Model based testing and Risk based testing in TOSCA

Tricentis Tosca is a software testing tool that is used to automate end-to-end testing for software applications. It is developed by Tricentis.

Tricentis Tosca combines multiple aspects of software testing (test case design, test automation, test data design and generation, and analytics) to test GUIs and APIs from a business perspective.Two of the most frequently-noted technologies used in Tricentis Tosca are related to Model-based testing and Risk-based testing.

Model based testing - Instead of using scripting for test automation, Tricentis Tosca applies a model-based testing approach and creates a model of the application under test. Technical details about the application under test, test case logic and test data are saved separately and joined together at test execution time. When an element in the application under test changes, the technical details are updated once in the central model. Since the test cases inherit from this model, the various test cases that test the updated element do not need to be modified manually to reflect the change.

Risk-based testing - Based on a risk assessment of the application under test's requirements, Tricentis Tosca uses risk-based test design to suggest the most effective test cases and identify the risk contribution of each test cases. It also uses a variety of methodologies(Such as equivalence partitioning, boundary testing and combinatorial methods such as linear expansion) to try to minimize the number of test cases while increasing risk coverage. After the tests are executed, the tool aggregates risk coverage from business, technical and compliance perspectives.

Note:

Equivalence partitioning is a software testing technique that divides the input data of a software unit into partitions of equivalent data from which test cases can be derived. In principle, test cases are designed to cover each partition at least once. This technique tries to define test cases that uncover classes of errors, thereby reducing the total number of test cases that must be developed. An advantage of this approach is reduction in the time required for testing software due to lesser number of test cases.

Equivalence partitioning is typically applied to the inputs of a tested component, but may be applied to the outputs in rare cases. The equivalence partitions are usually derived from the requirements specification for input attributes that influence the processing of the test object.

Boundary Value Analysis - Boundary value analysis is one of the widely used case design technique for black box testing. It is used to test boundary values because the input values near the boundary have higher chances of error.

Whenever we do the testing by boundary value analysis, the tester focuses on, while entering boundary value whether the software is producing correct output or not.

Boundary values are those that contain the upper and lower limit of a variable. Assume that, age is a variable of any function, and its minimum value is 18 and the maximum value is 30, both 18 and 30 will be considered as boundary values.

The basic assumption of boundary value analysis is, the test cases that are created using boundary values are most likely to cause an error.