Brief about the Client and Product
When it’s about the software industry, data is the core aspect.
Similarly, our client’s product deals with data protection.
Types of data we work with, File folder level data, Application data, etc. and it’s vital to protect this data.
Our customer owns a product in Backup and Recovery domain and provides a solution to protect data across numerous versions of servers, storage, operating systems, hypervisors, and applications (VMware, Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, Citrix XenServer, NAS, SAN, Windows, Linux, SQL, SharePoint, Exchange, and Oracle).
The product offers a unique experience for any vendor who wants to protect their data across all platforms (Windows, Linux or any Unix flavors).
It has no boundaries; any file or folder level data can be protected.
This product provides some of the rich features such as, when the data is protected, then it is also available in disaster recovery scenarios.
The product ensures that the data is available based on the customer’s RTO and RPO.
Brief about the Kind of Engagement
AFour Technologies have been associated with the client from last 8 years.
Initially started with QA services, later expanded to include DevOps and technical support services.
Started with a team of 2 people and gradually increased to 50 at one point of time.
Automated complex product features and proactively automated the environment creation to a great extent.
The customer relies on us for our quality service and timely releases.
Key Highlights and Achievements
Long term engagement has enabled us in building the trust relationship with the customer.
Provided QA throughout all phases. New feature/Upgrade/Hotfix Testing, Regression, Doc Review, UI/Usability Testing, Defect Verification, Automation, Certifications.
Excellent coordination with the dev, support, and other teams those are geographically apart and work in different time zones.
Uncovered key defects and ensured the quality and stability of the product.
Proactively automated the environment creation to a great extent. Also engaged in scripting for the test data creation
Seamlessly automated complex features within a stipulated time frame.
The team is expanding, and we have started providing QA services for client’s other product.
Team Composition
We are a team of 11 people (7 manual + 4 automation) engineers who work in cohesion.
Test Architects are responsible for leading limit testing, characterization testing, and performance testing processes for the product.
Test Engineers work on main release or regression, defect hotfix verification, and platform certifications.
Automation architects are responsible for developing automation framework using Go Lang and BDD Go Dog.
Automation engineers automate the test cases in Go Lang and Python.
Active communication with development teams, and participation in feature reviews, test plan review meetings with the management.
Feature owners work with Customer (Dev/QA) directly.
We have domain expertise in Windows, Linux, VMWare, Hyper-V, Xen and AWS and Azure cloud.
We have expertise in Python, Go in Automation.
Project Delivery Process and Communication
We work in Agile model while having continuous communication with the developers.
Delivery process is based on sprint model.
We work in 3 weeks sprint, followed by a 1-week dead sprint. Here activities are carried out related to defect verification.
We verify the features developed till date, if it is stable, then its released.
Monthly releases occur at the 3rd week of every month, and hotfix releases occur twice in a month.
Significant features are added to Monthly release incrementally or once they are stable.
For client and internal communication, Google Hangouts and MS team is used.
Zoom and Webex are used for meetings/training (audio/video).
Tools and Technologies Used
Different tools and technologies used in the product:
Test and defect management: Jira for defect management, Zephyr for test case management.
Project management: Confluence
WIKI pages
KB articles
Code repo: Bitbucket, git
Languages: Go, Python
Scripting languages: PowerShell, shell scripting
BDD: GoDog, Cucumber
CI/CD: Jenkins, Ansible