embedded systems

Better Software Magazine Articles

Do Mobile and Embedded Software Really Need Comprehensive Testing?

The smaller the device, the less testing is needed. Right? Jon's insightful article dispels the notion that traditional software testing approaches work for mobile and embedded software.

Jon Hagar's picture Jon Hagar
Embedded software tester Jon Hagar Why You Need to Do More Than Just Test Requirements: An Interview with Jon Hagar
Video

Jon Hagar is a systems software engineer with over thirty years of experience. In this interview, Hagar discusses how reviews impact mobile app development and testing, security issues in the mobile and embedded world, and why you need to do more than just test the requirements.

Jonathan Vanian's picture Jonathan Vanian
Software tester and prolific author Jon Hagar The New Ways to Break Mobile and Embedded Software: An Interview with Jon Hagar

With more than thirty years of experience in software, Jon Hagar brings a wealth of knowledge to our community, and he shares a great amount of it in his new book, Software Test Attacks to Break Mobile and Embedded Devices. Jon sat down with us to discuss the true future of testing.

Noel Wurst's picture Noel Wurst
How to Break Embedded Software: An Interview with Jon Hagar
Video

Thirty-year system software engineer and testing consultant Jon Hagar details the challenges that embedded software testing poses. Learn how risks should feed attacks, especially when maintaining the safety of devices like pacemakers and braking systems.

Noel Wurst's picture Noel Wurst
Insights into Mobile Applications Testing

The phenomenal growth of mobile devices has opened avenues for organizations to integrate them into their mainstream computing environment. Today's mobile applications deliver complex functionality on platforms that have limited resources for processing and testing. Unlike the PC-based environment, the mobile world is comprised of a wide range of devices with diverse hardware and software configurations and communication intricacies. This diversity presents unique challenges and requires unique testing strategies. Rumesh Palaniswamy shares his experiences with testing mobile applications. The smaller screens, unique input methods, and minimal processing power in these devices often lead to unexpected outputs and other faults.

Rumesh Palaniswamy, Cognizant Technology Solutions
STAREAST 2011: Automating Embedded System Testing

Many testers believe that it is prohibitively costly and time-consuming to automate embedded and mobile phone application testing. By approaching the problem from a test design perspective and using that design to drive the automation initiative, Hans Buwalda demystifies automated testing of embedded systems. He draws on experiences gained on a large-scale testing project for a leading smart-phone platform and a Window CE embedded automotive testing platform. Hans describes the technical side of the solution-how to setup a tethered automation agent to expose the GUI and drive tests at the device layer. Learn how to couple this technology solution with a test design methodology that helps even non-technical testers participate in the automation development and execution. Take back a new approach to achieve large-scale automation coverage that is easily maintainable over the long term.

Hans Buwalda, LogiGear
Testing Embedded Software Using an Error Taxonomy

Just like the rest of the software world, embedded software has defects. Today, embedded software is pervasive-built into automobiles, medical diagnostic devices, telephones, airplanes, spacecraft, and really almost everything. Because defects in embedded software can cause constant customer frustration, complete product failure, and even death, it would seem critical to collect and categorize the types of errors that are typically found in embedded software. Jon Hagar describes the few error studies that have been done in the embedded domain and the work he has done to turn that data into a valuable error taxonomy. After explaining the concept of a taxonomy and how you can use it to guide test planning for embedded software, he discusses ways to design tests to exploit the taxonomy and find important defects in your embedded system.

Jon Hagar, Consultant
The Power of the Crowd: Mobile Testing for Scale and Global Coverage

Crowdsourced testing of mobile applications, a middle ground between in-house and outsourced testing, has many advantages: scale, speed, coverage, lower capital costs, reduced staffing costs, and no long-term commitments. However, crowdsourced testing of any application-mobile or not-should augment your professional testing resources, not replace them. Most importantly, crowdsourced testing has to be done well or it’s a waste of time and money. John Carpenter reviews the applications and ways he’s outsourced testing to the crowd. Focusing on adopting crowdsourcing for both functional and usability testing in mobile applications, John describes scenarios in which you can leverage the crowd to lower costs and increase product quality, including scaling the application to large populations of global users.

John Carpenter, Mob4Hire, Inc.
Test as a Service: A New Architecture for Embedded Systems

The classic models adopted in test automation today-guaranteeing ease of test implementation rather than extendibility of the test architecture-are inadequate for the unprecedented complexity of today’s embedded software market. Because many embedded software solutions must be designed and developed for multiple deployments on different and rapidly changing hardware platforms, testers need something new. Raniero Virgilio describes a novel approach he calls Test as a Service (TaaS), in which test logic is implemented in self-consistent components on a shared test automation infrastructure. These test components are deployed at runtime to make the test process completely dynamic. The TaaS architecture provides specific high-level test services to testers as they need them.

Raniero Virgilio, Intel
STARWEST 2010: Automating Embedded System Testing

Many testers believe the challenges of automating embedded and mobile phone-based systems testing are prohibitively difficult. By approaching the problem from a test design perspective and using that design to drive the automation initiative, William Coleman demystifies automated testing of embedded systems. He draws on experiences gained on a large-scale testing project for a leading smart-phone platform and a Window CE embedded automotive testing platform. William describes the technical side of the solution-how to setup a tethered automation agent to expose the GUI and drive tests at the device layer. Learn how to couple this technology solution with a test design methodology that helps even non-technical testers participate in the automation development and execution. Take back a new approach to achieve large-scale automation coverage that is easily maintainable over the long term.

William Coleman, LogiGear Corporation

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