The Quality Assurance is the practice of checking hardware, software, or systems for defects, identifying such defects, and then checking to make sure that such defects are corrected when future revisions of software or hardware are ready for testing. Software Quality Assurance involves the entire software development process – monitoring and improving the process, making sure that any agreed-upon standards and procedures are followed, and ensuring that problems are found and dealt with. It is oriented to ‘prevention’. Quality Assurance workers typically work closely with the people who develop hardware and software, and often program exhaustive scripts to automate checking and identify problems.

• WinRunner

  Mercury WinRunner is a functional/regression test tool from Mercury. WinRunner is a powerful tool for enterprise wide functional and regression testing. Mercury WinRunner captures, verifies, and replays user interactions automatically, so you can identify defects and ensure that business processes work flawlessly upon deployment and remain reliable. It includes support for testing Web, Java, ERP, etc. Web Functional/ Regression Test Tools.

  With Mercury WinRunner, the organization reduces testing time by automating repetitive tasks, optimizes testing efforts by covering diverse environments with a single testing tool and maximizes return on investment through modifying and reusing test scripts as the application evolves.

  If you need more information please check Mercury.com’s Quality Center home page.

• LodRunner

  Mercury LoadRunner is a performance-testing tool that prevents costly performance problems in production by detecting bottlenecks before a new system or upgrade is deployed. LoadRunner helps to verify that new or upgraded applications will deliver intended business outcomes before go-live, prevent over-spending on hardware and infrastructure. It is the industry-standard load testing solution for predicting system behavior and performance, and the only integrated load testing, tuning, and diagnostics solution in the market today.

  With LoadRunner web testing software, you can measure end-to-end performance, diagnose application and system bottlenecks, and tune for better performance—all from a single point of control. It supports a wide range of enterprise environments, including Web Services, J2EE, and .NET.

  If you need more information please check Mercury.com’s Performance Center home page.

• QTP

  Mercury QuickTest Professional is functional test and regression test automation solution that address every major software application and environment. It deploys the concept of Keyword-driven testing to radically simplify test creation and maintenance. Unique to QuickTest Professional’s Keyword-driven approach, test automation experts have full access to the underlying test and object properties, via an integrated scripting and debugging environment that is round-trip synchronized with the Keyword View.

  It enables you to deploy higher-quality applications faster, cheaper, and with less risk. It works hand-in-hand with Mercury Business Process Testing to bring non-technical subject matter experts into the quality process in a meaningful way. Plus, it empowers the entire testing team to create sophisticated test suites with minimal training.

  If you need more information please check Mercury.com’s Quality Center home page.

• Mercury TestDirector

  Mercury TestDirector allows you to deploy high-quality applications quickly and effectively by providing a consistent, repeatable process for gathering requirements, planning and scheduling tests, analyzing results, and managing defects and issues. TestDirector is a single, Web-based application for all essential aspects of test management — Requirements Management, Test Plan, Test Lab, and Defects Management. You can leverage these core modules either as a standalone solution or integrated within a global Quality Center of Excellence environment.

  TestDirector supports high levels of communication and collaboration among IT teams. Whether you are coordinating the work of many disparate Quality Assurance teams, or working with a large, distributed Center of Excellence, this test management tool helps facilitate information access across geographical and organization boundaries.

  If you need more information please check Mercury.com’s Quality Center home page.

• Manual Testing

  Manual testing is always a part of any testing effort. During the initial phases of software development, manual testing is performed until the software and its user interface are stable enough that beginning automation makes sense. Often, aggressive development cycles and release dates do not allow for the time required to design and implement automated tests. Also, for one-time development efforts or products with short lifetimes, manual testing often is the only sensible option from time and budget standpoints.

  Even in this age of short development cycles and automated-test-driven development, manual testing contributes vitally to the software development process. Manual testing allows end users to be involved early in each development cycle and draws invaluable feedback from them that can prevent “surprise” application builds that fail to meet real-world usability requirements. Manual test scripts can be used to provide feedback to development teams in the form of a set of repeatable steps that lead to bugs or usability problems and can also form the basis for help or tutorial files for the application under test. Finally, manual test scripts can be given to the development staff to provide a clear description of the way the application should flow across use cases.

  In summary, manual testing fills a gap in the testing repertoire and adds invaluably to the software development process.