After trying to write an automation test suite for my companies
website using Visual Studio Test tools, I have recently started using
Selenium to automate the web tests.
I was really excited when Microsoft came up with their testing tools with their new Visual Studio license way back in 2007. My excitement was short-lived because it was not easy to get past all the issues that you need to troubleshoot to get the web test working and time was a big constraint with the projects. We did not have enough time and resource to spend on writing the automated scripts and when we were ready after the application went live, there were already changes being made to the application functionality. Also, all the application that I was working on were totally data driven which also complicated the automation. Since, the tool was new, I could not find enough articles and documentation to troubleshoot the issues I was facing with VS Test.
One cool thing that I did with VS Load Test was to run a performance test to check the database servers. The SQL 2008 database cluster were storing the transaction data and log data on a ISCSI unit. This is how I did it:
Automation is cool but if the application is constantly changing and there is not enough time to maintain the automation scripts, it will be better to stick with manual testing.
Now, after contemplating for sometime, I have decided to take the automation route again. Thinking more carefully on what I can automate and what I cannot. I have also started using Selenium to write my automation scripts.
Wish me luck!!
I was really excited when Microsoft came up with their testing tools with their new Visual Studio license way back in 2007. My excitement was short-lived because it was not easy to get past all the issues that you need to troubleshoot to get the web test working and time was a big constraint with the projects. We did not have enough time and resource to spend on writing the automated scripts and when we were ready after the application went live, there were already changes being made to the application functionality. Also, all the application that I was working on were totally data driven which also complicated the automation. Since, the tool was new, I could not find enough articles and documentation to troubleshoot the issues I was facing with VS Test.
One cool thing that I did with VS Load Test was to run a performance test to check the database servers. The SQL 2008 database cluster were storing the transaction data and log data on a ISCSI unit. This is how I did it:
- First I picked the most intensive query that was being executed in our Production database server. We ran a trace on the Production database over a period of time to identify this query
- Used this query to write a SQL unit test
- Designed a load test to call this SQL unit test multiple times and concurrently
- Monitored the performance of the database servers
Automation is cool but if the application is constantly changing and there is not enough time to maintain the automation scripts, it will be better to stick with manual testing.
Now, after contemplating for sometime, I have decided to take the automation route again. Thinking more carefully on what I can automate and what I cannot. I have also started using Selenium to write my automation scripts.
Wish me luck!!
