I have used and taught classes in Microsoft Visual Basic® since its Version 2.0, in addition to teaching and consulting on test automation. Since I work for a Quality Assurance company, Data Dimensions, Inc., most of the students I have trained have been testers. The tester's goal, usually, was to gain programming experience and to perhaps build test utilities in VB. Yet, the courses I taught were initially the same as the courses taught to developers. 

Model-based testing is a software test technique that generates tests from an explicit model of software behavior. Modern programmable test tools allow us to use this technique to create useful, flexible and powerful tests at a very reasonable cost.

The neophyte test planner is often overwhelmed by the complexity and scope of test planning. This paper presents several practical methods for dividing the testing into manageable pieces, based on the author's experience over ten years of testing a wide variety of products.

This paper focuses on the strategies and challenges of testing real-world, large and complex, highly available clustered systems in the following areas: Test planning, Strategies and methodologies; Defect tracking processes; System Configuration tests; Cluster and storage fault injection tests; Effective testing practices.

The information provided in this paper is aimed at helping test engineers understand many of the quality assurance issues involved in testing large and complex systems.