AUTOMATED INSTALLATION TESTING AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to an automated installation testing and management system.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The idea is generated due to boredom feeling in conducting installation testing on software release. The manual testing routines that are required to be completed for each software test cycle begin to lose creativity and excitement in software testing. The solution is to develop methods and system that enable the test to be performed in a minimal time, yet giving perfect and accurate installation test result. The system shall be equipped with the ability to detect any new changes made in the installation, code and will not risk the whole installer built within instant.

For the test that evaluate software installation process and behavior; which pertinent to executing, adding and removing installation components on multiple operating systems in any computer machine is typically performed through manual method. Efforts are required to diligently validate and verify each of the process of installation and uninstallation is successful before software is released. The proposed system will adhere automation techniques in performing the installation test. The techniques will cover functional testing and management of the installer. The functional testing will ensure the installation and uninstallation towards the system is intended as per requirements, whereas the management will allow progress of installation being administered accordingly.

A successful factor in automating the installation testing is based upon characteristics or profiles of the installation requirements which are unique per software installer. This directly means identical requirements are uphold for each installer of the

same major version. These requirements will be gathered as installation knowledge base and later applied in comparing and validating the installation test.

The system will simply reside on any test machine. A software installer or known as setup program is installed on the test machine. Based on the requirements gathered earlier, it is accessed and compared to the installation profile in the test machine. For every requirement that match the installation profile in the test machine, it means the installation is success, otherwise it will indicate installation failure.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to an automated installation testing and management system characterized in that wherein the automated installation testing and management system comprises of two operations wherein the first is the functional testing and the second is the installer management and wherein for functional testing, it is initiated with system that has capability in collecting, structuring and storing installation requirements. A plurality of requirements can be collected based on;

(i) new requirements for new software

(ii) extraction of requirements based on the previous installation testing project for the purpose of upgrading the requirements for newer version of software

(iii) extraction of requirements based on other software installation development projects

Structuring the requirements, a systemic method to structure the gathered requirements is applied to identify the requirements and perform validation of installation in the system. The information on the requirements will be stored in a hard

disk as an installation profile uniquely for specific version of software and be able to be accessed, viewed and updated accordingly.

The functional installation test of the system comprises of two categories; wherein a first is the performing the pre installation test and the second is the post installation test and wherein the pre installation test will is provided with determining whether the software and system requirements are adequately being fulfilled for the installer.

The final output of the system is an installation profile which regards as absolute installation project information of the installation tested software and wherein the installation of profile is acted as a central installation management, can be accessed and shared in network environment, while the system resides on the test machine and wherein the installation profile will provide the following information;

(i) requirements of the installation software

(ii) installation testing activities of the installation software

(iii) history of the installation software

(iv) monitoring the progress of installation testing activities

(v) collection of defects information based on the test result

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

Figure 1 shows a flow diagram according to the present invention.

Figure 2 shows another flow a diagram according to the present invention.

Figure 3 shows another flow a diagram according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENT INVENTION

The present invention would be described in detailed with reference made to the accompanied drawings.

In brief, two operations will be outlined in automating the installation testing. First is the functional testing and second is the installer management. For functional testing, it is initiated with system that has capability in collecting, stracturing and storing installation requirements. Later, these requirements will be accessed and analyzed to perform installation testing. These requirements will be directly compared towards the system information on the test machine. The result of comparison will determine the successful of installation and it is displayed to user, Figure 1.

In collecting the requirements, system must provide interfaces for user to gather all the information of requirements. The requirements can be collected based on:

(i) new requirements for new software

(ii) extraction of requirements based on the previous installation testing project for the purpose of upgrading the requirements for newer version of software

(iii)extraction of requirements based on other software installation development projects

In structuring requirements, a systemic method to structure the gathered requirements is applied to identity the requirements and perform validation, of installation in the system. Information on requirements will store in hard disk as an installation profile uniquely for specific version of software and be able to be accessed, viewed and updated accordingly.

The functional installation test of the system will be divided into two categories; performing the pre installation test and post installation test. The pre installation test will deal with determining whether the software and system requirements are adequately being fulfilled for the installer. In general, it will test the pre-requisite for the installer before installation is performed tested. A one click button is provided to perform the pre installation test.

The post installation will focus on performing the test with installer already being installed in the system. The focus is more towards successful of installation and uninstallation process. The system must provide interface to generate and automatically ran the test cases based on the functional installation test and the requirements. Finally, a one click button is provided to fulfill the post installation test purpose, Figure 2.

For managing the installer, it will be akin to managing a software lifecycle process. Installation activities which perform in requirements, design, develop, testing and release phase are transformed for automation. The system shall be able to provide an automation means of generating the required documentation as per software life cycle request. Managing the requirements, design and testing information as an installation profile will yield a trail of history for the software.

Therefore, it will allow this information to be accessed, viewed and updated throughout the installation testing activities. For example, user is able to view the installer on which version of components is installed on which specific version of installer, Figure 3.

As defects are key in measuring software performance, deliverable of collectable installation defects based on the projects or installer tools is a good information value to

be stored in software release process. Thus, automating this managememt factor will increase in usage of the system, Figure 3.

The final output of the system is an installation profile which regards as absolute installation project information of the installation tested software. The installation of profile is acted as a central installation management, can be accessed and shared in network environment, while the system resides on the test machine. The installation profile will provide the following information:

(i) requirements of the installation software

(ii) installation testing activities of the installation software

(iii) history of the installation software

(iv) monitoring the progress of installation testing activities

(v) collection of defects information based on the test result

As the system performed test in automated mode and its ability to install on multiple operating system on any machine, it will assure minimization of effort in manual test and wide coverage of the installation test. The fact that the installation requirements are consistent through the lifecycle; it is being reuse through number of test cycle. Installer is in better management through the system.