Latest News Papers | News Papers Online | Journal News Paper | Technology News Paper

Translate

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Database Testing: Is It Significant?


With the number of applications increasing day by day, there is a need to test its various parameters so as to make it reliable and user friendly.  Apart from testing the various codes and attributes, testers would need to test one of the most vital part in a system-the database.


There are basically four operations that are facilitated by Database Tools like MS- Access2010, Oracle 10g and others. They are
•    Create: - Users will create information and save it.
•    Retrieve: - Information that is stored can be retrieved by the user.
•    Update: - Users can either edit or modify the information that has been saved previously.
•    Delete: - If any information that was saved becomes outdated, users can delete the information.


How to test Database?
1. Create Query
For an accurate Database test, the tester should possess a profound knowledge of the Structured Query Language (SQL) and Data Manipulation Language (DML) apart from a good understanding of internal database structure of the Application under Test (AUT). This will in turn help him verify the results using the SQL query.

2. Verify the result using the table
Apart from using the SQL, the tester can also view the tables of database to verify the results. However, this will be a tedious job especially if the amount of data is large and spread in different tables.

3. Obtain Query from the Developer
The tester can perform any of the operations that are facilitated by the database tools and confirm the impacts by verifying the SQL query from the developer. This method is the simplest but it has some drawbacks especially when the query obtained from the developer doesn’t match the users’ requirement.

Importance of Database Testing
The importance of database testing in software testing should not be ignored as it is the data which is visible to the user.

1. Quality Assurance
Before the software is made available to the user, testers should ensure that it meets the quality standards as required by the user. The database management system should be able to retrieve any information as requested by the user from time to time.

2. Feasibility
If the amount of data is less, then manual counting is feasible. However, it can be a hectic task for anyone to count data with many attributes. The main objective of database testing is to ensure the usefulness of the data and that subsequently facilitate the systems functionality.

3. Identifying the problem
Database testing will help the tester identify the root cause of the problem apart from detecting the hidden bugs in the database.

Database is the most critical and the backbone of any software applications. Without a proper database, the system will not be able to function as required by the user. A software application can be re-written over and over and old applications are thrown away. However, the database is carefully migrated when changing the applications.

No comments: