IoT Testing Complexities

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Prabhu

A comprehensive QA strategy is essential to cover the dimensions of IoT testing. The strategy should include the types of testing, test lab setup, testing tools and simulators/emulators that are to be deployed. Considering the practical hiccups in generating big data from the thing (device) in a testing environment, it is crucial to evaluate data simulation and virtualization methods.

Stubs can be considered as an option during early stages, whereas, data recorders can assist as an alternative at the later stages. Beyond test planning and data simulation, metrics-driven exhaustive test execution is performed to achieve a stable system. QA team can split IoT test area into two layers i.e. device interaction layer and user interaction layer. However, QA has to be performed across both the layers. It is actually easier to identify techniques and the types of testing that can be adapted to each layer to enhance the QA strategy.

The device interaction layer

This layer acts as the connectivity between the software and the hardware components of a real-time ‘IoT environment interact’. A typical example will be a Bluetooth device transmitting real-time data to a mobile device application. Sometimes, a lot of interaction testing will be done on the functional side of QA.

However, other types of testing could also be required. IoT testing will cover the spectrum of other required elements listed below, in addition to typical software testing:

Conformance with standards: These are mostly device performance traits that are precise to the devices and sensors. These attributes must be validated against the standards of the device and its communications protocol. Hardware vendors perform most of these tests, but there could be a certain domain or use-case specific requirements such as the use of such devices in an environment that was not tested.

Interoperability: The ability of different devices to support the required functionality among themselves, other external devices and implementations.

Security: With billions of sensors in the making, it’s crucial to tackle data privacy and the security concerns across the IoT ecosystem.

The following are the different types of security testing requirements:

• Identity and authentication
• Data protection
• Data encryption
• Storage data security in local
• Remote clouds

The user interaction layer:

This layer is the touch point between the thing (IoT Device) and the user. The success of the overall system depends on the seamless user experience.

Key testing areas in this layer include:

Network capability and device level tests: The specific aspects of network communication such as connectivity are validated by simulating different network modes in addition to device-level validation such as energy consumption tests, etc.

Usability and user experience: Usability and user experience are important in terms of the real-time usability; it involves both human and machine interaction and also the real-time experience that the IoT system provides.

For example, contactless payments compared with a physical card-based payment. 

The IoT services and back-end IoT environment:

While integration testing of the interfaces is a key, there is a complex data layer that comes into play.

For example, a classic IoT system boxes a complex analytical engine to ensure an exceptional user experience. This creates a QA environment to assist validation of such interface by addressing the growing data volume, velocity, and variety challenges. The front-end validation environment can be done by assembling data recorders and simulators. The service and data layer validations will involve complex simulation such as the generation of millions of sensor hits, machine learning algorithms and the time-boxed traffic. There are a few methods to create such an ecosystem; For example, leveraging sandboxes of development services or creating mock environments using virtualization tools. However, numerous implementation synergies are required to establish a working set of environments for through services and back-end validation platform.

Let’s discuss more IoT testing in our upcoming blogs.

Please comment on your interested topic in IoT.

A day in the life of a Game Tester!

To give an idea of what a Game tester’s day looks like, we are talking about a guy who goes by the gamer tag ‘Dalda’

Is game testing a job or a career?

While the game testing career starts as a lower paying job, there is high potential for anyone to grow in the industry very quickly. Those who have an urge, commitment and wish to make a name for themselves in gaming industry, game testing provides a big platform to grow. If one is focused long enough and keep learning and stay current, he/she can make a managerial role within a short span of 10 years.

How did you get started?

I always found myself playing a lot of video games going back as far as I can remember. From my college days, I was interested in computers plus my long standing interest in video games lead me to conclude that I wanted to be a part of the gaming industry.

The first job I got was in company, one of whose Executive was a friend’s Uncle. Knowing the bunch of us and our addiction to gaming we got offered a job.

What do you do all day?

Playing games was something I knew how to do However, learning how to be a tester, I had to unlearn what I knew, which was killing bad guys, smashing stuff and level up faster. That does not help a tester, test a game effectively. On a regular day my schedule was pretty tight. I had do to all sort of background stuff like anyone does at their job, like keeping track of what they do.

What skills do you think are most useful for a QA tester?

Attention to detail, and understanding the game. Learning the game properly and in detail will help us to understand patterns within the game, which will help to break the game and find more bugs.

What’s the pay like?

Unlike software engineers, game testing is not a highly paid job at entry. A game tester with 2 years of exposure would have more knowledge than a software tester who holds 5 years of experience. The learning curve is much steeper. All that will help one to grow quickly and get to bigger roles with better pay.

Are there any games which involve dread testing?

Definitely. Testing a game in a foreign language, without any support documentation or without anyone to explain the game, makes your job a lot harder.

Do you have a say in what games you test?

No. You go where you are asked to go and are expected to work on anything that is sent your way.

What’s the best and worst part of being a QA tester?

Best part is that you get to learn so much. You see a game when it is just in the developmental stages. You get to track the whole game through its various phases. You get to lend a hand in shaping the game and making it better for everyone to enjoy. You get to see the game through to the end. And at the end of it all, you are happy because you know you helped make the game better and everyone is enjoying the game!

Worst part would be, after working for a whole day on a game, I ended up dreaming myself as a character stuck in the game and being unable to clear the level to get out!

Do you play the games you test in your down-time?

Yes, occasionally. One of the games I tested – Section 8, my colleagues and I ended up staying late for a few hours past the end of day just to enjoy the game. Some more games in that list are CS: Condition Zero, Unreal Tournament.

Has the job affected your enjoyment of gaming?

After a small initial stage of not wanting to look at a video-game after working for a whole day on video-games, I have gone back to finding and playing new games in my free time and it is still a lot of fun.

What’s your favorite game and why?

Last of Us! No game has had me being so mentally involved with the protagonist.

Favorite movie based off a video game?

Halo Legends and Resident Evil series. These movies stayed close to the video game story line, while most of the other movie versions of the games did not portray the story line nor convey the experience when you play the game.

Learning Management System Compliance

A very common scenario that any learning management system (LMS) vendors experience is, “A potential client reaches at their exhibition booth and asks, “Is your LMS complies with regulatory standards?”

The answer is not very simple.

The worry with compliance is that it is driven by laws and regulations, which require specific training. The desire of companies is to avoid liabilities, business objectives implementation, reduction of paperwork.

To understand the topic thoroughly, we have to differentiate between the ability to track compliance in a number of areas and as a piece of software, a learning management system should be compliant with certain standards and regulations. It is crucial to understand that laws and regulations are explicit to individual countries or states, and will vary widely from one jurisdiction to another.

The below definitions and examples are drawn from the United States and Canada but there will be similar issues in the regulation of other countries as well.

Below are main compliance issues that a learning management system vendor needs to consider:

Accessibility standards – In the United States, accessibility regulations come under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 (29 U.S.C. ‘794d) of the 1998 Rehabilitation Act. These standards follow the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. LMS adhering to these standards will help to increase the user base.

Regulatory compliance tracking – LMSs are basically large databases and are often questioned to track regulatory compliance with specific government regulation.

Example: In United States, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations are included.

In Canada, the requirements of training for the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHIMIS) are at times tracked by an LMS.

Security standards – Many organizations require secured systems to store personal information. This is true in the medical field but can apply in other areas as well.

These requirements will include

• maintenance of audit trails,
• deployment of completely closed systems,
• usage of digital signatures, such as the US Federal Drug Administration regulation FDA 21 CFR Part 11 for the medical, biotech, and pharmaceutical industries,
• use of high degrees of encryption for groups such as the banking industry.

Interoperability standards – One of the most basic demands of LMS users is the interoperability of courses developed by different developers in the same LMS. It led to the development of one of the first set of LMS standards like those of the Aircraft Industry CBT Committee (AICC). In 1997, the IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS GLC), a non-profit organization keen in setting stipulations and standards for the learning industry, was formed. It issued many sets of specifications since that date. In the same year the announcement of the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) initiative of the US Department of Defence. ADL developed the Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) and the ADL Registry of SCORM compliant software. LMS vendors are well aware of both AICC and SCORM, and generally are compliant with both standards.

However, most LMS implementations don’t work well with these standards and often require a period of adjustment and tuning to make them work seamlessly.

Tracking training for certification – There are many regulatory compliances for training in specific industries, where employees are required to be certified before being employed and require to be recertified on a regular basis. Many LMSs track certification and will trigger automatic alerts as the date for recertification approaches. This need can be driven by legislation or by standards imposed by a specific industry or company.

Tracking training for liability reduction – Training can aid reduce the liability for employers in controversial areas. Courses or educational materials on such things, such as sexual harassment, or employment discrimination; might be much less expensive to provide than a settling of lawsuits in case of disputes.

Reduction in paperwork – In conclusion, a fully functional LMS will have features that reduce workload and paperwork for compliance management. Such features include auto-enrolment in compliance training based on job, automated alerts to managers and workers on failure to complete compliance training, assessment and evaluation of the training, certificate issue on training completion, and many other configurations for tracking and reporting in this area.

So the answers to questions on compliance and learning management systems are not simple and are multidimensional.

Hopefully, this article will help you to sort out what you need in this area.