Smoke testing

A test suite that covers the main functionality of a component or system to determine whether it works properly before planned testing begins, also known as “Build Verification Testing”.

It can also be used to decide whether to announce a production release.

The term ‘smoke testing’ comes from a similar type of hardware testing in which the device passed the test if it did not catch fire (or smoked) the first time it was turned on.

Smoke test helps in exposing major integration problems early in the cycle. It can be conducted on both enhanced and newly created software.

Smoke test is performed manually or with the help of automation tools/scripts. If builds are frequent it is a good practice to automate smoke testing.

When an application matures through addition of functionalities, smoke tests need to be more expansive. Sometimes, it takes just one incorrect character in the code to render an entire application useless.

Advantages

• Exposes integration issues.
• Uncovers problems in early stages of development.
• Provides some level of confidence that changes to the software have not adversely affected major areas (areas covered by smoke testing)

How is smoke testing done

Whenever there is a new build the QA team defines it’s essential functionality and the smoke test is performed around it.

Once they are done the team compares the expected results against obtained data to identify showstoppers

Testing Cycle