13 December, 2013

Cost-Effective Ways of Hiring ASP Net Programmers

Earlier, enterprises were building websites to reach customers residing in different regions. But with most and more businesses going online, it has become essential for each enterprise to optimize its online presence. However, you must consider several factors to optimize the look, feel, performance and security of his website. Along with diverting regular website traffic through online search engines and social networks, you also need to ensure that the website is effective in converting the visitors into customers.

hire .net developers
So your choice of ASP.NET developer will make a huge difference to the impact created by your website on regular and first-time visitors. He can use his web programming expertise, knowledge and creativity to convert all your ideas into a reality. If web development is not your core business, you have to put some time and effort to hire the best ASP.NET programmer for your project. At the same time, you also need to explore options to hire the most competent .NET developer without paying a hefty fee.

Exploring Inexpensive Ways to Hire the Best ASP.NET Programmer

Understand the Specialized Tools and Frameworks
There are several ways to build a robust website. Instead of hiring an ASP.NET developer, you have option to build the website using specialized website development tools and frameworks. Often developers also use these tools to build a website rapidly without putting any extra time and effort. As most programmers charge for their services at an hourly rate, you can always convince them to use these specialized tools and save time. But no developer will tell you about these tools and tricks. So you must understand how these specialized tools work to negotiate with the programmer for reduced rate.

Hire the Most Competent Developer
Despite exploring cost-efficient ways to hire an ASP.NET developer, you must not ignore the professional’s knowledge, skills, experience and expertise. Each developer must be familiar with web forms, web APIs, MVC and similar ASP.NET frameworks, along with knowing C#, VB.NET, JavaScript, XML, SOAP and web services. It is also a good idea to check the websites and web applications developed by each programmer in past to determine his skills. Instead of comparing the programmers in terms of his remuneration, you have to try to avail the most competent professional without paying a hefty fee.

Opt for Freelance Programmers
You have options to choose from individual website developers or web development companies. Normally, the web development companies are effective in providing a variety of related services including website designing, development, hosting and promotion. But the companies always charge an amount much higher than the freelance programmers. As you have option to choose from several experienced freelance ASP.NET programmers, there are chances of negotiating for a better deal. However, it is also important to hire the independent developer only after deciding his expertise, experience and professional credibility.

Avoid Paying Hourly Rates
Most programmers charge for their services at hourly rates. So the cost of the website development project will vary based on man hours. As you cannot determine the exact amount of time to complete the ASP.NET project, it is always advisable to save money by hiring a professional who is not charging on an hourly basis. You can always ask the professional to quote the cost of the whole project. You can compare the quotes received from several programmers to decide the most cost-efficient option to develop your website.

Hire an Offshore ASP.NET Programmer
Many enterprises prefer hiring offshore ASP.NET developer to avail high quality service and support without spending a lot of money. But you must consider several key points when you decide to outsource the project offshore. Along with hiring the right offshore website developer, you also need to draft a comprehensive outsourcing agreement. The agreement will transfer the burden of quality and timeline to the outsourced company to ensure that your website is launched on schedule. It is also a good idea to retain the services of the programmer to update your website at regular intervals.

Before exploring the cost-efficient ways of hiring an ASP.NET developer, each enterprise must identify its specific needs and objectives. It can further involve the developers as part of the development plan to complete the project at a rapid pace. However, no enterprise can compromise on the quality of the website development project to save funds.

You can hire .net developers from top software development companies in India who can help you build your software's within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide asp.net web development services. If you would like to know more about our .net application development team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

12 December, 2013

Major Challenges in Agile Testing & The Role of Automation

The Agile testing approach emphasizes on agility and speed. The development process runs concurrently along with the evaluation process. Testers have to work often as well as fast since the development model is time-boxed. The testing of the code has to be done very frequently, in fact in some cases almost daily. This makes Agile testing quite challenging, more so in comparison to evaluation of traditional development methods. If not handled properly there is a risk involved of Agile testing becoming uncontrolled, chaotic and unstructured. But when automation and agile testing are implemented together, it is possible to overcome those challenges.

Inadequate test coverage
Independent software testing
This can be hugely problematic; with Agile, there is an increase in volumes of tests. Due to that, often for every user story, too little results of tests are written down which leads to lack of visibility into codes changed all of a sudden. Sometimes developers change codes that are beyond the scopes of released features which are done for many reasons. To tackle this challenge tests should be linked to user stories which will provide insights into test coverage.

Short deadlines
It is not always very easy to take care of deadlines; there are times when we have very little time for testing at a cycle's end. Long evenings along with proper documentation will help in that case. However, it may be challenging since testers are required by Agile to work by deadlines each day. So make everything work, the automation of most tasks must be done well.

Codes broken accidentally because of frequent builds
If daily builds are performed, there always remains a risk of breaking the existing code. When sole reliance is on manual testings, full regression of the existing code every day is not practical. So the best bet is to use automated evaluation tools for recoding and running of tests automatically. This will ensure the testing of more stable features without new code breaking into them.

Detection of defects
It is very important to detect defects early on during the development cycle; being late will need more money and time for the fixing process. In fact, if the defects could not be found till the production, it will prove to be a bigger problem altogether. Implementing peer reviews along with using of static analysis tools for scanning of code for identification of defects early on, can help in this respect.

Ignoring traditional evaluation techniques
As the movement of agile testing is faster, the coping of the flowing development stream is very challenging for testers. So it is best to adopt a streamlined as well as proper approach. For that you should not be just dependent on documents but you should constantly keep interactions with stakeholders, developers, end users and clients.

Detection as well as fixing of bugs
The main aim of this testing is detection and getting rid of major bugs during the very initial stages. It is very expensive to fix bugs during the later stages of development cycle. In fact, despite identifying the bugs, fixing within the specific time-frame may be extremely challenging. This can be resolved by running static analysis tools over source codes. Automated tools can also be used for detection of hidden bugs.

Bad API Testing
The best coding skills are not necessarily inherited by testers. These days, the APIs are revealed by most software so that it can be easily used by other developers for integration along with other uses. If this area sees any mistakes the application or software's popularity will be seriously crippled. Using API testing tools that are automated will give Agile testers an edge to tackle API evaluation.

According to the points discussed here, agile approach needs to be dealt with accuracy as well as speed. Manual testing is not a process that can be relied upon solely. Efficient automation will make the testing processes better and faster. Thus automation has to be implemented during all levels so that you can ensure all angles. Independent software testing companies can help immensely in this regard.

We provide QA testing services. If you would like to hire automation testers, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.

11 December, 2013

Agile Performance Testing Life Cycle

In a software development life-cycle, performance testing is a vital activity. Application performance in terms of initial planning along with overall application performance and production analysis drives the development of better software releases as well as iterations. In all iterations of software development process, application programmers, testers and stakeholders must make performance a major consideration in every iteration. Here you can get a closer understanding of how performance testing can be integrated into your Agile process.

The Key Activities Involved in Agile Processes

QA software testing services
The best practices relating to performance testing involve various primary issues. Throughout the past two decades, business application devices have experienced significant evolution from monolithic mainframe systems to composite as well as distributed systems. Development life-cycle process is presently measured in weeks or even days as opposed to years. These changes to the development methodology or technology increase the pressure on test engineers to finish or plan performance testing. Besides the evaluation of new systems or issues of legacy application, implementation continue to have impact on test engineers.

Issues Associated with Traditional Agile Testing

At the environment testing core, there is the art of analyzing how the application responds after imitating the real user activity or behavior. With brand new testing systems, test engineers are forced to make a deliberate guess about the users' behavior based on requirements as well as use-cases. With brand new systems, the test engineer is forced to make a calculated guess about the behavior of users based on use-cases and requirements.

The essential performance related issue reliably uses data from a constricted non-production environment to predict precisely the implementation ability of the system in a rather robust environment. Test engineers generally do their best in order to attempt or extrapolate for identification of system presentation, but often gain constricted success forecasting environment.

An Agile Environment Approach

With growing business needs as well as technology advancement, enterprises continue to work on producing highly developed software in less time. To realize this goal, a number of organizations have started adopting Agile methodological analysis. This approach helps in accelerating time to market, improving the quality of software, enhancing productivity and alignment between several business purposes and the technology innovations.

Agile methodology has tremendous momentum as it has been on the rise over the past few years. Software development breaks through the barriers of conventional waterfall model to Agile development to render better value much faster in order to improve the return on investment (ROI). An Agile environment puts several teams to work and develop the specialized, iterative as well as incremental product. This methodology promotes appropriate reviews, close teamwork, self-organization and more iterations. This approach also facilitates rapid delivery of high quality software and thus enables an industrial practice that aligns software development with company goals along with customer needs.

Agile Performance Testing

Performance evaluation which generally takes place in a waterfall model at the end of the life-cycle moves to the beginning in an Agile process that includes the designing as well as analysis. An application performance is directly proportional to its design. Hence, at the early stage of the life-cycle development it should be addressed. Throughout the Agile process, performance testing is considered from the release planning stage onwards.

In this developing business scenario, with the existing system, advent and demand of new products, the switch to the agile development technique is taking place from standard convention techniques. With the application of new or latest technology, more and more improved software are being developed. The performance of the products mostly depends on the specification and design of the product that can change at any point of time. Hence, this latest version of software should always be updated and monitored well for better functionality and adequate level of user satisfaction.

You can hire software testing companies from India who can help you accomplish testing within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide QA software testing services. If you would like to know more about the expertise of our certified software testers, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.

10 December, 2013

15 Tips - How to make your software testing more efficient?

Software testing is a phase that is very much essential for a great software. Just the word software testing will not make your software error-free; you have to approach the entire process in such a way that they turn out to be free from all bugs, performing efficiently. The process of software evaluation thus not only has to be optimized but needs to be correct as well. Here are some tips which you should implement in your evaluation process so that any mistake can be avoided and the end result turns out to be exactly what you had wanted.

QA software testing
1. Good test plans- The most important thing in case of any evaluation is to have an excellent test plan. To guarantee that you have to make sure that an experienced tester like QA manager or lead writes out the plan. While writing, an organized approach should be taken. The plan should cover all things related to testing products, budget limitations, scopes of evaluation, deadlines, test objectives, risk identifications, test execution schedule, etc.

2. Understanding the product- The product or application in this case should be understood thoroughly so that the tester can understand the requirements which will result in detailed as well as complete test coverage. Even if you are not involved in development cycle, it would be a good idea to be involved in decision making meetings or processes. Hold conversations with developers so that you get to know about the application better.

3. Intelligent storing- Do not spread your documents over servers or even store them as emails. You will reap best benefits if all things are stored in a single place so that whenever you need to go back and find some record you will know where to find. Avoid keeping bug reports stored in emails.

4. Testing often as well as early- The evaluation should be done as early and as often as possible. Problems when identified early are easier to fix as compared to those identified later, which are difficult as well as expensive to fix.

5. Writing test cases early on- During design along with requirement analysis phases of Development Life Cycle you should start writing the test cases which will help in understanding whether all of the requirements can be tested or not.

6. Testing with a positive mindset- While starting the process your attitude should be positive; do not think there will be no errors or bugs in the code. If your intentions are to find bugs then you are bound to find them.

7. Writing effective evaluation cases- Test cases should be written with clear steps as that will become handy later on for the reproduction of test cases for testers as well as developers.

8. Understanding testing coverage- When testing, the application must be divided in a smaller functional module as that will help in the understanding of testing coverage. The modules should again be divided into yet smaller logical parts; write test cases in a single module.

9. Using good metrics- Choosing right metrics is extremely important as they will help in achieving of productivity along with efficiency. Metric chosen must be simple for execution as well as effective nature-wise.

10. Bug report should be clear, descriptive and good- This will ensure that the software testing conducted is more efficient. Since this job is creative as well as challenging you have to handle the situations well. Good bug reports will help you save company resources.

11. Going beyond the requirement testing- A good rule in this industry is to go beyond the requirements so you should be testing the application for something that it is not meant to do.

12. All teams should get test cases- While writing a test case the location must be kept central so that it can be accessed by all teams. Analyzing test cases will help in development of better quality application by developers.

13. Increasing communication with developers- During meetings, you should always discuss all points with developers and even ask for additional information on unclear aspects so as to avoid all kinds of misunderstandings. This will help you resolve problems quickly and easily. 14. Identifying regression test cases- You should identify and then group sets of regression testing cases as that will help in effective testing of manual regression.

15. Testing team should own test environments- Test environment and production should be exact replicas of each other. While developing, developers add configurations in run script, but failing to add them in configuration file or release document would result in failed application during production despite working in lower environment. So the test environment should be owned by testing teams so that things like these can be controlled.

For promotion of good software throughout the world, good testers must share experiences and best testing practices with fellow testers. You can hire software test professionals from top automation testing companies India who can help you accomplish testing within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide QA software testing services. If you would like to hire software testing company or would just like to speak to one of our expert software testers, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.

09 December, 2013

What should you choose - Manual testing or automated?

During the development process, we have to be sure that it is the right application being developed and after the process we have to test it the correct way to ensure positive returns on the testing investment. Evaluation techniques like behavioral, static and structural are adopted to find out some bugs but for the test suite there is a major decision that has to be taken- manual or automation. There are some tests which are perfectly suited for automation and manually they are not feasible at all. However, some tests are most effective if done manually. So, it is essential to check the pros and cons of both the types of evaluation to determine which is most productive or efficient.

Automated testing
certified automation testers
This process uses automated tools for the running of tests, repeating predefined actions which compare the expected as well as actual outcomes of developing programs. In case the outcomes and expectations align, the project is likely to be bug free. If there is no alignment then some issue calls for address. The code must be looked at, altered and tests must be run continuously so that the expected and actual outcomes align. This kind of evaluation is excellent for large projects, in case of lots of system users or during filling out of forms.

It takes some time to set up the tests but after automating there is nothing to worry about. The tests can be reused and there is no need to fill out repeated information for constant changing of codes. Automatically, everything is done for you.

Though expensive in short terms, in long-term it is very cost-effective; more work is done in shorter time-period. In fact, defects are found faster as well so that the team can react far faster which saves both money as well as time.

Test automation solves the problem of filling out same forms repeatedly which can be very frustrating. While setting up the test coding, considerable thought is needed which involves your technical minds.

Automated tests have results which can be viewed by everybody, unlike that of manual testing. This allows better team collaboration, ultimately leading to better final products.

However, purchasing tools related to this is expensive which makes it imperative to use ones giving full or as full as possible coverage. In fact, the development of evaluation processes takes a lot of time; they have to be run as well. Most bugs in the system are detected by the tests. But despite that there are certain limitations. Some changes related to visual considerations such as font size or image color can be determined only through manual testing.

Manual testing
In this kind of evaluation process tests are run manually by software developers and actual outcomes are compared with program expectations so that software defects can be found. It is perfect for small projects. In fact companies that are short on financial resources can resort to this as well.

This kind of evaluation lowers the short-term costs. Issues that are likely to be faced by real users are discovered. Since they are done manually, the results are far removed from the robotic automation of automated tests. One of the most remarkable benefits of going manual is that it is very flexible. If you think that changing something will change the project’s course, then you will have no problems in accommodating that.

However, some actions will be very difficult to be done manually. The result might be prone to oversights and mistakes. In this case automated testing are better equipped. Also they can be very boring and repetitive- just filling out same things and forms over and over again, this results in not staying too engaged in the process, making room for mistakes. In case of automated testing anything can be added to the program, so that the tests are re-run instantly. But for manuals this is certainly not the case. For changes in software, tests have to be run by hand again, losing valuable time.

Both the kinds of testing have their own unique sets of cons and pros. To decide on which is the best, you should let your common sense to guide in your decision. But preferably both the kinds should walk hand in hand so that you can reap the benefits of both at the same time, making the entire testing smooth and error-free, delivering the best product.

You can hire certified automation testers from top automation testing companies India who can help you accomplish testing within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide software testing services. If you would like to hire software testers from us or would just like to speak to one of our expert software testers, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.