Robot Framework Test Automation Book

Found a book for Robot framework and eagerly read through all the pages. It covers majority of the features of Robot Framework.

Book Title: Robot Framework Test Automation
Author: Sumit Bisht
ISBN: 9781783283033
Book Page @ Packtpub


Robot framework is an advanced test automation framework. Primarily it is tool independent and OS independent. This book is very helpful for the novice.

Sumit has explained debugging methods, parametrized re-usable tests and Results reporting with different options in better way. Must read for the professionals to get to know major capabilities of Robot Framework.

Code Coverage in Testing

Primarily code coverage is used for unit testing and many test teams are practicising code coverage for test execution. Visual Studio team have been doing many improvements on code coverage area. Code coverage is available for Unit tests in prior version. In Visual Studio 2012 Update 3, Code coverage can be measured for manual and automated tests. Also there are few integrations with MTM (Microsoft Test Manager) tool.

Advantages of Code Coverage on Testing

• Increase the confidence level on Quality
• Measure the code coverage through tests
• Help to improve testing to cover un-touched code
• Additional test cases to increase code coverage

Limitations of Code Coverage on Testing

• Unable to find incomplete or dead code
• Not a proof whether code is written against specifications

You need to add your application DLLs into codecoverage.config file which is available at "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Team Tools\Dynamic Code Coverage Tools". Then use following commands in Administrator mode to get the coverage data. After stopping the code coverage, you can open the coverage results file in Visual Studio and expand the DLLs to method level.

Useful Commands

 
 
Path==> C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Team Tools\Dynamic Code Coverage Tools
Command to run codecoverage tool ==> CodeCoverage.exe collect /IIS /session:WebSession /output:MyApp_20131009.coverage
Command to stop codecoverage tool ==> CodeCoverage.exe shutdown /session:WebSession
 

Different attributes and options are available in code coverage tool. YOu can check your environment. CodeCoverage Help command

 
 
Usage: CodeCoverage 



Available Commands:

    Collect coverage data to the given coverage file.

    Usage: collect [options] [command line]

    Options:

        /config:

        [optional] Override default configuration with configuration file

        specified.



        /IIS

        [optional] Collect code coverage for web applications running

        under Internet Information Service (IIS). IIS Worker process 

        (w3wp.exe) will be registered for collection and all the application

        pools will be restarted.



        /output:

        [required] The file to output coverage data to.



        /session:

        [optional] The name for the session.  If a session name is not

        provided, a unique session name will be used



        /verbose

        [optional] Turn on printing of diagnostic information during runtime.



    Example:

        CodeCoverage collect /IIS /session:WebSession /output:MyWebApp.coverage

    Shut down a logger with a given session name.

    Usage: shutdown [options]

    Options:

        /session:

        [required] The name of the session to shut down



    Example:

        CodeCoverage shutdown /session:WebSession

    Analyze data from one or more coverage files and output XML.

    Usage: analyze [options]  [file2 [...]]

    Options:

        /include_skipped_functions

        [optional] Includes skipped functions in the results.



        /include_skipped_modules

        [optional] Includes skipped modules in the results



        /output:

        [optional] The file to output the analyzed coverage data to

        The default is to use standard output



        /test:

        [optional] The test identifier string to limit the coverage

        data to. This option can be specified multiple times to merge

        coverage data for different tests together



    Example:

        CodeCoverage analyze /include_skipped_functions 

        /include_skipped_modules /output:results.xml MyWebApp.coverage

 

Cloud Comparison

Today Cloud techniques are growing more and more. Comparing the vendors is much complex for different aspects of cloud. You need to look at pricing, technology, efficiency etc. Thoran Rodrigues did a comparison with many parameters and it goes like below:

• Cost reductions / optimizations
• Variety of Pricing Plans –The more variety offered (hourly, monthly, etc.) the better a provider is considered.
• Average Monthly Price - Estimated cost in US$ for an instance as described above. When available, hourly pricing was used, based on 730-hour months. Otherwise, monthly pricing was used.
• Cost of Outbound Data Transfer – The cost, in US$, for each GB of outbound data sent from the server. Companies that offer a per second (Mbps) connection for free have costs listed as zero.
• Cost of Inbound Data Transfer – Same as above, but for inbound data.
• Scalability and Automation
• Scale Up – If it’s possible to scale up your servers automatically, by adding more disk space, RAM or processing units.
• Scale Out – If it’s possible to quickly and easily deploy new images based on existing VMs.
• APIs – If the company offers APIs to interact with the servers or not.
• Monitoring – A 3-level subjective scale measuring the easy availability of monitoring tools:
• Poor – Companies that have no monitoring/alert solutions integrated, requiring the deployment of third-party tools or that extra services be purchased
• Average – Companies with very simple integrated monitoring tools (few indicators or no alerting)
• Extensive – Companies with very complete integrated monitoring tools offered for no additional cost
• Choice and Flexibility
• Number of Data Center Locations – The number of different data center locations where cloud servers can be hosted.
• Number of Instance Types – The number of different available instance types, in terms of RAM, CPU, disks and so on.
• Supported Operating Systems – The number of different supported operating systems (regardless of version) available as pre-configured images.

User Concerns

• Security Features
• Certifications – If the vendor has compliance- and security-related certifications, such as PCI or SAS 70.
• Protection – If the vendor offers the possibility of protecting servers with firewalls and other security functionality. A 3-level subjective scale:
• Poor – Companies that only offer the most basic security features (such as a basic firewall), or no features at all
• Average – Companies that offer a more advanced mix of security features.
• Extensive – Companies that offer not only several security features, but also some security automation.
• Ease of Migration
• Open Standards – If the vendor employs or supports open standards in cloud infrastructure.
• VM Upload – If the vendor supports uploading your own machine images (made locally) to the cloud

... To Read More - Top cloud IaaS providers compared - By Thoran Rodrigues

Cloud Computing

Today many companies are providing cloud computing related services. Cloud computing has many different types and different features altogether.

What is Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is the use of computing resources (hardware and software) which are available in a remote location and accessible over a network (typically the Internet). Users are able to buy these computing resources (including storage and computing power) as a utility, on demand. The name comes from the common use of a cloud-shaped symbol as an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it contains in system diagrams. Cloud computing entrusts remote services with a user's data, software and computation. [ Source: Wikipedia - Cloud Computing ]


Advantages of Cloud Computing

• Low initial Cost-No need to spend so much on setting up hardware and software. Also you can get world-class service in less cost.
• Accessibility-Applications would be available on internet and can access from anywhere and any time.
• Utilization-Charges are based on utilization of hardware, software and time.
• Focus On Demand-Customer can focus on the business, instead of managing hardware and software
• Quick Revenue-Customer can scale up or down their services based on business demand. Plus the deployment stuff should be simplified
• Risk Reduction of Data Center-Currently many players are having global data centers for cloud computing. Customer can manage the data and application well on disaster events
• Best Practices & Advanced Technologies-Users can leverage vendors' advanced technologies and best practices on security, authentication etc.

Also refer Wiki Answers & Cloud Weeks

Limitations of Cloud Computing

• Less control on data-How the organization's data is managed and secured? It would be maintained by cloud vendors.
• Long run-Charges are made based on the time and usage. How much a company has to spend, If an enterprise application is hosted for 15-20 years and serving for millions of users.

Top 10 cloud computing companies

• Microsoft
• Amazon
• IBM
• Google
• Salesforce
• CSC
• Rackspace
• BlueLock
• Joyent
• Verizon

[ Source: Cloudcomputing-companies.org ]

SkyDrive Pro

SkyDrive Pro is a professional library—the place to keep your work documents and other files. You can think of SkyDrive Pro as your SkyDrive for business. When you store your files on SkyDrive Pro, only you can see them, but you can easily share them with co-workers and access them from your mobile devices. Your files are safely kept in the cloud with SharePoint Online or on your company’s SharePoint Server 2013 servers, depending on what your company has set up.

Advantages of SkyDrive Pro

• Store and organize your private documents and other files in cloud.
• Share files and folders with other people in your organization and give them permission to review or edit the content.
• Synchronize files and folders in your SkyDrive Pro and other SharePoint libraries with your computer or mobile devices, so you can access your content offline.

Difference between SkyDrive Pro and SkyDrive

Delete Previous OS files

I installed Windows 8 OS and Windows 7 OS files were moved as E drive and occupied nearly 70 GB in HDD. I tried to delete the files and unable to remove completely. I was able to rename the folder, but unable to delete many files.

Got the help from this post - How to Delete Undeletable Files in Windows 7 By Sandip Dedhia

Used commands to delete folder:

takeown /f Old_C_dir /r /d y
icacls Old_C_dir /grant administrators:F /t

OneNote

Micrsoft's OneNote is another great tool from Office product group. It is very useful for taking notes, tracking notes and in different formats such as text, audio & video. I'm a big fan of this after using couple of months.

You can search your notes across different notebooks or sections. Also you can organize and share them in web as well.

For more info, Go through following links
Wiki about Microsoft OneNote
Microsoft OneNote official Site
Microsoft OneNote object Model for extensions