the cost of testing overall. From a test engineer's perspective, automation should increase efficiency, reduce tedious data entry, allow for increased analytical time, and provide career enhancing skills, among other benefits. This presentation describes the business case for test automation.
• Testers spend too much time testing: This article provides a high level summary of the initial findings of an IDT survey conducted to determine various Automated Software testing issues and needs, in which respondents indicated long software–testing timelines and high percentages of testing time relative to the software's life cycle. The survey's goal was to determine software testing–related issues to provide solutions while reaching as many software testers with a wide demographic as possible.
• Security Testing Tools: Existing security testing tools have been proven in the secure development and security verification of various systems and components. This article is a summary of the types of security testing tools available, requirements each tools meet and maps vendors to each security tool. Typical antivirus software, network sniffers, intrusion detection and firewall software, are assumed to be in place. Security Testing tools complement those existing tools.
• Webinar: Automated Software Testing Lifecycle Methodology – Selected Best Practices: Automated Software Testing when done right will save time, cost, and improve your quality. This session will discuss selected automated software testing best practices as part of the Automated Testing Lifecycle (ATLM).