Discuss in depth about compatibility testing.

Compatibility Testing concentrates on testing whether the given application goes well with third party tools, software or hardware platform.

Testing to ensure compatibility of an application or Web site with different browsers, Operating systems and hardware platforms.

Testing labs offering all the hardware and software needed for such testing including PCs, MACs, and UNIX workstations and servers; Windows 95/98/ME/2000/NT/XP, MacOS, and many varieties of UNIX; and versions of Netscape, Internet Explorer, and AOL.

Compatibility testing can be performed manually or can be driven by an automated functional or regression test suite.

Our compatibility testing process includes:

* Expert consultation on defining the compatibility issues that are significant for your product and a cost-effective matrix of platforms it should be tested against

* Development of a Compatibility Test Plan specifying exactly what tests will be executed

* Test execution by our staff of experienced test engineers

* Using test management tool you will have complete, real-time access over the WWW to the development and execution of your tests. This allows you to view and supervise the work being done on your project during every phase from start to finish.

Depending on the complexity of your product and the number of platforms to be tested projects can be performed in a week or less.

-V.Vadivelan

The major compatibility issue is, the web site should work well in various browsers. Similarly when you develop applications on one platform, you need to check if the application works on other operating systems as well. This is the main goal of Compatibility Testing.


-Sundarraja

Before you begin compatibility tests, my sincere suggestion is that you should have a cross reference matrix between various software’s, hardware based on the application requirements.

Compatibility Testing is very crucial to organizations developing their own products. The products have to be checked for compliance with the competitors of the third party tools, hardware, or software platform

For testing the compatibility of your application in different operation system, we can use virtualization suite like Microsoft Virtual PC.

Microsoft Virual PC:

Microsoft Virtual PC is a virtualization suite for Microsoft Windows operating systems, and an emulation suite for Mac OS X on PowerPC-based systems. The software was originally written by Connectix, and was subsequently acquired by Microsoft. In July 2006 Microsoft released the Windows-hosted version as a free product. In August 2006 Microsoft announced the Macintosh-hosted version would not be ported to Intel-based Macintoshes, effectively discontinuing the product as PowerPC-based Macintoshes are no longer manufactured.

Virtual PC emulates a standard PC and its associated hardware. Thus, it can be used to run nearly all operating systems available for the PC. However, issues can arise when trying to install uncommon operating systems that have not been specifically targeted in the development of Virtual PC.

Alternatives to Virtual PC for Mac and Windows Home Editions to test the OS compatibility

• Parallels Workstation (for Windows hosts)
• Parallels Desktop (for Mac hosts)
• VMware Fusion (for Mac hosts)
• QEMU through Q (emulator)
• iEmulator
• InnoTek VirtualBox (open source)

Gateway compatibility
The payment gateway consists of software installed on Web servers to facilitate payment transactions. The gateway software captures credit card details from the customer and then verifies the validity of the credit card with the transaction clearinghouse.
Gateways are complex because they can create compatibility problems. In turn, these problems make e-commerce transactions unreliable. So, the entrepreneur needs to consult experienced developers before investing in a payment gateway. Therefore, before launching the site, online pilot testing must be done to test the reliability of the gateway.

Regards,
Sundar raja

Compatability Testing
A Testing to ensure compatibility of an application or Web site with different browsers, OS and hardware platforms. Different versions, configurations, display resolutions, and Internet connect speeds all can impact the behavior of the product and introduce costly and embarrassing bugs. We test for compatibility using real test environments. That is testing how will the system performs in the particular software, hardware or network environment. Compatibility testing can be performed manually or can be driven by an automated functional or regression test suite.

The purpose of compatibility testing is to reveal issues related to the product’s interaction with other software as well as hardware. The product compatibility is evaluated by first identifying the hardware/software/browser components that the product is designed to support. Then a hardware/software/browser matrix is designed that indicates the configurations on which the product will be tested. Then, with input from the client, a testing script is designed that will be sufficient to evaluate compatibility between the product and the hardware/software/browser matrix. Finally, the script is executed against the matrix, and any anomalies are investigated to determine exactly where the incompatibility lies.

Some typical compatibility tests include testing your application:
• On various client hardware configurations
• Using different memory sizes and hard drive space
• On various Operating Systems
• In different network environments
• With different printers and peripherals (i.e. zip drives, USB’s, etc.)

Regards,
Sundar Raja

In case of testing the compatibility of the web application in different browser and OS form the cross reference matrix based on the statistics collected on the usage of browser and OS

The attached word document contains the usage of OS and browser statistics month by month, this is very useful for forming the cross reference matrix

Attached Files

Browser & OS Statistics Month by Month.doc (44.0 KB, 3 views)

Compatibility Testing concentrates on testing whether the given application goes well with third party tools, software or hardware platform.
For example, you have developed a web application. The major compatibility issue is, the web site should work well in various browsers. Similarly when you develop applications on one platform, you need to check if the application works on other operating systems as well. This is the main goal of Compatibility Testing.
Before you begin compatibility tests, our sincere suggestion is that you should have a cross reference matrix between various software’s, hardware based on the application requirements. For example, let us suppose you are testing a web application. A sample list can be as follows:
Hardware Software Operating System
Pentium – II, 128 MB RAM IE 4.x, Opera, Netscape Windows 95
Pentium – III, 256 MB RAM IE 5.x, Netscape Windows XP
Pentium – IV, 512 MB RAM Mozilla Linux

Compatibility tests are also performed for various client/server based applications where the hardware changes from client to client.
Compatibility Testing is very crucial to organizations developing their own products. The products have to be checked for compliance with the competitors of the third party tools, hardware, or software platform. E.g. A Call center product has been built for a solution with X product but there is a client interested in using it with Y product; then the issue of compatibility arises. It is of importance that the product is compatible with varying platforms. Within the same platform, the organization has to be watchful that with each new release the product has to be tested for compatibility.
A good way to keep up with this would be to have a few resources assigned along with their routine tasks to keep updated about such compatibility issues and plan for testing when and if the need arises.
By the above example it is not intended that companies which are not developing products do not have to cater for this type of testing. There case is equally existent, if an application uses standard software then would it be able to run successfully with the newer versions too? Or if a website is running on IE or Netscape, what will happen when it is opened through Opera or Mozilla. Here again it is best to keep these issues in mind and plan for compatibility testing in parallel to avoid any catastrophic failures and delays.

Sabita

The reason for testing the application in different browsers:

Your Web browser is a translation device. It takes a document written in the HTML language and translates it into a formatted Web page. The result of this translation is a little like giving two human translators a sentence written in French and asking them to translate it into English. Both will get the meaning across, but may not use the same words to do so.

The basic rules for translating HTML documents are established by the World Wide Web consortium, which publishes the official HTML standards. But there's considerable room for interpretation within those ground rules.

For example, the HTML standards say that the TABLE tag should support a CELLSPACING attribute to define the space between parts of the table. But standards don't define the default value for that attribute, so unless you explicitly define CELLSPACING when building your page, two browsers may use different amounts of white space in your table.

In addition, the HTML standards usually run ahead of what the browsers support. No browser as yet supports 100% of the HTML Version 5 standard, but some browsers come closer than others. Over the past few years Internet Explorer has done a much better job of this than Netscape Navigator, though Opera has done arguably the best job.

But since support for the latest HTML tags isn't universal, you could be building your pages with parts of the language that not all browsers understand. In that case the browser will ignore that part of your page it can't translate, and the way your page displays will be affected.

This problem is further complicated by browser-specific "HTML extensions." Back during the heyday of the Browser Wars, both Netscape and Microsoft tried to get a competitive edge by running ahead of the HTML standards, inventing their own tags and attributes.

The theory was that Web designers would fall in love with these attributes and put little buttons at the bottom of the page saying, "Best viewed with Netscape Navigator." So Internet users would rush to download that browser and, voila, Netscape would win the Browser Wars.

In practice no Internet user will download a new browser just to view your Web site, so these HTML extensions only created headaches for Web designers.

The best way to minimize these problems is to pay attention to browser compatibility when building your Web page. Avoid using HTML extensions and be careful about using cutting-edge features of the language that may not yet be supported by all the major browsers.

The reason for testing testing the application in different browser versions:

The major difference between two versions of the same browser is their support for newer portions of the HTML language. A new browser is generally better at displaying Web pages than an old one.

However, Internet users tend to upgrade their browser based on the addition of new features, like email integration and instant messaging. If a user doesn't care about these features, they're happy to keep surfing the Web with their old browser.

That presents a problem for Web designers, because for some length of time after the new browser appears, a significant minority of people will still use the previous version. So rushing to build pages with the HTML features supported by the new browser will have to wait.

A good rule of thumb is to design your pages to work for the last two versions of the major browsers.

While a handful of people use browsers older than that, their numbers aren't large enough to justify the sacrifice required to support them. A few people still use Version 3 browsers, but these browsers don't support Cascading Style Sheets, which are the most important addition to HTML in the last 6 years.

Also note that new browser versions sometimes represent major changes in a browser, and in these cases all bets on the browser's behavior are off.

For example, Navigator Version 6.1 is a complete rewrite of Netscape's browser, so a page that worked well under Navigator Version 4 may not work under Version 6. That's especially true if you use Dynamic HTML on your pages.

Details about all Internet Explorer versions, which is useful for testing the browser compatibility:

Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 7.0 was released in November 2006.

Internet Explorer 7 provides improved navigation through tabbed browsing, web search from the toolbar, advanced printing, easy discovery, reading and subscription to RSS feeds.

New features:

* Advanced printing (automatically scales a webpage for printing)
* Instant Search box
* Favorites Center
* RSS feeds (automatically detects RSS feeds)
* Tabbed browsing (view multiple sites in a single browser window)
* Quick Tabs
* Tab Groups
* Page zoom

Internet Explorer 6

Internet Explorer 6.0 is the standard browser in Windows XP. It was released in August 2001.

Windows XP is built on Windows 2000 and is the successor to Windows 98, Millennium, and Windows 2000.
Internet Explorer 5

Internet Explorer 5 was the first major browser with XML support.

Version 5.5 (July 2000) for Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0, and Windows 2000. Support for XML/XSL, CSS, printing (print preview) and HTC behaviors.

Version 5.01 (November 1999) Primarily a bug fix for 5.0.

Version 5.0 (March 1999) The first major browser with XML support.
Older Internet Explorer Versions

The oldest versions of Internet Explorer are no longer in use by any majority of users. Web developers will ignore them. Their functionality is outdated.

Version 4.0 (released in 1997) is used by less than 1%. It has respectable CSS and DOM support, but no XML support.

Version 3.0 (released in 1996) is now used by less than 0.1%.

Version 2.0 (released in 1995). It is too old. Nobody uses it.

Version 1.0 (released in 1995). Does anyone remember it?

Internet Explorer for Macintosh

Version 5.1.7 is the latest version of Internet Explorer for Mac OS 8 and 9. It was released in July 2003.

Version 5.2.3 is the latest version of Internet Explorer for Mac OS X. It was released in June 2003.

Note: version 5.2.3 requires special features in Mac OS X. Mac OS 8 and 9 users must download and install version 5.1.7.

Details about all Netscape browser versions, which is useful for testing the browser compatibility:

Netscape 8

Netscape 8.1.2 was released in September 2006.

Netscape 8 allows you to adjust the security level (Java, JavaScript, cookies settings), and also allows you to switch to use Internet Explorer's engine to render pages when necessary.

New features in Netscape 8:

Site Controls (dual rendering engine)
Multi-Bar (dynamic toolbar)
Form fill/passcard
Live Content
Improved tabbed browsing
Adware & Spyware protection
Dynamic Security Center
Note: Netscape 8 does not contain an e-mail client. For users who want an e-mail client, try Mozilla Thunderbird, Mozilla Suite 1.7.x or SeaMonkey, or keep your Netscape 7.2 for email purpose.


Netscape 7

Netscape 7 is based on open source engine (Gecko) and fine-tune of Netscape 6.

Netscape 7 has been reported very stable and fast.


Netscape 6

Netscape 6 was released in November 2000. This version was the first Netscape browser with powerful support for CSS and XML.

Netscape 6 is based on open source engine (Gecko), while Netscape Communicator 4.8 uses the engine that originally released in late 1994.

Netscape 5.0 - Netscape skipped the version number 5.

Netscape Communicator 4.0 (released in 1997) The first Netscape browser with some support for CSS.

Netscape Navigator 3.0 (released in 1996). Too old. Don't use it.

Netscape Navigator 2.0 (released in 1996). Too old. Don't use it.

Netscape 1.0 (released in 1994). Too old. Don't use it

Compatibility testing when and what to test, remember it easily.


• Do Application and hardware compatibility testing for new versions of platform and system software
• Do Platform and hardware compatibility testing for new versions of client-server, web-based, and desktop applications
• Do Application and platform compatibility testing for new versions of devices and peripherals

Please refer the attachment for Sample cross reference matrix

Attached Files

cross_reference matrix.doc (19.5 KB, 3 views)