October 5, 2020February 23, 2021Test qualityy

System tests are designed by categorizing them according to purpose

There are various definitions of system tests, but I think that they are not far off because they are tests that comprehensively confirm that the system has the original functions required from various perspectives . Among the various perspectives, the idea of ​​how to use it in various environments by various users comes into play. Some users may use it in very heavy situations, and some may use it in maximum configuration.

In order to confirm that a computer system can provide its original function in various ways by various users, it is necessary to create test cases from various viewpoints in a system test . There are areas that need to be considered, such as tests when multiple functions are used at the same time and the load is high, tests when using in the maximum configuration, and tests for recovery processing when some error occurs. It will be very wide. Therefore, it is important to use the appropriate test category (classification according to the purpose of the test) when designing the test and proceed with the design of the test case so that there is no omission.

So what test category should we use for system testing ? Father Gutara  used several of the 15 system testing categories in the book “The Art of Software Testing” for embedded systems.

Soft Testing Instructional Book The Art of Software Testing

“The Art of Software Testing” is an old book first published by Glenford J. Myers in 1979, more than 40 years ago  . Although it is an old book, it is a very easy-to-understand textbook that can be said to be a soft test bible that explains concretely and systematically how to design test cases, and the ideas written there have not faded at all. The revised 3rd edition, published in 2011, includes support for new technologies such as incorporating agile topics, and is still a fully valid test textbook.

Chapter 6 of this book introduces 15 different test categories for system testing, along with their thinking. This is quite easy to use. However, since it was first published 40 years ago, the software covered in this book is primarily targeted at mission-critical system software that runs on large corporate computers . Therefore, in order to use it as a system test category for software for current embedded systems , it is necessary to read it to some extent and select whether it is necessary or not . In this article, I will introduce the items of the system test category that Father Gutara actually used and what they read, so please refer to it.