Open Testing and Tool Consolidation: A Roadmap to Vendor Independence and Future-Proofing

How easy is it to conduct end-to-end testing in your organization?

Many off-the-shelf tools are platform/browser dependent, so you need multiple tools to cover all your requirements. In today’s omnichannel environment, this means your tool stack can easily become unwieldy and hard to maintain.

Then consider the fact that most tools don’t test the user interface, which means there’s a black hole around one of today’s biggest commercial differentiators.

By exclusively focusing on individuals with specific coding skills for particular testing technologies, you might be limiting your talent pool. This could result in missing out on the opportunity to hire exceptionally talented individuals who possess a diverse range of skills and qualifications.

Ultimately, the risks of vendor lock-in or tool lock-in around your testing tool stack are real. Outdated technology with limited integration capabilities is making it hard to maintain your tests, let alone innovate or evolve your coverage.

If you’re concerned about the impact these issues are having on your testing capabilities, open testing and tool consolidation could be the answer your engineering team has been dreaming of. It’s a way forward that helps you to future-proof your innovation and keep up with dynamic future testing requirements.

Lowering the Total Cost of Ownership and Embracing the Technical Advantages of Open testing tools

Open testing tools such as KEYSIGHT’s Eggplant Test give vendor independence because you have a tool that can test all browsers, all operating systems, and all devices so you can future-proof your automated testing with a truly scalable, truly end-to-end testing solution.

It gives you a unified, enterprise-grade approach that reduces the total cost of ownership because you are no longer managing multiple tools and multiple licenses to handle multiple testing requirements. You also remove the cost and effort involved in the maintenance of complex testing frameworks and custom coding.

It utilizes AI-driven software test automation and digital twin modeling underpinned by SenseTalk, an English-like scripting language, and has followed Open Threat Assessment Platform (OTAP) standards for the past seven years.

This delivers several technical wins.

It unlocks the entire testing talent pool because you no longer have to hire testers with skills in a particular language. Instead, you can tap into the entire technical community with its unique ability to understand language, models, and dependencies.

Because everyone is working in the same system and speaking the same language, it’s easier to integrate workflows. But beyond that, it’s easier to understand whether everything is working as it should and easier to communicate and collaborate.

Understand More of the Benefits of Open Testing

Because open testing using a tool such as Keysight’s Eggplant Test works at the user interface level, you unlock a wealth of advantages.

In the here and now, you create an efficient testing process, improve flexibility, reduce maintenance, and boost resilience.

In the long term, no matter where or how your organization innovates in the future, you’ll have the tools to test it.

In other words, open testing future-proofs your testing requirements.

Let's see how.

Develop an Efficient Testing Process

Why is open testing more efficient than vendor-based testing?

To understand the answer, imagine the Level of Effort (LOE) required to design, develop, and maintain a set of test scripts in, for example, in Selenium.

Now imagine the LOE required to design, develop, and maintain a set of test scripts easily created with natural language scripting in a tool such as Keysight's Eggplant Test.

The difference in the LOE required is huge.

It also gives you greater confidence in the quality and coverage of your testing.

Here's why.

In a setup that uses linear test scripts, the test scripts sit separately from the code that’s being tested. As the code changes, so must the test scripts. But too often, the test scripts only change as much as is needed to ensure they continue to work. Over time, the connection between the code and the test scripts changes. There’s no longer a clear understanding of what the test scripts are testing. It may also be unclear why or if they’re needed.

Rather than testing the code, the tests check for a specific outcome along a workflow journey. When the code changes, the tests do too, but they remain connected. It keeps test cases streamlined so you always clearly understand your coverage. You know what you’re testing and why.

This understanding also gives you the power to prioritize your test runs. Need rapid feedback as part of your CI/CD process? Run the mission-critical tests. Is it time for a complete regression test? Then run all the tests.

Enhance Test Automation Maturity

With model-based open testing, you’re empowered to enhance your organization’s test automation maturity.

You use the model you create to capture the test artifacts you need and the flows that you want. You can also tag the artifacts with the relevant testing tier, whether it’s UI, API, or traffic. Tagged like this, the model and the tests understand where they fit in the overall hierarchy as well as their wider dependencies and relationships to other SUTs, giving you much deeper test coverage, especially in the hand-offs between different systems.

Further, you can use the models to observe repeating patterns or attributes so you can see where you can modularize code and streamline future test creation.

Explore the Open Testing Possibilities

When you need a vendor with the scale, expertise, and insight to understand the pitfalls and possibilities who can fully support you in your transition from your existing solution and help you embrace all the wins, talk to Keysight.