Neil Banerjee
From games to medical devices, quality testing is a key driver that keeps products and software bug-free and provides their users with a seamless and error-free experience. Qualitest offers the same, but with more precision and efficacy. SME Futures spoke to Deva Nagaraju Padavala, Global Head of non-functional testing (NFT) at the Qualitest Group, to learn about the reasons that make Qualitest the go-to destination for quality checks and assessments.
Edited excerpts from the interview:
What are the quality tools that Qualitest uses to provide valuable insights and solutions?
Qualitest leads the AI-driven quality engineering (QE) space. Based on our customer feedback and our cross-industry experience, we have developed quality tools to address customer-centric challenges.
QualiSense, our proprietary risk-based test predictor, that uses automation to identify the optimal test suite and eliminate redundant testing, has significantly increased the ‘speed-to-market’ for our customers.
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Another tool, QualiView, gives real time insights and dashboards to track QE progress. QualiBot, one of our more advanced offerings, simplifies end-to-end testing for the phygital (physical + digital) world – it performs hardware automation and integrates with software automation tools and has been well received by our global retail customers.
The gaming and technology industry is advancing at a rapid pace. How does quality testing make these processes seamless?
Gaming is all about keeping it real. It is also about the ‘here and now’ experience. Performance and user load testing are of the highest priority when it comes to gaming.
Game-based testing involves the simulation of multi-player, multi-location contests in production-like environments. In some of the professional gaming tournaments, there is money involved, so players/users are concerned about the reliability of the application – stress testing, spike testing and interruption testing address that aspect of gaming applications.
On the flip side, gaming environments are targeted by cyber crooks seeking loopholes for security breaches since they store the money and personal information of the users. Security testing comprises of the usage and adoption of tools to scan, monitor and alert gaming applications so that they can combat and eliminate the threats posed by the real or perceived risks.
Most of the gaming applications are vulnerable to business logic scenarios. Hence, penetration testing needs to be conducted with the various attack scenarios.
How is Qualitest helping in the verification and validation of medical devices?
Medical devices require some of the highest levels of verification and validation. Quality engineering (QE) for medical devices includes the hardware level validation and the corresponding QE of the software aspects. In addition to QE, we also address the interoperability, usability, reliability and accessibility requirements of medical devices.
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At Qualitest, we work with our customers to achieve region specific regulatory compliance requirements in this area. Environment-based simulation and seamless compatibility with monitoring devices is critical when it comes to medical device testing – for certain devices, there is a stringent 100% accuracy metric.
We have the expertise and the tools to address the unique requirements of different sets of medical devices. This, combined with our credentials in IoT, make Qualitest a partner of choice for medical device validation.
How can quality testing help in strengthening cyber security?
Systems involve critical application components, users with critical personal identifiable information (PII) data and high-volume data transfers. Security testing shouldn’t be treated as an end of the life cycle activity, but as a security driven development discipline.
Security engineering must be introduced at every stage of the software development life cycle to reduce the potential cyberattack surface to near zero levels.
At Qualitest, we use the DevSecOps to protect customer applications even in the wake of regular upgrades and releases. We also employ periodic pen testing audits and configuration reviews and we have worked with clients to use tools that assess whether their applications meet the standards for code quality and code security before every release.
A combination of automated checks and expert reviews, in addition to a diligent adherence to security standards and regulations, have helped us to keep security risks very low.
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Qualitest, owing to its exposure to multiple industries, security best practices and a good knowledge of the variables and threshold values for secure applications, plays the role of a trusted partner for customers who want to fortify their IT terrains.
Qualitest employs an in-house solution accelerator called Qualishield, to augment the capabilities of commercial vulnerability scanners.
How can the IT system transform with quality engineering solutions?
Quality Engineering (QE) increases the overall business confidence in terms of the functionality, reliability, security, performance, accessibility and usability of its IT systems and applications.
Owing to our exposure across industries, in addition to QE, Qualitest teams provide clients with enterprise-wide recommendations on best practices and potential risks. For instance, when it comes to cloud migration, Qualitest works with clients to review their enterprise’s goals and the optimal number of resources and licenses that will maintain their subscription/OpEx costs within an acceptable threshold.
Transformation, therefore, is more than just technology-based changes, it is also about achieving the change with a proven QE and financial prudence.
Qualitest serves Fortune 1000 companies in the areas of cloud transformation, application and middleware upgrades, IoT and drone and cyber security testing. We employ a machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) driven QE – we take special care to maintain high standards of user experience.
Our QE offerings in performance and accessibility have aided our customers to achieve their transformation goals and retain the loyalty of their user bases.
What is Qualisense? How does it use AI and automation to speed up various operations?
As enterprise solutions grow in scope and complexity, the testing volume is likely to increase. In such cases, expanded testing may not always correspond to increased quality. In such cases, we recommend a risk-based testing approach (RBT).
RBT optimises the time required for software test coverage by predicting the test cases that are most likely to fail. Instead of having engineers spend time on historic data and previous test results, Qualisense uses AI and automation to gather patterns and trends from multiple data sources to identify ‘risk-based tests’ with a high degree of accuracy.
With Qualisense, we have seen up to a 40% increase in test execution efficiency. This tool has also helped our customers to zero in on the root causes of defects – in some cases, environment-based defects helped optimise that area of the application ecosystem, while in some other cases, downstream applications needed attention. In summary, Qualisense has helped our clients to achieve execution and process efficiencies, thereby reducing their time to market.
How do you see quality testing in the coming years?
There are two compelling perspectives of software quality testing – the first is from the perspective of the end user. For instance, what makes users brand loyalists and what makes them switch? The answers to such questions change with time.
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Today, people may change brands based on payment/credit options; tomorrow, they may switch to a brand which is more planet conscious. The second perspective is from that of the enterprise – What technologies will enable me to be relevant in an evolving technology ecosystem? What about my operation costs? How do I retain my existing customers while I attract newer ones? How do I manage disruptions? These are equally pertinent questions.
Quality testing is at the crossroads of technology, business and user expectations. In the future, quality testing will require teams to have a broader exposure to multiple businesses and technologies. There will be more emphasis on meeting expectations from a user and enterprise perspective in a changing technology environment.
There is a high chance that quality testing will include a consulting arm – to make sure that the perspectives and expectations are aligned before embarking on large scale transformations. Transformation by itself may be more modular – more receptive to change and may come with a practical acknowledgement of the risks of change and course correction. Quality engineering will become indispensable and will assume more importance in the future.
