Whenever I go to Vegas for vacation, I am amazed with the variety of entertainment that the city offers. I guess my favorite thing in Vegas is the shows, especially the Cirque du Soleil.  If you haven’t seen one of their shows, I would highly recommend you to go.

Now, if you have seen a Cirque du Soleil show, what’s your favorite?

The energy and performance of their shows is fantastic, the agility of the acrobats moving around within the magnificent stage and sounds effects make me think:   how much preparation do they need to get to that level of perfection! Everything is so well put together… it’s perfect!

The interesting thing is that we, in IT, are not too different. There is a lot of creation and preparation to deliver applications to our customers.  … especially if you strive for perfection.

I’m part of our product marketing team and HP Discover is certainly somewhere in the job description.   But, that’s not why I’m really going.

Of course it could be that I love Vegas and the excitement and energy of the whole environment, but that’s not why.

Want to know why I'm really going to HP DIscover?

I was recently attending the Software Testing Professionals’ conference to learn more about the testing professional and what issues would be addressable with the HP Service Virtualization solution.

Testers often have to predict what actions a user would perform when using the application.  I call that “the gift of predicting people’s mind!”

Well, when executing manual testing, I am sure that you, as brilliant minds, would like to concentrate in the fun part of testing and not be tied to the very tedious and time consuming part of the job. When you have to refer to multiple sources (test script, test data, a defect tracker, application under test, documentation) and keep going back and forth, it reduces your fun a lot!

Read more and comment if you agree/disagree with me...

Some virtual aspirin for your Agile Testing Headaches

It’s clear to me that mobile is rapidly becoming the modern systems of engagement, and it seems like almost everyone is rapidly rolling out new applications.  Earlier today HP made several announcements about our ongoing work to help organizations meet the dynamic demands to support modern application delivery of mobile applications and mobile services.   (Here's the press release)

I want to expand a bit on our mobile application testing approach and think reflecting on my recent experience at Mobile World Congress is a good place to start.  The mobile industry isn’t moving fast, rather it’s crazy fast.  

On a scale of 1 to 10… it feels like we’re approaching 11.   

 I came away from this year’s weeklong event with three key observations:

Hi there,

Well, we see the mobile market growing, as per Forrester “1 billion consumers will own smartphones by 2016”, and some start-ups may not think about the risks of not performing load testing. One of the issues that the start-ups face is time and budget to test as well.

How much are you willing to risk?

Definitely, most of these mini cute apps should be considered for Load Testing, especially if these mini apps support heavily business outcomes.

What is your take?

Lower you time and cost for load testing!

We are very excited to share this news with you! HP’s new HP LoadRunner-in-the-Cloud OEM partner solution enables certified partners to deliver flexible performance testing on demand delivered in a short-term consumption based model via cloud.

HP LoadRunner-in-the-Cloud is Scalable & Elastic, Cloud based Service and Affordable!

Did you get it right? Learn how to be predictable with HP LoadRunner!

We’re pushing through the end of January with more mobile month insight and help.   We just finished producing an On-Demand webinar focusing on Mobile Challenges.  “Address the end to end challenges of mobile application delivery with HP Software”

We also have a great session next week where we’ll have a panel of 5 mobile experts who will respond to your live questions about mobile applications, mobile testing, mobile security; pretty much anything mobile.  “Solving Mobile Application Challenges – Your Questions answered by an Expert Panel”

Having a strategy and plan is incredibly important.   Too often, just winging it doesn’t get you where you really want to be.  This is true in life, and work.  As companies work to deploy and leverage mobile solutions, this continues to be true. 

In the January edition of the Discover Performance E-Zine, there is a great article on this specific topic.   Check out the details here.  Discover Performance –Five Steps to a Better Mobile Strategy

If you’re interested in HP LoadRunner or Performance Center you can follow us
- on the HP Performance Validation Blog  or even follow us @hploadrunner on Twitter

And if you’re looking for functional testing – you need to check out The Future of Testing Blog

Of course- go to www.hp.com/go/mobiletesting for all things related to HP mobile testing

As mobile month continues with information and insight about mobile challenges and solutions.  Testing applications on mobile devices can be complicated and challenging.   Often, one of the considerations that all QA teams have to address is the question of ‘how’ to test the mobile application.   Of the many options, it often can be distilled into two main options:  Emulators or Real Devices.  In this post, our guest blogger – Gidi Pridor will explore the options and share factors that you should consider when answering the question:  Emulators or Real Devices.

ps - remember to register for our Mobile Month Q&A webinar on the 31st of Jan

We’re continuing to explore various aspects of mobile testing, ranging from mobile application testing, mobile performance testing, mobile monitoring and other challenges that mobile applications introduce.    In last week’s update about our upcomming webinars, I announced 3 upcoming webinars, and now have an update about our webinar on the 31st of January.     This will be a lively and interactive Q&A session, where we will have an expert panel,  who will be ready to field your questions.   From Mobile Security, functional testing, performance testing to mobile strategy --  The panel will be able to help answer your questions...   Check out the details in today's blog post.

As we continue Mobile Month, one of the main topics is mobile testing - how to plan and test mobile applications to ensure that they deliver the right business results when deployed.   Today, I'm happy to share a guest blog by Gidi Pridor of Perfecto Mobile, where he explores key elements of an effective mobile testing strategy.

As we continue Mobile Month, and focus on a broad range of topics, ranging from mobile functional testing, mobile performance testing, security and monitoring, today's blog is about the importance of understanding how your application is actually working in production.   I'm happy to have Eyal Kenigsberg and  Lior Matkovitch share their insight and perspective about monitoring mobile apps.

Also - don't forget - Two great mobile webinars next week!!!  

1.   Are These Mobile Testing Dilemmas Keeping You Up at Night

Date/Time:         2 pm – 3 pm EST, January 23, 2012

2.  You Can't Afford to Fail: Take the guesswork out of mobile performance testing with Shunra and HP

Date/Time:   11 am -12 pm EST, January 24, 2012 

Mobile applications are everywhere.  You see them being used on planes, trains and automobiles.   I’m sure that many of you received new mobile devices as gifts for the holidays and are busy playing Angry Birds or Words with Friends.   The power and flexibility of mobile applications to change business processes and implement innovative solutions is amazing.   I recently downloaded an app that lets me measure my heart rate with my phone!  It’s not surprising that mobile is taking off.

But, what does that mean for the QA teams that are responsible for testing mobile applications?  They face a number new challenges that mobile devices introduce.    

Remember to register for next week's mobile month webinars:  

1.   Are These Mobile Testing Dilemmas Keeping You Up at NightDate/Time:         2 pm – 3 pm EST, January 23, 2012

2.  You Can't Afford to Fail: Take the guesswork out of mobile performance testing with Shunra and HP

Date/Time:   11 am -12 pm EST, January 24, 2012 

As we continue Mobile Month and we’re continuing to share insight, innovation and solutions to help you address your mobile challenges.   Mobile performance is one of those areas.  You are either willing to that there might be a problem, or are proactive about ensuring that our mobile users have the best possible experience.  I’ve seen research that indicates that users expect their mobile devices to perform more or less as fast as their PC.    So, if you’re taking the chance that performance will be OK, then that might be a pretty big gamble.    

Today, we have two guest bloggers – Mark Tomlinson and Esther Levine, from Shunra who are sharing their insight and perspective about how to deliver better mobile performance

Also, we're very interested in hearing from you... about your experience with mobile testing.  If you have a few minutes, please share your perspective in our BRIEF Mobile Research survey.

As you recall in the post last week about our mobile month activities and events, I said we would have more updates.   Since that post, we’ve already covered a few interesting topics, from monitoring mobile apps to mobile performance.  

There are lots of exciting and informative mobile testing and general mobile topics we’ll be covering in the next few weeks.   But first, I want to share the plans for upcoming webinars.  

There are three scheduled live events, which you won’t want to miss.

This is mobile month, and we're talking about more than just mobile testing.   Not because mobile testing isn't important.    It is.   But, there are more challenges to mobile than just testing.  

In this guest blog post by Amy Feldman, Sr. Product Mktg Mgr for HP's APM and BAC team as she explores some of the monitoring challenges that mobile applications introduce.   From a project / development team perspective, I think it's incredibly important for development teams and operations teams to work more and more closely together.   Honestly, it's almost impossible to move at the speed of mobile, if you have a "throw it over the wall" attitude.   Be sure to read her blog post here.. .and don't forget to check out her other posts at www.hp.com/go/bsmblog

Have you encountered performance challenges with mobile applications?  

In many situations, the only ‘performance’ problem I have is a bad signal or no signal at all.  Don’t worry - I’m not going to talk about mobile carriers and which is better, but I am going to talk about performance and load testing of mobile applications.  In fact, I learned about an interesting load testing scenario that you need to consider in when testing your mobile applications.

Are you under the gun to test and deliver new mobile applications this 

year?  Is the business pushing for more and more mobile solutions?   Are you looking for where to start and what next?

Good. 

Because, this is Mobile Month and we’ve got at least 20 updates and events planed over the next 4 weeks all designed to help educate and illuminate the mobile challenges and more importantly… how we can help.   From requirements to functional and performance testing, mobile can be complicated and challenging.

Are you ready for the holidays? 

Shopping, decorations, all done? 

How much of your shopping did you do online--- how much was on mobile devices? 

Mobile applications are rapidly growing, and you need to have a strategy and plan for how to test and deploy mobile applications.  If you’re interested in learning more about mobile applications testing and delivery, there is a great webinar planned for December 21st at 2pm EST

I just finished a fantastic week at HP Discover in Vienna Austria, and had a great opportunity to meet many of our customers and learn about their mobile challenges.   I also moderated a great panel focused on mobile testing.   I think the audience learned a lot, I know I did.  Here are the top 3 things I learned about mobile testing

We are pleased to announce that QTP 11.0 now supports Google Chrome. To download the hotfix and more information about the patch, please visit QTPWEB_00088.

A little banter on automation ROI and some guidance on metrics.

Modern applications can make cross-team collaboration and management of development activities in the context of the application lifecycle challenging as well as time consuming and error-prone.

Join this web seminar to gain specific insights into how you can increase team productivity, remove barriers for collaboration between development and QA, and increase delivery predictability while embracing a freedom of choice with tools and methodologies.

In this web seminar, we’ll discuss three main points...

A recent technology audit coming from Ovum, analyst firm, states that: “HP Sprinter marks a new look at manual testing, wherein the focus is clearly on simplifying the day-to-day tasks of manual functional testers… Sprinter has been built from scratch and is relevant to teams practicing agile as well as complex development projects that require many components to be tested together iteratively”.

“Ovum expects that this renewed focus by the market leader on manual testing, a practice that has not changed in many years, will bring about positive change in the way that manual testing is currently executed.”

Ovum, Technology Audit, May, 2011, reference code: OI00070-046

HP and Infosys, a leading service provider of Enterprises IT Services, have announced a partnership of a joint comprehansive test data management solution - TDM 360.

See posting for more information.

Learn more about the pros and cons of using QTP vs. Selenium