Smoke Testing is an extremely familiar term to the technology field, especially software development teams. This is an error testing and troubleshooting technique favored by many developers today. Thanks to Smoke Testing, the work of software developers as well as QA staff becomes more efficient. So what is Smoke Testing? How important is Smoke Testing to the QA industry? Get details now!
1. What is Smoke Testing?
Smoke Testing helps software developers check for basic errors in new software. Source: testerviet.com.vn
Smoke Testing is an important software testing method that ensures that the basic features of an application work properly. Smoke Testing is designed to detect certain major technical issues that may prevent the software from functioning properly.
Most smoke testing is done early before more in-depth testing takes place. The purpose of these tests is to verify application stability for more advanced testing. Thanks to these tests, technical errors are detected early and resolved during the development process, ensuring smooth software operation and improving the overall quality of the software.
Smoke Testing is performed whenever software with new functionality is developed and integrated. Whenever there is a new build, the QA team identifies key functionality in the software to perform testing. In addition, Smoke Testing is also performed when the software is working well to ensure the status and performance of the software.
2. Characteristics of Smoke Testing
Smoke Testing is one of the important steps of the software development process. Source: webomates.com
One of the main purposes of Smoke Testing is to determine how stable the software has achieved. To achieve this goal, Smoke Testing also has some typical characteristics such as:
- Smoke Testing runs quickly to help test software.
- Testing is performed within the entire software.
- A test is performed as part of the quality assurance process.
- Show basic errors during testing although not exhaustive.
- Smoke Testing is an integral part of the software development cycle in which developers can test key features of the software.
- Smoke Testing can be performed manually or conducted using AI automation technology, depending on the needs of the testing team.
- Applicable to different types of software testing such as integration testing, system testing, and acceptance testing.
- There is a limit to the number of test cases. The testing process is integrated with the server and fully recorded.
3. What are the benefits of Smoke Testing?
Testing not only benefits the development team but is also an effective tool for the QA staff. Source: webomates.com
Until now, Smoke Testing is considered necessary for all software development sketches to ensure stability. Here are some benefits of testing early in the software development process:
3.1. Ensure stability
Being able to test the stability of the software early is extremely useful. This reduces manual bug searching and reporting by developers in the final stages.
Using Smoke Testing helps quickly detect unexpected errors and ensure the software works well. This helps software developers ensure stable operation of the software before, during, and after delivery to customers.
3.2. Simple experimental procedure
Smoke Testing ensures that every component in the application works properly and the testing process is also easy. The testing process takes place quickly, consisting of only 5 stages, allowing technicians to conduct it many times.
Smoke Testing is simple enough to combine with any other type of testing. That allows you to perform regular testing without consuming too many servers and other device resources.
3.3. Detect errors quickly
The fewer technical errors, the more convenient it is for users. That’s why detecting errors early is crucial. Smoke Testing not only gives software developers more time to fix but also ensures that the most typical errors will never affect the user experience.
Smoke Testing can help developers ensure the software is relatively bug-free and commit to a great user experience when using the application.
3.4. Improve output product quality
The testing process helps developers verify and fix software errors promptly, thereby helping the output product have better quality.
Smoke Testing is a simple method to detect errors and improve them. All the user needs to do is run the application regularly and use it well.
3.5. Save time and resources
Smoke Testing helps software developers detect technical problems quickly, so they don’t need to spend much time reviewing the software. This also helps save resources, especially when developers are not using test automation.
3.6. High flexibility
When applying Smoke Testing to the software development process, technicians do not need to use automation technology to take full advantage of the benefits of this method. Developers can use manual tests. And Smoke Testing is also a flexible process, suitable for any kind of enterprise.
3.7. Testing can be automated
Smoke Testing can be performed using automation technology thanks to AI programs. Automating the testing process brings many benefits such as:
- Automating a process eliminates unpredictable human errors.
- Automation helps run tests regularly, so developers can focus on other crucial tasks.
4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of Smoke Testing?
Smoke Testing also has its advantages and disadvantages. Source: functionize.com
About advantages:
- Technicians can discover software errors and defects in the early stages of testing.
- Limit risks that arise when integrating many software features.
- Easily implement and improve software quality.
- Save time and effort for testers and QA departments.
- Enable fixing new bugs and regressions.
- Automation can be realized, reducing manual intervention.
- Delivers rapid feedback with a small number of test cases.
- Support to improve the work performance of the QA team.
About disadvantages:
- Smoke Testing does not include detailed tests.
- Smoke Testing is not a comprehensive test because the number of tests is small, so the technician cannot find other crucial problems.
5. Smoke Testing’s role in the QA field.
Smoke Testing is a useful tool that simplifies the work of QA staff. Source: itnavi.com.vn
QA (Quality Assurance) includes monitoring and tracking product development processes according to a certain standard. The main job of the QA staff is to propose development processes, provide guidance documents, check the implementation process, and remind the product development team.
Because the QA team has a huge workload and cannot spend a lot of time performing large test suites to detect technical software errors. Therefore, Smoke Testing is a simple and effective tool to support the QA team with enough time and resources to quickly review and fix software errors. This helps improve and enhance the performance of the QA team in your enterprise.
6. Smoke Testing implementation process
The testing process is quite simple, including only 5 basic stages. Source: lumigo.io
Smoke Testing is conducted like most types of testing, This software testing process includes 5 main steps:
- Step 1: Development teams deploy test profiles and send them to the testing team.
- Step 2: After QA technicians receive complete documents, they will proceed to design test cases.
- Step 3: A small test suite consisting of several Smoke Tests integrated is conducted. For effective and satisfactory testing, the test suite must have a sufficient number of tests.
- Step 4: Automate tests in Smoke Testing according to the pre-installed framework.
- Step 5: Start test cases and clean up the test environment accordingly for subsequent rounds of testing by stopping the server, deleting files, or emptying the database tables.
Conclude
Smoke Testing is a method that helps determine the stability of the software being deployed. The main goal of this method is to test software and detect and fix errors. Smoke Testing brings many advantages to the users as well as QA technicians. Software developers can completely conduct testing through AI automation to save costs and effort.
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