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As much as they need to bemultilingual, software products need to qualify as multiplatformto truly provide for the global user. Take PalmOS 5, Linux Red Hat
留学生作业代写/代写留学生作业Advanced Server, Solaris 9, Windows XP orMac OS X. Many questions and issues maycome up when you are trying to achieve efficient
testing of a product on some or all ofthese platforms. How do you prepare for efficientinternationalization, localization and
functional testing on software products thatcombine these platforms? This article canserve as a beginner’s guide for testing a producton several platforms. It describes the concepts you needto pin down, preempts some common issues and providestips, solutions and best practices for teams involved in multiplatformtesting.
What is a platform? Platform can mean many things. Forour context, we assume that platform is a unique operatingsystem running on unique hardware. So with platform, youshould always distinguish between Solaris on an Intel machineand Solaris on a SPARC workstation. Sometimes, the sameplatform can have different names. Windows NT 4 and
Windows XP, for instance, can be considered the same platform,only different versions.
How can you manage multiplatform testing? The answerto efficient multiplatform testing is to have infrastructure,tools and processes that allow quick and repeated setup ofyour clean testing environment — your platforms. How to dothis? One of the most widely used and easiest ways is to createdisk images of configured systemsthat are deployed (or
ghosted, a term deriving fromone of the tool names) on the
testing machine. Ghosting ismuch faster than installing and
configuring your operating systemfrom scratch. You can createand save a sector-by-sector“image” of your tuned-up
installed system in a file and loadit back whenever needed.Some of these tools are availableas part of your system server
(Mac Server) while some areutilities (Flash for Solaris). If you need to store hundreds ofimages for different platforms on several different file systemsto be used by dozens of users simultaneously, tools such asSymantec PowerQuest Deploy Center or Symantec Ghost allowadvanced server features such as multicasting sessions,remote deployment and server management.
The architecture used for platforms such as Windows anddifferent versions of Linux as shown in the graphic
“Architecture of testing management system” gives you a goodidea of how these tools are deployed.
USAGE SCENARIO
Imagine you are a test engineer and have three machines
on your desk. You don’t know what is installed on these
machines, and you need a fast, clean start of your test pass.
Assuming your project test platform images are ready on the
server, all you need to do is turn on the machines, boot from
Roman CivinChoosing your language and platformthe local network to connectto the image server, selectthe image file you want on
each machine and deploythem. Then you just need torestart, log on, run a scriptto change the computername and add it to your testingdomain, and you areready to go — in less than15 minutes.
Estimating setup time.We use these infrastructures,tools and processes to savetime and ensure consistencyin testing. So, right from thestart, be sure you know theextent of platforms coveragethat is required on your projector in your operationsdepartment. Of course, you’llhave a good test plan. But youwill also have to estimate howmuch time it might normallytake you to instal