Community Day 2021 - A Test Lab and How to Maintain It

[sonya_m]

Another super informative session awaits! Don't forget to subscribe to the event tag - #CommunityDay2021 - more awesome content is coming.

A Test Lab and How to Maintain It

by Vladimir Yatskovskiy, TestComplete Test Run Manager

Maintaining a test lab is certainly among the most crucial tasks for a QA team. This session uncovers how a TestComplete test lab is structured and maintained. It gives an overview of how the TestComplete QA team built the environment and how they manage it. It would be of special interest for anyone in the process of creating/updating your test lab or if you are simply curious about our way of doing things!

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Watch the session:

Timestamps:

00:00 Speaker introduction

01:48 The session's start

02:31 Hardware in the lab

03:04 Why we went this way

05:05 Base image idea

05:52 What is on base images

06:20 Test code and application

07:55 Test launch system

08:15 Dynamic hosts load

08:52 Day load for lab facilities

11:23 Examples of automation in the lab

Any questions about the lab maintenance process? The QA team will be more than happy to provide answers!

[UConnAnnMarie]

I think this is a great topic!  

Off topic:  there are several points in the video that the sound is garbled.  It makes Vladimir sounds like he is underwater.  It is hard to understand what he is saying at times.

[VladYatskovskiy]

Hello!
I'm glad to hear that it was interesting for you !
Feel free to ask if there are points that you would like to hear in more detail.
BTW It would be great if you could share some of your experience in this field.

[UConnAnnMarie]

I've been an application developer since 1991 with a specialty in medical patient care software.

I've only been using TestComplete for about 3 months now.

I have no prior experience in using any of the languages TC uses so I find I've had some difficulties in doing some thing such as setting up variables from an Excel data source.  But after talking with a few of your techs I was able to overcome my obstacles. 

It would  be really beneficial for me if there were more keyword test videos specific to doing certain things like how to use Name Mapping.

One of the most frustrating things for me is having to put in On-Screen Actions and Delays to have TC wait until a particular object is available.

It appears that if there is any hesitation  in the system while I'm running a keyword test, TC will error out because it can't find the object fast enough.  That requires me to put Waits and Delays in.  Very frustrating.

[anngeiger]

It is good to see that the TestLab we have built and maintain is very similar to the one described here but on a much smaller scale.  Thanks for sharing....

[Marsha_R]

Hi @UConnAnnMarie and welcome!

One way I used to get around all the waits was to slow my whole test down just a little.  You can do that in Project Options.  It didn't eliminate all the problem spots, but it got rid of a lot of them.  It also helps when you are running the tests on different machines and the objects load just a little differently.

[UConnAnnMarie]

Thanks, Marsha_R!

I will look into that!

[nmccorry]

Very interesting as we are in the process of setting up a test lab, however I also found it difficult to follow in parts. Is it possible that a transcript will become avaiable?

[Marsha_R]

Thank you for the video!  Would you do this setup any differently if you had to support multiple applications under test for multiple departments?  Would you set up one lab for each or try to expand a single lab?

[VladYatskovskiy]

@Marsha_R In fact, we use the same system to run tests of ReadyAPI and QAComplete. The parts of lab for these products have their specifics, like RAPI part containing a lot of Linux based virtual machines; of course this products have their own sets of requirements for tests and so on.
It seems that base idea of the system showed that it has enough flexibility at least for listed products.