Hardware Components Testing Plan

Introduction

In most cases, things do not go as expected due to human error. For that reason, it is important to perform thorough testing to make sure that the network meets the Roadster Corp. requirements. In this scenario, we have going to have systematic testing which will ensure that all parts of the network are working as expected (Strichman & Tzoref-Brill, 2017). A checklist will be established to make sure everything is tested. The testing plan will start by testing the hardware installed followed by software components and then finally the user acceptance. Each test will be carried to the completion and in case of any error, it has to be rectified before continuing with other tests.

Hardware Components Testing

The hardware testing is one of the hardest testing in the network since it involves a lot of manual work. In this case, manual testing will be utilized to test if cables are well connected and other components. A walkthrough will be performed to check if every hardware component is physically connected as expected. This involves checking if servers and other network devices have been secured into place, cables are connected to their ports, network cards are well connected, power supplies are well connected to the slots of the device and plugged to the power.

After making sure everything is connected into its place, another manual testing will be conducted which involves physically turning on the hardware and making sure the device doesn’t show errors through LEDs or any other interface (Guo et al., 2019).

Automated testing will be performed on hardware for specific features. The feature testing will be used to test the hardware components such as memory sticks, storage drives, fan, and power supplies among others. This test will rely on the inbuilt diagnostic tools like ones found on BIOS to test the components. A good example is a SMART tool for testing hard drives (Strichman & Tzoref-Brill, 2017). These tools will help a lot in identifying and hardware component before proceeding to the next tests.

Software Components Testing

Most of the tests in software testing will be automated making it easier to perform the tests. The better part is most of the software have diagnostic tools and report errors to the user. For example, an operating system is capable of troubleshooting most of the minor errors and provide hints to the user where a problem might be. This means it will be easy to automate the tests and get results (Ammann & Offutt, 2016). 

The software components will be tested to ensure the configuration done is working as expected. It is important to have proper configurations to prevent incidents in the network. Extensive testing will be done in integration testing to make sure various components and systems can work with others correctly.

Testing scripts will be used to perform automated tests of the software components. Random testing will be applied by using random functions in scripts to generate random test data. Radom testing will ensure that various aspects have been tested without human bias.

Testing tools for automated testing will be used to test the software components. Testing tools are easier to use since most of the tests are already defined in the tool. This reduces the amount of time and resources needed to test the software components.

A few manual tests will be performed by the staff members to counter check if the system is working fine. Manual testing will be performed for confirmation purposes. This will make sure the components are fully tested. In case of an error, the software component will have to be checked and troubleshoot to make sure the error is fixed and then tested again. The dependency of the components has to be checked while testing. The independent components have to tested first before tested the depending ones.

Integration Testing

Most components in Roadster Corp. are interconnected. Multiple programs are relying on each other while hardware components are interconnected (Ammann & Offutt, 2016). It is for this reason integration testing has to be done.  Manual testing will be performed to check if all the interconnected hardware components are communicating well. The process involves checking indicators for the cable connections such as Ethernet if they are indicating there is communication going on. This is part of interface testing making sure every interface is working when connected with another interface.

Automated testing will be performed to ensure all components have the desired behavior. The integration testing will be able to test critical configurations such as firewall rules. A tool like Nmap will be used to map the network and check for open ports and closed ones. SNMP will also play a role by using RMON probes to show which interfaces are up and down. Any issue encountered will have to be rectified. Bandwidth test will have to perform in this section to ensure there are no bottlenecks in the network.

Protocols Tests

Protocols are used by various applications to communicate in a network. It will be important to test all the protocols used by Roadster Corp. Protocols such as HTTPS, SMTP and others will be tested thoroughly. These protocols will be tested after integration testing to determine if the protocols are useful across the network. Performing this test will ensure no protocol required by the organization is blocked by firewalls. Nmap will be useful in performing this test since it provides detailed information about the network.

Manual testing will be performed too. For example, a user will have to create a test email and send it across the network to other branches as a way of testing the SMTP. This test will be performed just for more clarification.

Corner Case Testing

Corner case testing will be performed to push the network to the limits and check if it will be still useful. Network traffic will be generated from multiple devices in the network and then send across the network simultaneously. The traffic will be higher than the one the Roadster Corp. is expecting to have. If the network passes the test one more test will be performed. This time, the traffic generated will be higher than the traffic the network can handle. This means the traffic will take more bandwidth than the network interfaces can handle. If the test goes through without failures then the system is ready to be used.

Acceptance Testing

It is important to test the network with real users in the real world environment and check if users are comfortable with it. This is the final test and user feedback plays a key role in the testing. If users are satisfied with the network then the test passes otherwise it is a fail and something needs to be done (Ammann & Offutt, 2016). 

References

• Ammann, P., & Offutt, J. (2016). Introduction to software testing. Cambridge University Press.
• Strichman, O., & Tzoref-Brill, R. (Eds.). (2017). Hardware and Software: Verification and Testing: 13th International Haifa Verification Conference, HVC 2017, Haifa, Israel, November 13-15, 2017, Proceedings (Vol. 10629). Springer.