Quality Assurance (QA) is also called “Testing” in normalized form. Major idea is to check whether all requirements are implemented correctly and detects non- conformances if any, before deployment. QA makes software predictable in nature, improves quality and reliability. It also helps marketability and retention of customers.

The various factors that contribute to making QA a high priority of any software development effort include:

• Reduction of software development cost - Testing a software in the initial stages of development reduces the cost of developing the program. A problem that goes undetected in the initial software development lifecycle stages can be much more expensive to resolve at a later stage. The following diagram can be used to explain the same.

  Figure 1 gives an idea about the Cost of Correcting Defects over life cycle changes

• Ensures completeness of the product - Validating a software product ensures that the customer requirements map to the final product that is delivered.
• Reduction in total cost of ownership- By providing software that looks and behaves as shown in the user documentation, customers require fewer hours of training support from product experts and thus reduce the total cost of ownership.
• Accretion of revenues - A bug free code (which is obtained only after intensive testing) also brings in customer satisfaction, which leads to repeat business and more revenues.

Quality Assurance overview

1. What is QA?

   “Quality Assurance is an activity in which a system or component is executed under specified conditions; the results are observed and recorded and an evaluation is made of some aspect of the system or component“ – IEEE

   Process used to identify the correctness, completeness and quality of developed computer software, is called Software Testing. It includes a set of activities or steps undertaken with the intent of finding errors/bugs in software so that it could be fixed before the software is released to the end users.

2. Why QA?

   It is the primary duty of a software vendor to ensure that software delivered does not have any defects and that the customer’s day-to-day operations do not get affected. This can be achieved by rigorously testing the software.

   To protect an organization from any trouble and in order to address various risks involved during a change to an organization, testing is important. Risks can be related to the ones affecting reputation or resources or could be the ones leading to legal issues.

   The following is a list of major computer system failures caused by software bugs. These examples highlight the kind of catastrophic consequences that software bugs have on business, on life and property:

   • A software error caused the failure of a $1.2 billion military satellite launch, in april 1999. This is the costliest unmanned accident in the history of Cape Canaveral launches. The failure triggered a complete military and industry review of U.S. space launch programs, including the testing processes.
   • On June 4 1996, a lack of exception handling of a floating-point error in a conversion from a 64-bit integer to a 16-bit signed integer, reportedly failed first flight of the European Space Agency's new Ariane 5 rocket, resulting in an estimated uninsured loss of a 0.5 billion USD.
   • The stock of a major health industry company dropped 60%, in November of 1997, due to reports of failures in computer billing systems. There were problems with a large database conversion, and inadequate software testing, reprtedly leading to more than $100,000,000 in receivables to be written off. The company was also fined multi-million dollar by government agencies.
   • In May of 1996, software bugs caused the bank accounts of 823 customers of a U.S. bank to be credited with $924,844,208.32 each, according to newspaper reports. A bank spokesman later informed that, programming errors were corrected and all funds were recovered.

   All the above incidents only reiterate the significance of thorough testing of software applications and products before they are pushed to production. It clearly demonstrates that cost of rectifying defect during development is much less than rectifying a defect in production.

Fastcurve Quality Assurance capabilities:

Fastcurve provides Validation as a Service where we can independently provide Quality Assurance capabilities.

We are expert in:

Functional Testing: (Proven package of services for the delivery of flawless system functionality)

• System testing
• System Integration testing
• Regression Testing
• User Acceptance Testing
• Automation testing using Selenium.

Specialized Testing:

• Mobile (Android, iPhone) and iPad application testing using actual devices or simulators.
• Database testing
• Datawarehouse testing
• BI report testing
• Security testing (We protect your business from cyber-attacks)
• Testing application integrations with API.
• Big data testing.
• Data migration testing.

Non – Functional Testing:

• User Experience Testing. (We help you see the world through your customers’ eyes)
• Compatibility Testing (Complete application compatibility with Fastcurve software testing services).
• Performance Testing – Load Test, Stress Test, Endurance Test, Spike Test (Seamless integration of performance testing services at any stage of SDLC)

Test Advisory Services:

• Assess Current processes.
• Design test strategy
• Define metrics
• Design and improve QA/QC process.

We provide extensive expertise of using latest tools available in market:

• Test management tools like HP ALM and JIRA.
• Selenium for Automation
• Fiddler for API testing, security testing and performance testing.
• SQL Server/MySQL for database and data warehouse testing.
• ETL Tools Informatica and Talend.

Experience across a vast range of sectors. No matter what industry your software is in, chances are we’ve been there. Our Verticals:

• BFSI - Banking (Core and investment banking).
• Retail
• e-learning
• Healthcare
• Insurance
• Education
• Travel & Hospitality
• Logistics
• Advertising and Media