Testability - A key feature

When we define quality, there are several attributes of quality are talked about - Usability, functionality, performance, maintainability, interoperability, flexibility etc., several desired abilities of the given product. In a software product the testability is also an important feature.

The "Testability" is equally important measure for a software product as well as for the testing methodology.

When the product specification was drawn up, the testability requirements need to be given sufficient importance during the analysis & design phases. The early the testing requirements are drawn the better measure of quality can be done and finally a better product can be delivered.

There will be several phases of testing unit, system, integration, scalability, performance, load, disaster recovery etc., with different environments etc., during a software development project.
If the overall effort is not co-ordinated well the final product may not completely satisfy the customer!

Business - IT alignment

Business of an enterprise will normally need certain capabilities from their Information Technology resources. Different users at different levels of the enterprise would need access to right information at the right time. The customers and suppliers should be able to get the access to the right information as and when required. The information should accurately captured, stored and presented to the users as necessary.

In this process, IT resources are built in form of hardware - storage and processors, Network infrastructure. Software - OS, Databases, OLTP apps, BI tools.

Historically all this IT resources were procured, configured and maintained by the enterprises as a centralized department, then they started outsourcing certain functions. of late there are several pay per use solutions, hosting solutions and software as service solutions are coming up.

Coming to the topic of Business - IT alignment: At what level the alignment should start? CEO, COO, CIO/CTO should have this alignment done on a regular basis cascading the impact down to enterprise and closing the loop by getting the feedback from all levels.

It is a process (continuous) rather than a project (one time activity)!!!

Virtualization and Grid Computing

1. Virtualization: Using hardware resources across virtual hosts making the hardware utilization better across a data center. Also provide quick turnaround times to build new hosts for the development and test infrastructures.
2. Grid Computing: Use low cost hardware resources to accomplish production tasks with high redundancy and performance.

"1" is actually partitioning a physical host into multiple virtual hosts and use the physical resources more effectively where as "2" is to combine multiple smaller physical hosts behave as if it were a big single host.

These different solutions are best utilized to solve different problems. All these multiple technology options when used in a correct manner surely reduce the cost and improve the utilization of the data center resources.