Portability Testing
What is portability testing?
Portability testing is a non-functional testing methodology used to determine how easily or difficult it is to move a software component or application from one environment to another.
The results of portability testing are measurements of how easily the software component or application can be integrated into the environment. These results will be compared to the non-functional requirement of portability of the software system.
It is measured by comparing the cost of adapting the software to the new environment with the cost of re-developing it.
Benefits of portability testing
- It helps in the identification of the dependencies between two applications
- It is used in large systems which have several subsystems as part of it
- It is performed when the user of the application uses multiple environments
- Defects that are missed during the unit and integration testing are detected during this testing
- Defects that are missed during the unit and integration testing are detected during this testing
Types of portability testing
Installability is performed on software that needs to be installed in a target environment.
Computer systems that are unrelated to each other are said to be compatible when they can run in the same environment without affecting each other’s behavior. Compatibility should be performed when new or upgraded software will be rolled out into environments that already contain installed applications.
Adaptability testing checks whether a given application can function correctly in all intended target environments. An adaptive system is an open system that can fit its behavior according to changes in its environment or parts of the system itself. Specifying tests for adaptability requires combinations of the intended target environments to be identified, configured, and available to the testing team. These environments are then tested using a selection of functional test cases that exercise the various components in the environment.
Replaceability is the ability to replace one software component with another. The component that is replacing the previous component must produce the same results as the previous component in all target environments. Ideally, it should serve the same purpose as the component that is replaced.
