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Everyone who uses modern technologies has encountered errors and software failures. While in most cases the programmers' mistakes are not too serious, some IT failures can have truly horrific consequences. The other aspect is the price the breached organizations pay. According to the RiskIQ’s report, security breaches alone cost major companies as much as $25 per minute, while crypto-companies may lose almost $2000 a minute due to cybercrime. We have collected some of the most memorable examples of software failures from recent years (with many well-known brands involved) to show how severe the results can be and why preventive measures (such as extensive software testing) are truly required. Data Loss at GitLab Two years ago a well-known code collaboration platform GitLab experienced a severe data loss which appeared to be one of the major outages in the IT world. GitLab originally used only one database server, but decided to test a solution using two servers. Their plan was to copy the data from the production environment to the test environment.  In the process the automatic mechanisms began to remove accounts from the database which were identified as dangerous. As a result of increased traffic, the data copying process began to slow down and then stopped completely due to data discrepancies. To add insult to injury, information from the production database was removed during the copying process.  After several attempts to resume the process, one of the employees decided to delete the test base and start the process again but accidentally deleted the production base. What made things even worse is that the directory holding the copies was empty too — the backups had not been made for a long time due to a configuration error. What meant to be a standard procedure resulted in an 18-hour outage while the 300 GB of customer data was lost. According to the GitLab’s estimates, the company has lost data on at least 5,000 new projects, 5,000 comments, and 700 users. The company approach to this failure deserves respect. Gitlab explained in detail what happened, broadcasted the restoration procedure on YouTube and published a list of improvements to ensure that this trouble would never happen again. But as they say — the damage is done. British Airways "technical issue" This summer the flag carrier airline of the UK — British Airways — reported an IT system issue that resulted in the delay of hundreds of flights in the UK, ...

Probably anyone who is connected to software development has heard about technical debt. But both salespeople, account managers and probably even CEOs rarely understand what tech debt means, how to measure technical debt, as well as the necessity to pay it. According to Claranet survey, 48% of 100 IT decision-makers from the UK, say that their non - technical coworkers have no idea about the financial impact of tech debt.  At the same time, the risks of not resolving technical debt must be clear not only to developers but also to other members of the team. This will help to acknowledge the need for changes and provide an understanding of why not every feature/project can be implemented quickly. But the question remains — how to explain tech debt to a non-technical audience? How can we define Tech debt? Technical debt or code debt is a metaphor that refers to all consequences that arise due to poorly written code and compromises in the development. This concept, in particular, includes the extra effort that has to be done to improve the software or to add additional functionality. Probably the best way to explain the term "technical debt" is with the help of an analogy. “I like very much the definition of technical debt provided by Wikipedia: technical debt can be compared to monetary debt. What does it mean? If technical debt is not repaid, it can accumulate 'interest', making it harder to implement changes later on. It's the best definition that was coined by tech specialist (American programmer Ward Cunningham) to justify refactoring costs in front of the CFO of a company,” says Alex Gostev, Project Portfolio Manager at QArea. It is quite easy to explain the concept of tech debt to business owners. It is like taking a credit. For example, you can take out a loan to open a new office for the company. But if you take that credit to carry out this plan, the interest occurs. In other words, you will pay more in the long run. Some metaphoric parallels with real-life can also be a useful tool for explaining tech debt issues to non-tech specialists. We can talk about technical debt as of some mess in the house, for example in the kitchen area. Imagine that you have cooked your dinner you decide to leave the kitchen without cleaning up. You continue to do it every day and at some point the kitchen (read "software") becomes really chaotic so it is impossible to cook (read "add new features") there anymore. Sometimes it is better to ...

Nothing in this world is perfect. Neither is code. Sometimes the pressure to deliver fast results leads to coding shortcuts. Sometimes developers can't find the right solution immediately and sometimes they are too lazy to do that. One day they misread the requirements, and the other - the requirements are changed in the process. But what does it have in common with the technical debt? What is tech debt? The term “technical debt” was first introduced by an American agile activist Ward Cunningham in 1992. Tech debt is a metaphor that describes the consequences of immature code. We can say that tech debt appears when developers —  consciously or unconsciously —  make imperfect decisions. This can lead to extra work in the future that results in an additional cost for the company. In other words, when those decisions are made you take a “technical loan” and will have to pay the interest later. According to the Agile Alliance, bugs, errors, and duplication in platform architecture are just some examples of failures that can cause tech debt. Each of them and especially their combination will have a negative impact on the company's productivity and profitability. Therefore, it is definitely not enough to know that tech debt exists, it is necessary to measure technical debt and understand how to deal with it. How to measure tech debt? Properly managed, technical debt is safe. Moreover, it allows to deliver valuable products faster and helps your business grow. And on the contrary, gone-rabid-technical-debt can paralyze your projects and turn into big trouble for your company. Luckily there are ways to keep it under control. Develop agile approach to Tech debt The first step of keeping tech debt under control is the ability to create a proper attitude towards it. Your team should be aware of technical debt and be ready to make their contribution to minimizing its negative consequences. The developers should be responsive and report the technical debt on a regular basis. The team leadership for its part must be ready to invest its time and effort into managing technical debt and take actions if needed. Watch your technical debt According to the survey conducted by the Chalmers University of Technology, the University of Oslo, and the Research Team Barcelona, backlogs and static analyzers allow to decrease the management overhead by 7%. Technical debt can be also maintained in a backlog of a tracker system such as JIRA. It is ...

Information technology plays a crucial role in the success of many businesses. Companies rely on IT both in day-to-day operations and more challenging tasks. IT increases the efficiency of businesses, saves money, drives innovation and enables companies to stay ahead of their competitors. Therefore, it is very important to ensure the continuous and effective work of the IT systems. What is risk management? As IT systems become more complex and error-prone, many threat scenarios with high risks emerge. IT risk management is aimed at identification, evaluation, analysis, and mitigation of potential risks. The idea of risk management is to monitor the system throughout its lifecycle and provide solutions and plans of action for possible bad scenarios. This ranges from the conception of the project, through the development and implementation of the software, and all the way to the operation and decommissioning of the systems. If ignored, technical issues can cause serious harm to businesses. This ranges from slowing in production to loss of revenue or even to the existential threat to the company.  There are numerous types of IT risks such as hardware and software failures, spam, malicious attacks, viruses, data loss, data misuse or data espionage. Usually, IT management focuses on two types of risks such as malware or data loss. This often leads to the neglect of other types of risks, which in turn can cause harm to your business. There are a lot of issues that shouldn't be ignored, and one of them is technical debt.  What is technical debt? How do we define tech debt? Technical debt is a metaphor that is used to describe the imperfection of the code quality. For example, sometimes a team of developers makes some code shortcuts just to meet a deadline or to speed up time-to-market and let the company deliver the product quicker. Often the end justifies the means, but when developers make those suboptimal decisions they build up debt. And like with monetary debt, they should pay it in the future but together with interest. In this case - it is the time and effort to improve the code in order to make it efficient. What can be said about technical debt infrastructure? Tech debt can be caused by both intentional and unintentional factors. The intentional causes include time constraints, source code complexity, coding rules violations, unclear communication and wrong assumptions due to the lack of technical knowledge, etc. And ...

What defines the Quality of software? The number of bugs and errors. Many people would probably answer this way. But there is a much bigger concept that stands behind the code quality and the ability of developers to implement new features quickly and easily. It is called technical debt.  How can we define tech debt? Technical debt is fueled by numerous issues. Those can be traced to coding practices, documentation, duplication, complexity, test coverage and others. But no matter what causes technical debt, tech debt, if not controlled, can have a huge negative impact on project outcomes, thus, on business scalability and profitability. But how can we avoid those risks? How can we manage technical debt? How to manage technical debt? There is no one right way to control tech debt, but there are basic rules that might be helpful. In order to manage and resolve technical debt, you should understand what you're dealing with. One of the most reliable sources of information on this issue is talking to your customers. The user's feedback cannot be overestimated as it helps to understand what works right as well as the obvious vulnerabilities of the company's software.  Another key element in technical debt management is the effective use of tools that allow detecting tech debt issues. There are plenty of free tools providing useful information on tech debt as well as paid ones which enable more detail code checks. Among those tools - JDepend, SonarQube, Teamscale, ReSharper, Bliss and many more. QArea has also developed its own easy-to-use tool for measuring technical debt dynamics which is called Code Quality. Without a doubt, technical debt metrics give us a solid ground for indicating software issues but those numbers alone are not enough. At the same time, it is more than possible that the developers are aware or can sense the issues that cannot be detected automatically. So one of the most infallible methods of “catching” technical debt is communication with the development team. After you have identified the tech debt it is always a good idea to collect all related issues in a tech debt list or in the backlog. Documenting this data will make tech debt more visible, structured and understandable. Knowing where your debt is hidden is a good start. But you must reevaluate it from time to time in order to distinguish real critical issues and pay the debt down. While dealing with tech debt you should realize that some ...

Professionals working in software development and testing have to deal with specific kinds of requirement specifications when tackling a new product. Accurate and clear requirements are needed for a software development team to work on the creation of the right product, and this documentation makes the overall development process easier. There are different types of requirement specifications, but right now, we are going to describe three main document types that are used specifically in software testing. These are SRS (software requirement specification), FRS (functional requirement specification) and BRS (business requirement specification). It’s worth noting that all these documents are used depending on the company type, standards and process organization. Down below, we will tell you more about each of these documents and explain the main difference between FRS and SRS documents and the difference between BRS and FRS in software testing.  What Is SRS Document? SRS or Software Requirement Specification is a document prepared by a team of system analysts that is used to describe software that will be developed, the main business purpose and functionality of a certain product and ways how it performs its core functions. An SRS is a basis for any project as it consists of a framework that will be followed by each team member. An SRS is also a base of a contract with stakeholders (users/clients) that includes all the details about the functionality of the future product and how it is supposed to run. An SRS is used widely by software developers during the process of product or program development.  An SRS includes both functional and non-functional requirements and uses cases as well. A perfect SRS document takes into account not just the way software will interact with other software or when it’s embedded in hardware but also potential users and the ways they will interact with the software. It also contains references to tables and diagrams to get a clear understanding of all product-related details.  An SRS document helps team members from different departments stay on the same and make sure all the requirements are fulfilled. This document also allows minimizing software development expenses and time.  What Is BRS Document? So what is BRS meaning in software testing? BRS stands for a business requirement specification which is aimed to show how to meet the business requirements on a broader level. A BRS ...

Code quality and velocity of production are two crucial but sometimes conflicting factors for software development projects. It is not surprising that sooner or later each development team faces the issue “speed versus advancement”. No doubt that both code quality and delivery speed matter. Good code quality makes future development simpler, quicker, and more stable. At the same time, a high velocity of production makes the company more agile, and thus more interesting for the customers. But how can a software company find the right balance between short time-to-market and minimizing poor quality code? What is Technical debt? How can we define tech debt? Technical debt is the term used to describe code that was not written properly and can harm the ability to add new features in the future. We can think of tech debt as the work that should be done to improve the code in order to make it more efficient and clear. On the other hand, these improvements won't necessarily bring additional value to the business. Originally the term Technical debt was coined by an American programmer Ward Cunningham, the inventor of the first wiki. The idea was to think about tech debt as an analogy to financial debt. If there is a debt — there is an interest that should be paid. And in the case of tech debt, the interest is equal to the additional development work that it takes to add new features after sub-par code was used. What can lead to technical debt? Tech debt may occur as a result of unreasonable requirements, misguided assumptions, poor communication, or unrealistic timelines. It is not uncommon that developers cut corners to meet the deadlines, but the question remains — should they always do that? Speed vs Quality? No one will argue that both code quality and velocity of production are important. For obvious reasons, different types of companies choose high-quality development at the expense of speed and vice versa. On one hand, we have a very natural desire of startups to move quickly, so they can release their product to the market as fast as possible. On the other hand, we have the logic of well-established companies whose profile is too high to produce low-quality products, so they usually lean towards the quality mode. Moreover, the employees of the same company can have different and even opposite views on speed vs quality of development. Salespeople or product managers are usually considered to be advocates for speed as they see the ...

For those who are planning to develop software, it’s important to choose a fitting software testing strategy. There are five primary testing methodologies software developers use to create and test their projects: Waterfall Testing MethodologyRapid Software TestingPrototype MethodologyAgile Testing MethodologySpiral Software Testing To determine which methodology is best for your project itself and your team, you’ll need to thoughtfully plan out your project. You have to decide how you’re going to build the project, as the answer to this question will determine the workflow of your project and the delegation of tasks to your team members. Once this information is decided, you can begin to evaluate which software testing services fit the needs of your project and your team best. What Questions You Should Ask to Choose the Right Testing Methodology In many cases, teams go about choosing the right testing methodology in the wrong way. Instead of choosing a methodology to use based on research, you need to focus on the project itself. In many cases, the problem of choosing the most suitable development/test strategy can be omitted if your team takes a step back and focuses on the project’s goal and its functions. Your team should ask some basic questions about the project, and, depending on the answers, build a broader picture of it. In the simplest terms, every project should include a planning brainstorm session. At this meeting, be sure to ask the following primary questions: Do the project characteristics limit you to a specific strategy?How does my client prefer to communicate and work?Is there a methodology that is particularly suited to my team? The answers to these questions should give you sufficient information to move forward in choosing an appropriate project methodology to implement and follow. If you find that there are many large tasks or you have sub-teams, it might be best to continue the brainstorm and allocate the tasks even further. Finding out all the workload that needs to be completed during the planning stages will help ensure that you choose the handiest and appropriate project methodology before you start. Common Types Of QA Methodologies You Should Know About There are many different types of methodologies to choose from for your project, but not all of them are proven to work well for a variety of teams and projects. The five project methodologies outlined below are among the most common ones ...

Outsourcing became a common practice for many companies and businesses today. The benefits of outsourcing are diverse. In this article, you will find out what is outsourcing, what types of outsourcing exist, and the main reasons why companies are willing to outsource their software development tasks. What Is Outsourcing and Why Might a Company Practice Outsourcing? Outsourcing means the allocation of specific tasks by a contractor to third-party specialists. Outsourcing comes in handy when a company or business can’t control and handle all the processes internally. Entrusting business processes to external professionals became an everyday reality. Software development, customer support services, content writing are one of the most popular tasks that are outsourced to other companies. The main reason for such growing popularity of outsourcing is the lack of internal experts and cost-saving initiative. For some businesses, there is no need to hire an in-house team of professionals to perform certain tasks. Thus, outsourcing is the best option that can help a company get all the jobs done effectively and for the reduced labor costs. Your company or business can benefit from outsourcing as well. After you allocate a task to the chosen outsourcing company, as a service provider, they become responsible for performing the job and maintaining the highest quality. Why Outsource Software Development? Outsourcing software development routine is a widespread practice today. Whereas hiring an internal team requires way too much time, money, and resources, outsourcing is a much more convenient option. Here are the top 6 benefits that will convince you that outsourcing software development tasks is a good idea for your business: 1. Reduced costs The main benefit of outsourcing consists of much lower labor costs. Therefore, it is cost-efficient and profitable to reduce your expenditures and significantly save budget. At the same time, you will get quality professional service at a reasonable price. Also, you save time and money on recruitment, training new in-house staff, offering benefits, etc. 2. Larger talent pool available When hiring in-house local employees, you don’t have much choice. Outsourcing allows you to expand your search and choose from a variety of companies and the best professionals from all over the world. It is possible to find the right team of experts that will meet all your requirements to achieve better results. The ...

Nowadays, many leading businesses and companies opt for outsourcing to increase productivity, reduce costs on hiring an in-house team of remote developers, and get effective results. Generally, you can outsource your project to onshore and offshore software development outsourcing companies. You might be wondering what is the difference between onshore and offshore software development outsourcing services. Below, you will find a detailed explanation and benefits of using each type.   What Is Onshore Software Outsourcing? When we are talking about onshore outsourcing, we mean hiring a team of individual software developers located in your country. The main advantage of hiring an onshore team of developers is the geographical proximity to your business. The closer your team is to you, the easier it is to monitor their progress and all project-related activities. The contractor can even visit a team of developers personally from time to time to make the collaboration as effective and productive as possible. One of the main benefits of onshore outsourcing is the absence of cultural differences and language barrier as you live and work in the same country. So you won’t have problems with communication and understanding each other. Also, the time zone is the same, and you don’t have to wait long for an answer due to the time difference. It will be much easier to discuss project details and address any occurring issues.  Collaborating with an onshore company means that both of you should comply with your country’s regulations, and it will be easier to determine and resolve issues. However, the main downside of the onshore developers is high labor costs. Yes, you can find highly skilled and accomplished professionals close to you, but due to the talent shortage, it will be much longer and more difficult to search. The hourly rate for the onshore software development services will be approximately $100, and the number can even attain $125 per hour. This price is probably not convenient for all companies and businesses. So, if you are on a budget, consider an offshore option.  What Is Offshore Outsourcing Software Development? Offshore outsourcing means recruiting a team of developers abroad to work remotely. Generally, companies outsourcing their projects, usually collaborate with teams from India, China, and Western European countries such as Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, etc.  The main advantage of an offshore ...