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» General Testing Information
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The Open Group's family of test suites is essential for proper development
and maintenance of standards-based products, ensuring conformance of products
to industry-standard APIs, application portability and interoperability.
This leaflet describes currently available products, supporting services
and The Open Group's on-going development program.
Importance
- The Open Group provides the industry's most complete set of API conformance
test suites, widely respected and regularly used by major IT suppliers.
- For buyers: adequate conformance testing leads to reduced integration
costs and protection of investments in applications, software and people.
- For software developers: conformance testing of platforms and middleware
greatly reduces the cost of developing and maintaining multi-platform
application software.
- For suppliers: In-depth testing increases customer satisfaction and
keeps development and support costs in check. API conformance is highly
measurable and suppliers who claim it must be able to substantiate that
claim. Many major IT procurements now require guarantees of conformance
such as the The Open Group brand and this is critically dependent on
adequate testing. It is essential to be ready for this by incorporating
appropriate testing regimes into the product release cycle at the earliest
possible stage.
Benefits
- Conformance testing as part of routine development enables product
vendors to respond to key market opportunities where conformance certification
is a mandatory requirement.
- The Open Group test suites are recognised for The Open Brand and by
the European Conformance Testing Services (CTS) program. They are also
designed to meet NIST acceptance criteria for use in US procurements.
- Key X/Open , POSIX, ISO and NIST specifications are covered by the
same test suites.
- In-depth testing by test suites identifies defects at the earliest
possible point in the development cycle, saving cost in development
and quality assurance and minimising time-to-market.
- The Open Group's common reporting and management framework - the Test
Environment Toolkit (TET) - provides for consistency and extensibility.
- Test suites are very costly in time and effort to produce and to maintain.
The Open Group's shared development approach eliminates duplication
of effort, ensures that these costs remain manageable and allows scarce
resources to be better focused on delivering value to the end customer.
How The Open Group delivers
- The Open Group develops a growing family test suites and offers an
e-mail based support and maintenance service with regular updates.
- The Open Group test suites are developed in strict alignment with
XPG specifications. This alignment is continuously maintained and reinforced.
- An open development process allows participation in the critical aspects
of test suite development through its "Test Development Groups"
(TDGs), drawing upon existing experience and providing early access
to new test suites.
- Vendors may license the test suites for in-house use. (Licensees may
also apply for recognised test laboratory status in connection with
the brand.)
- The Open Group-recognised Test Centres offer added-value services
such as enhanced support to licensees of the suites and a testing service
for non-licensees.
- A continuous requirements gathering exercise, based on input from
the The Open Group membership, is designed to ensure on-going expansion
of the test suite family in line with specification availability and
related industry requirements.
Why The Open Group?
- The Open Group is an independent, international and vendor-neutral
consortium of buyers and suppliers of information technology, dedicated
to making open systems a practical reality.
- The key elements of The Open Group's offering comprise user-driven
requirements gathering, open specification development, test suite development
and a product brand program.
- Test suites are developed and maintained in close correlation with
the relevant specifications. As The Open Group maintains many of the
key industry-wide specifications it is uniquely positioned to offer
this service.
- As each test suite is in constant use by leading suppliers to prepare
their products for brand registration, The Open Group receives a great
deal of feedback that contributes to on-going enhancements.
- The Open Group is one of the few organisations in a position to champion
the cause of open systems testing. The Open Group has no other agenda
than to make open systems work.
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