The evolution of integrated development environments, better known as IDEs was the first step towards cohesively performing multiple activities in a single platform. While this addresses issues with respect to activities like build, connectivity with other LC stages still remains a challenge. End to end integration of tools across the SDLC provides a solution in terms of seamless integration across the lifecycle that enhances traceability, efficiency, governance and deliverable quality.

• Information sharing and continuous monitoring helps improve the team's performance. The usage of version control tools coupled with document management provides data transparency and a means to manage knowledge. Integrating these features with the Project Management and reporting capabilities can further strengthen the work progress monitoring
• Process enactment - Usage of workflow engines that perform various checks on business process enactment during project execution
• Communication - Tools form the bridge between individuals to interact effectively. Especially in an onsite-offshore development scenario there is a need for good communication tools with frequent access to data in order to facilitate real-time collaboration and perform effective reviews of the artifacts
• Cross platform compatibility - Project teams must be able to access the collaborative software/tools across multiple platforms over the internet. These tools also need to be flexible, agile and light-weight to cater to the constantly evolving needs of project teams in the IT services domain

Collaborative software solutions like IBM Rational Team Concert and Microsoft Team Foundation Server provide features for effective communication and data transparency to make a marked difference in delivering software on time. They provide software development teams with a collaborative environment in which they can manage all aspects of their work, such as project planning, version control, build management, and consolidated reporting. Microsoft TFS has a built-in integration with Microsoft SharePoint for document management as well, which further augments its capabilities for information sharing. This helps in mitigating the challenges of improving team productivity.

In Infosys, Tools Group has established a centralized Microsoft TFS setup that currently supports project teams across the organization to work in a collaborative manner.  Infosys has also created a Total Integrated Delivery Environment that integrates engineering tools with project management tools, bridging the gap between engineering and management activities.  This, along with initiatives to access and use tools on the cloud can go a long way in providing an organized and efficient collaboration environment.

Published with inputs from Pallavi Bomma, Infosys Tools Group

Perhaps the best illustration of the impact of this change would be the penetration of cell phones in the day to day lives of people. Simplicity and affordability hold the key to the success of this device and the technology that runs it. If however, one draws a parallel to the engineering tools used in the IT industry on the same lines, these tools have some catching up to do.

IDEs for one have been widely embraced by the software development communities across technologies. IDEs have been successful in abstracting many activities like compiling, creation of build files, code indentation, commenting etc. to significantly reduce the learning curves for the technologies they support. Also, with platforms and frameworks like Eclipse, end to end integration of tools becomes a reality that allows seamless flow of data across lifecycle stages. Modern IDEs come with features that enable the creation of User Interfaces with minimal coding skills and also reduce the amount of effort spent in connectivity with application and database servers alike.

With a view to simplify the usage of automation testing tools, attempts have been made from all leading enterprises to develop testing tools that generate English-like scripts. This would help end users like Business analysts to record and play back test scenarios with little or no programming capabilities. The advent of such scripts has significantly improved the productivity in these activities and reduced the learning curves.

Testing tools have also undergone significant improvements with respect to data centric testing. Functional testing tools like IBM Rational Functional Tester and HP Quick Test Pro can now get filtered data from the appropriate dataset for testing. Performance testing tools like IBM Rational Performance Tester and HP Loadrunner provide virtual user environments to create the load and stress testing scenarios with minimal technological/ programming skills.

With speed and high performance being the new mantras of the current age, it is all the more important that engineering tools are simplified in a way that can enable them to be embraced by the IT community. The ease of deploying the tools which do not complicate the process and steps to get the final product will be dependent on the simplicity of the usage, decrease in the learning curve and the accessibility.

[1] Read more on "Bridging the gap between real and virtual worlds" by SD Shibulal, CEO and MD, Infosys Limited

Created with inputs from Mallika Singh, Infosys Tools Group

If you look at Individual productivity, it is all about concentrating hard, thinking, focusing on the job at hand, ensuring there are no distractions while you are at the task. It is all about segregating yourself out of the prevailing environment and doing the job in the most efficient manner using tools and accelerators. Now when we look at team productivity the expectations are brazenly different from what they were with Individual productivity. Barring a few common things, the focus shifts and shifts dramatically to interactions, communication, discussions, involving other team members, stakeholders, leveraging tools and accelerators.

Can a person inherently "trained" to be individually productive become a positive contributor to team productivity just as naturally? Can a person shift between these two paradigms rapidly and multi-task without loss of efficiency, Quality and focus?

While Individual productivity is natural and relatively easier to comprehend, the real challenge is to ensure the Team productivity space is as efficient for each member of the team. Else we are looking at a situation where the gains made on the basis of enhanced Individual productivity are in no time lost to the inefficiencies in the Team productivity space. The complexity does not stop with this, the moment we add the dimensions of multitasking, a wide variety of distractions individuals face while they are on the job; we have a fairly large challenge staring us in the face. Also the manner in which deskilling is approached by the organization further adds to the complexity and constraints towards achieving a higher composite productivity.

The solution therefore is not a one glove fits all, but in some ways also lies in the problem itself. The common connect between Individual and Team productivity paradigms is clearly Technology and Tools. The manner in which organization can leverage new and upcoming technologies and smartly integrate tools could provide a way to achieve both a highly productive individual and an efficient team.

While a focus on standardizing tools across life cycle stages and ensuring adequate support and handholding as individuals go about using these was the initial thrust within the organization. The shift in the last decade was towards integrating these tools to form a robust chain that could create traceability and connect across life cycle stages. These have ensured the right mix of solutions for Individual productivity. The next wave that organizations like Infosys have started to work on is to create platforms that leverage solutions for Individual productivity and bring in enhanced amount of collaboration across roles, stakeholders, artifacts, geographies etc. with a focus on Team productivity.

Over the last couple of years, the Tools Group with its stakeholders has brought in such platforms to ensure the selection and recommendation of the "Right tool for the Right purpose", end to end integration of these tools and created collaboration engines with a thrust on Team productivity. These platforms leverage integration technologies alongside home grown adapters and also the ALM and Collaboration capabilities inherent to solutions from Microsoft, IBM and others.
Such platforms are able to provide several benefits and would become more effective in the future as collaboration technologies improve. Some of the benefits we see @ Infosys are:-

• Technology specific Integrated Delivery Environments
• Maximize usage of Tools, Reuse & Automation
• Deskilling  by leveraging a Collaborative,  Standardized Delivery Environment
• Integrating Management & Engineering activities
• Bringing all the associated roles on to a single platform

The way towards a more balanced form of productivity where both Individuals and Teams are able to thrive in equal measure in the future could be through such platforms and such platforms would also enable organizations to get a far more accurate view of composite productivity - both Individual and Team.

Validation of business processes prior to implementation was not a norm earlier, as this activity would typically be taken post implementation of the process by IT as systems within the enterprise. However, the success of business process deployment in an organization depends on how effectively and completely the business process has been tested.

Business process testing starts at early architecture & solution design once the Business Process Models are created based on Event Driven Process Chain (EPC) or Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). Here validation of business process is done through business process simulation. Simulation extends business process modeling into validation. Simulation is the testing process that is carried out by a business analyst to simulate the execution of the business process. Simulation takes care of the following points:-
• Verification of the new processes created and check whether they can be executed
• Identification of process weaknesses and bottlenecks
• Throughput time and resource utilization optimization
• Determination of resource requirements, utilization levels and costs relating to workflows
• Analysis of potential process risks

Simulation can be implemented using tools like Aris Business Simulator. This tool allows testing of business processes based on dynamic simulation and key performance indicators. Aris Business Simulator helps in reengineering, benchmarking, optimizing and analyzing processes with resource planning. Aris' wide range of analysis options helps in identifying process modeling errors, inefficiencies and weaknesses. Pega is another BPM solution that helps in implementing the business process with efficacy. The simulation tools help to analyze Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) across the EPC or BPMN models to identify bottlenecks. KPIs can include:
• Process throughput time
• Dynamic wait states (bottlenecks)
• Organizational center utilization and cost rates

Once the business processes are validated using simulation, the process execution can be validated in a runtime environment during the build phase. This runtime environment can be implemented using SOA infrastructure.  This ensures that the process behaves as intended in a runtime context once mapped to SOA services and business rule engines. Tools like Parasoft SOAtest and Green Hat Tester can be used for validation & unit testing of SOA infrastructure implementing the business processes.

Test phase of business process implementation incorporates
• Functional Testing
• Integration Testing
• Performance/Load Testing

Tools like Parasoft SOAtest, ITKO Lisa, and IBM Service Tester provide capabilities to test BPM implementations, automatically creating test cases from BPEL deployment artifacts that enable the functional, integration and performance testing of business process. Once the validation of business processes is done, system testing for the rest of the application functionalities can be done using automated functional and regression testing tools like IBM Rational Functional Tester.

With the successful deployment of high quality software services and products being of paramount importance in today's world, the need for efficient validation of business processes across the life cycle would only increase. Business process validation in a manner similar to the one implemented in Infosys can go a long way in determining this success.

Created with inputs from Mallika_Singh@Infosys.com

Traditionally requirements elicitation is done in a textual way through workshops, end user discussions etc. The textual form of requirements is supported with use case diagrams and static screen mockups. These don't equip the stakeholders to have a clear picture of the final product's behavior and appearance. This can lead to multiple reviews, approval iterations hence increasing the requirements cycle.

Certain advantages of prototyping are - 
• Enhanced requirements clarity and reception of early feedback from the clients/end users
• Comprehensible preview of the proposed system with look and feel like the end product for the stakeholders
• Improved communication between the various stakeholders

In the IT industry, teams employ different methods to simulate the requirements. One of the most basic forms of prototyping is creation of wireframes. Though wireframes bring in the advantage of simplicity and require lesser time to create, they typically lack interactivity and simulation.

A more advanced way of achieving this is to combine the static approach of wireframes with simulation to make it more interactive. This approach definitely requires a bit more time and effort investment but it provides an improved user experience.

There are automation tools available in the market which helps users in requirements prototyping and simulation e.g. IRISE, Serena Prototype Composer, Borland TeamDefine, Rational Requirements Composer, Axure. Within Infosys IRISE, Serena Prototype Composer and Influx- an Infosys developed tool- are being promoted and used for requirements prototyping.

Some of the key features of these tools which help in prototyping -
• Simulation & Interactivity - The page navigation, application flow can be easily modeled by dragging and dropping page elements. A predefined and rich set of widgets, reusable components which help in quickly assembling a page
• RIA support - RIA behavior can be easily visualized for e.g. roll over, drag and drop etc
• Programming language independent - No programming language knowledge is required for creating the HTML prototypes.
• Sample data - Sample realistic data can be added to the simulations created to give a realistic experience
• Templates - Help in driving reusability and uniformity across the application
• Collaboration - Simulations can be accessed via web for reviewing and providing review comments
• Reusability - The prototypes can be reused in the later stages for actual screen development

A typical usage of these prototyping tools could be to visualize the results post a requirements discussion with the stakeholders. Once done the same can be shared for validation through the collaboration feature.
A recommended approach for using the tool would be as follows -
• Build Scenarios - Identify functionally significant processes. The processes can be depicted using the flow diagrams which capture the sequence of events
• Build the individual screens using widgets, templates, masters
• Build dynamic data and navigation flows. It makes the simulation dynamic
• Rapidly build/modify the simulations, scenarios during stakeholder reviews

As an illustration we can take login screen which is typically part of almost every application. To create one, we should first identify and create the workflows, which are a successful login as a normal flow and a login failure as an alternate flow. As a next step, we need to design the pages i.e. Login page, Home page, Login failure popup. The screen layout can be easily designed using the widgets available. If consistency in look and feel is required across application screens, templates, masters can also be used. Once the pages are designed, as per the workflow designed earlier, navigation has to be built in the pages i.e. on click of the login button the user should be taken to the home page if it is a successful login. To provide a real time experience, actual login details can be fed in the data base for the login fields i.e. user name, password. The same can be used while displaying the simulation to the stakeholders.

Usage of prototyping solutions along with requirements management tools like Rational Requisite Pro provides a complete solution for all the challenges of the requirements stage. Thus, we see that with the use of a prototyping solution in the requirements stage the users can understand and define requirements in line with customer needs, the communication gaps between the various internal, external stakeholders and delivery teams is reduced to a large extent.

Created with inputs from PrabhatRanjan_Kumar@Infosys.com

• Difficulty in automating GUI based testing due to the use of specialized widgets and controls

• Complexity while performing performance testing due to different communication mechanisms used between client and server

• Security threats due to the handling of data on the client side and dependency on technologies like AJAX, JavaScript etc. which primarily use client side resources

• Awareness about Multimedia concepts, video streaming  protocols, audio processing, image processing etc. for the tester

Infosys Tools Group recommends tools to perform different types of testing of RIA applications (Flex & Silverlight)

• Unit Testing - FlexUnit & FlexMonkey for  Flex based applications and Microsoft Silverlight Unit Test  Framework for Silverlight applications

• Functional Testing - IBM Rational Functional Tester (RFT), HP QuickTest Professional (QTP) and Selenium for Flex based applications and Microsoft Visual Studio, HP QTP for Silverlight applications

• Performance Testing - IBM Rational Performance Tester (RPT) and HP LoadRunner (LR) for both Flex and Silverlight applications

• Security Testing - IBM AppScan for both Flex and Silverlight applications

Functional Testing of RIAs demands special attention since some amount of configuration is essential to make the tool recognize the UI objects and automate the test scenarios. This may involve one of the following approaches.

• Compile code with functional testing tool libraries: This approach involves compiling the source code with RIA framework libraries and functional testing tool libraries. This is useful when source code of the application is available.

• Build a wrapper for the application: This typically involves writing a HTML wrapper for the application and loading the application through the custom loader of the functional testing tool. This is useful when testers do not have access to source code.

• Proxy/SDK Extensibility: Tools like IBM Rational Functional Tester offer capabilities to extend the functionalities to support new technologies and requirements. By using the APIs, the tool can be extended by writing proxies to recognize the objects.

Rich Internet Applications' ever increasing reach and appeal have led to a change in the way web based applications are perceived, designed, tested and deployed. The standardization and deployment of best in class tools for RIA testing in Flex and Silverlight, in a manner similar to that of Infosys Tools Group can go a long way in further accelerating the efficiency of testing these applications.

Created with inputs from Sandeep_Chauhan01@Infosys.com and Amit_Gulati@Infosys.com