Overview
Testing is important for any application, but when it comes to defense software it can be a matter of life and death.
The strength of defense organizations lies largely in the men and machines that comprise the armed forces, but this front line needs to be supported by solutions (C4ISR applications) that manage mission-critical tasks, such as communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. But the complexity of C4ISR applications is constantly increasing, and with that comes the need for continuous application testing.
In the business world, it is estimated that between 30% and 50% of the total cost of application development is from testing. In the defense, aerospace and civil aviation industries, where the consequence of failure is much higher, software testing can account for up to 75% of costs.
Challenges
Defense departments are under increasing pressure to cut application testing costs. Budgets are expected to shrink and testers need to find ways to do more with less. In addition, quality assurance teams face a host of challenges that they need to overcome in an efficient and cost-effective way. These include:
- Migrating legacy systems to newer command control systems.
- Accelerating software development cycles (which can run for years in defense industry).
- Testing classified applications within firewalls.
- Conducting all types of tests on an application – load testing, functional testing, data driven testing and more – without compromising the security of the system
- Testing networked computer environments with multiple displays
Solution
eggPlant helps defense organizations address all these challenges. TestPlant’s automated visual testing tool uses patented image recognition technology to test the entire functionality of an application rather than its technical design. This means that quality assurance teams can ensure that software provides a reliable user experience, under all conditions.
eggPlant also allows testers to run several automated testing cycles simultaneously. As a result, solutions can go live much faster than if the quality assurance team was using traditional testing tools. eggPlant’s image recognition technology means it’s perfect for GUI testing on C4ISR applications with rich graphical dashboards. This also reduces the amount of manual testing required, so the quality assurance process becomes much cheaper, and budgets stretch a lot further.
eggPlant is completely technology-agnostic, so it can test applications across multiple platforms, operating systems and physical devices. And no matter how it’s used – be it for regression testing, load testing or any other software testing – it’s incredibly secure because all processes occur inside the organization’ firewall.
The eggPlant visual automated test tool helps defense organizations ensure applications are robust, fit for purpose and user-friendly.
Example
Click on the video to see eggPlant testing a UAV control panel.
