Testing has never been easy, but when it comes to large institutions, things can get terribly complex. Take large banks for example. For years they developed their own solutions, building applications and bringing in all kinds of hardware and software available, in order to provide their customers with better products and services. Most of the times buying decisions were taken on the go, following no architectural model or plan, which, unfortunately, led them to rely on modern Frankensteins (a.k.a. automated beasts ) to take care of their most valued asset: their customers.

Most automated tests are used as regression tests - doing the same exercises each time the test is run. This paper and talk describe a powerful type of automated test - one that does something different each time it runs.

This article describes a real-life situation where the test organization participated as part of the development team and was included in all phases of the development lifecycle for a highly successful software project. The project was an upgrade of the software and hardware for a mission critical communications system in the aerospace industry.

The objective of this paper is to provide insight to the integrated processes, financial and resource requirements, and technical components necessary to achieve a robust end-to-end test environment.

A fully integrated environment will enable end-to-end testing, quality improvement and pre-production certification for your suite of applications. The presentation further examines the vision, components, approach and methodology, and business processes that are critical to a successful test environment.