SOFTWARE TESTING: Spoils of a Scuba Diver

The least-know activity in any product development cycle is the verification

and validation part. At the same time, it is estimated that this activity

accounts for as much as 30—50 percent of the total time consumed by any

product development cycle. But things seem to be changing now. Verification and

validation is emerging as an important business opportunity, and at least one

big company, Wipro, is betting big on the opportunity. According to a report on

software testing tools and market analysis and forecast 2000-05 by Ovum, the

total world market for testing tools and related services in excess of $6

billion by 2005. In 2001, it was estimated to be close to $2 billion.

Undoubtedly, it means that the Indian companies have a very big opportunity that

is yet to be tapped.

Before delving into the business opportunities, one needs to look at some

datapoints. Certain expectations like Windows XP taking off in a major way and

e-business spurring the spending are a reality now. This means that

functionalities like availability, scalability, performance, and compatibility

will become even more important. Some facts that support the argument. A New

Port Inc report says that users are not tolerant of delays of more than 10

seconds, 52 percent of the applications failed to scale as planned, and an

average Web application handles about 72 percent of the concurrent traffic

volume originally planned. And it was observed that the 48 percent of the

applications which scaled as expected had adopted load testing at very early

stages of the development life cycle. The solution therefore lies in quicker

development of better inter-op solutions.

Why Interop Solutions? According to CP Gangadhariah, general manager,

Inter-op Solutions, Wipro technologies, an independent opinion approach is

important as about 30-50 percent of the product development cycle is spent on

verification and validation and best practices, methods, techniques and tools if

available as the business unit focus, will expedite things. Wipro, which has

taken the lead in this direction today, has a dedicated unit for this business

with a mission to enable companies to deliver quality and reliable software on

time. Adds Gangardhariah, "This mission is possible having effective

processes, tools, and techniques and through tailored approaches and

methodologies for functional and performance verification in technology domain

and enterprise applications." The business unit was formed as early as

April 1997 and started working in the optical and GSM-related testing work. This

experience has allowed it to participate in the V&V activities across

different verticals. The need for independent V&V is understandable but what

does it mean? Gangadariah explains,

"It is a series of V&V testing activities at various phases of

product life cycle during development and implementation. This is an activity

conducted by a team that is independent of the design team and implementations

are checked against the requirements and the standards for functional and

performance parameters."

Wipro’s V&V business model includes two options. It has a global

verification center, which is a client-specific lab that takes advantage of the

time difference between geographies, acts like a virtual extension of the parent

lab, and adheres to compliance outlined for client processes. Then there is the

onsite verification service with domain-skilled engineers and a variety of

verification methodologies that complement clients’ engineering teams. The

company’s V&V services include, among other things, functional and

parametric testing, regression and feature testing, conformance and acceptance

testing, product and interop testing, performance and stress testing, and

integrated test management.

If this is an activity so important, where lies the opportunity? Wipro

experience suggests that there is a huge opportunity in the wireless and optical

networks space, switching and carrier IP space, and in enterprise applications.

Like the GSM and GPRS networks, UMTS and 3G networks, terminals and devices,

Sonet/SDH networks, survivability and security and integrated network

management, open-platform switches and gateways, pure IP networks and

internetworking and conformance space, among other things. Interestingly, the

company has a ready framework for the offerings called LIBRA–which is a

generic test framework to address technology domains among other frameworks. As

a result of this, the company is estimated to have garnered in excess of Rs 60

crore during the past year. Wipro officials claim that the opportunity is huge

and one only needs a dedicated approach, expertise, the tools, and the necessary

alliances.

Ch. Srinivas Rao