Software Testing- Constructive or Destructive

Often I heard a question about software testing. Is it a destructive process or a constructive one.

People generally messed up the answer and the person asking the question actually expect the answer as destructive and most of the person goes with that only.

The reason is simple software testing needs a mind-set of trying to break the application/software and thus needs to be a destructive process. But that is not completely true because when a new building is built then ground is cleared by destroying the old structure and that remains the part of construction. Similarly, software testing is done to prevent business facing losses from on-field exposure of defects. So, it can be said that software testing is a destructive process to achieve a purpose which is constructive.

On the other side, if we look at the process of conducting software testing then we will find it very well structured and defined but a destructive process can not be very well  defined. One can understand this by simply looking anything which was destructed. When something is destructed then it is very much expected that something of it remain rigid and intact. It is like destructing a building by a powerful explosion just to find of some of the wall standing even after the explosion.

But software testing is conducted in a way to exercise each and every part of software/application, it is very much similar to destructing a building systematically while ensuring that every brick of the building is moved.

Thus, software testing is a destructive process which is conducted in a very constructive way.

Cross domain access via windows authentication for SQL server

“Ohh.. eh… Why I cannot connect to this SQL server with windows authentication hosted on other domain. I tried everything but that is not working. :( :( ”

Ever caught in a situation like this?

Once I was also caught up in a problem similar to this one. I needed to access SQL server hosted on other domain and we had only one server from which we could access that and the number of people using the server was very high 5-6. So, it was not possible to login into machine simultaneously.

We then find a solution to launch SQL server client at our local desktops under that other domain. That invocation under separate domain is a bit tricky and works on “RUNAS” command.

All one have to do is follow below mentioned steps:

1.       Open command prompt

2.       Type following command RUNAS /user:<Domain name>\<Username> /netonly ssms

e.g. RUNAS /user:otherdomain\myuser /netonly ssms

3.       Provide username and domain in above command as shown in example

4.       Press enter

5.       Enter password when asked as displayed in below screen.

6.       Now your SQL server management studio will launch. Provide the database name hosted on other domain in the server name.

7.       Select authentication as windows authentication. It will display your local domain, ignore that.

8.       Click on connect

9.       On first attempt you might get timeout error but on second attempt you will be able to connect directly.

Load testing: JMeter part 2

Using JMeter for a Simple Test:

Let’s see how to run JMeter now. We will conduct a simple test to set up a test plan and stress test a Web application. Before proceeding with the test we need to have a test plan first which will help the JMeter to perform the testing in steps. There are several elements in a test plan like thread groups, listeners, assertions, sample generating controllers, logic controllers etc. Well, these elements will be described later. One point to remember here is that a test plan must have at least one thread group having all other JMeter elements which is the starting point of a test plan. All of the other threads created by the JMeter to simulate simultaneous users will be controlled by this thread group. Let’s go through the steps now.