Quality Web Systems: Performance, Security, and Usability [Paperback]

Elfriede Dustin (Author), Jeff Rashka (Author), Douglas McDiarmid (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201719363 | ISBN-13: 978-0201719369 | Publication Date: September 2, 2001 | Edition: 1

Enterprise Web developers are trapped between a rock and a hard place: they're under tremendous pressure to get to market fast -- but if they deploy systems of poor quality, they will drive away customers -- losing revenue and market share for years to come. Quality Web Systems gives software professionals start-to-finish resources for enhancing quality and accelerating development at the same time. Quality Web Systems identifies the key obstacles to delivering Web systems that deliver promised levels of performance, security, and usability -- and proven solutions. Coverage includes: identifying key success criteria for Web development; specifying Web system functionality through RSI (Requirement-Service-Interface) use cases; creating test cases; checking browser and platform compatibility; identifying and testing for security vulnerabilities; planning and evaluating ease-of-use; and meeting specified performance and scalability requirements.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...an excellent guide to implementing testing strategies that will results in web sites that work while speeding time-to-market." -- Diane Hagglund, Mercury Interactive

From the Back Cover

Today's web software professionals must deliver new web applications to market quickly, while incorporating proper functionality, ease-of-use, security, and performance. This pressure underscores the need for effective engineering that facilitates both quality and rapid web system development.

Quality Web Systems provides web developers and software test professionals with practical, experience-based guidance on web system engineering. Concise and straightforward, this book provides a framework for ensuring that key web system success criteria is addressed during the development of the web system. Detailed, technical guidance is provided for each success criteria, including testing strategies that allow for verification of a quality implementation.

This book addresses the key success factors of quality web systems including: proper specification of system functionality, ease-of-use, compatibility with a variety of browsers, security, and system performance and scalability. Engineering these qualities into the system throughout the development life cycle, while performing relevant testing, prevents flaws that can later prove to be disastrous, and produces a product that is well-received by its customers.

A case study is used throughout the book to illustrate practical applications of issues, approaches, strategies, and techniques.

Specific topics covered include:

• Web system success criteria
• Engineering functionality through use case analysis
• Test cases from RSI use cases
• Security of web system components and databases
• Compatibility with multiple web browsers
• Performance and scalability behavior
• Load analysis and capacity planning
• Usability concerns and test strategies
• Test tool evaluation guide

With the information and guidance in Quality Web Systems, you will be better able to ensure the development of a quality, timely, and successful web application.

0201719363B08102001

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (September 2, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201719363
• ISBN-13: 978-0201719369
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,875,190 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I enjoy researching new ideas and discovering new approaches to the automated software testing challenge. Software development is still an art and that makes automated software testing a special challenge. At IDT (www.idtus.com) we strive to meet that challenge and produce an reusable automated testing framework that includes reusable automated testing components. I have a B.S. in Computer Science with over 20 years of IT experience, implementing effective testing strategies, both on Government and commercial programs. I work for IDT (www.idtus.com) - a leader in automated software testing solutions -, and I have implemented automated testing methodologies and testing strategies as an Internal SQA Consultant at Symantec, worked as an Asst. Director for Integrated Testing at the IRS Modernization Efforts, implemented testing strategies and built test teams as a QA Director for BNA Software, and was the QA Manager for the Coast Guard MOISE program, just to name a few of the companies and testing/QA efforts I have worked on in the past 20 years.
I am the author and co-author of 6 books related to Software Testing, i.e. author of the book 'Effective Software Testing' and lead author of 'Automated Software Testing' and 'Quality Web Systems,' and co-authored the book 'The Art of Software Security Testing,' together with Chris Wysopal, Lucas Nelson, Dino D'ai Zovi, which was published by Symantec Press, Nov 2006.
Together with IDT CEO Bernie Gauf and IDT FSO and Sys Admin Guru Thom Garrett we wrote the latest book "Implementing Automated Software Testing" and the book is getting rave reviews.
My goal is to continue to help further automated software testing advances and contribute to solving the automated software testing challenge.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book on various quality topics, November 19, 2001

By 

Jeff Nyman - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quality Web Systems: Performance, Security, and Usability (Paperback)

This book was a joy to read. It gives a great overview of quality issues within "Web systems" - meaning Web applications and architectures. The book balances a too-specific look with a too-general look and succeeds quite well in a balanced treatment that will make the whole worth the attention of any quality assurance or quality tester professional in the Information Technology industry.

In particular, the second chapter, on the RSI Approach, is a nice addition as this is something that most practitioners of quality subjects will not find elsewhere and the general subject matter is generally that which is avoided in books of this type. Another topic often avoided in these books is that of usability and accessibility concerns and yet these are covered here in good detail chapter six.

In general, I think the book offered a great amount of detail just where it was needed and gave a lot of "mini best-practices" in each chapter with the use of bulleted lists to highlight specific points. The detail of the book extends to various topics, like performance, compatibility, usability, and security - all topics that are of high concern in the current world of making qualitly Web systems that customers and user respond to. The appendices in the book are also excellent. The "Test Tool Evaluations" section will be a welcome addition to those who wish there are more concise evaluation forms for automated tool solutions.

I highly recommend this book to quality assurance/testing professionals, quality assurance managers, and even those who work more in the project management and development spheres. Those latter will get benefit from the book because the book manages to highlight topics of concern to both groups and also gives them insight into the quality aspects of the projects and products that are developed within an organization.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical and relevant, August 30, 2001

By 

Ms. Mary R. Sweeney "M. R. Sweeney 'book lover" (Issaquah, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Quality Web Systems: Performance, Security, and Usability (Paperback)

Quality Web Systems is another thorough and complete book by the same team who wrote Automated Software Testing. I am finding the same quality and insight in this book. Web Systems testing is THE critical testing area in software quality assurance today. I appreciate the thoughtful and practical approach this text takes. I found the sections on Usability Test Strategies and the test tool evaluation guide particularly relevant to my situation. I think this is a book every tester should have. I highly recommend it.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Once again another blockbuster!, September 25, 2001

By 

Amjad Alhait "AJ" (Campbell, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Quality Web Systems: Performance, Security, and Usability (Paperback)

This is one of the best quality assurance books in a while... Thinner than Automated Software Testing, but as informative! If you are doing any kind of web testing, this one's a must have for your library. Talks about all aspects of software testing on the web. I give it 5 stars hands down!