ISTQB Glossary

Benchmark Testing

(1) A standard against which measurements or comparisons can be made. (2) A test that is used to compare components or systems to each other or to a standard as in (1)

Decision Table Testing

A Black box test design technique in which test cases are designed to execute the combination of inputs and/or stimuli (causes) show in a decision table.

LCSAJ

A Linear Code Sequence And Jump, consist of the following three items (conventionally identified by line numbers in a source code listing): the start of the linear sequence of executable statements, the end of the linear sequence and the target line to which control flow is transferred at the end of the linear sequence.

Branch

A basic block that can be selected for execution based on a program construct in which one of two or more alternative program paths is available e.g. case jump, go to, if-then-else.

Elementary Comparison Testing

A black Box test design technique in which test cases are designed to execute combinations of inputs using the concept of modified condition decision coverage.

Boundary Value Analysis

A black box test design technique in which test cases are designed based on boundary values.

Syntax Testing

A black box test design technique in which test cases are designed based upon the definition of the input domain and/or output domain.

Process Cycle Test

A black box test design technique in which test cases are designed to execute business procedures and processes.

Equivalence Partitioning

A black box test design technique in which test cases are designed to execute representatives from equivalence partitions. In principle test cases are designed to cover each partition at least once.

Use Case Testing

A black box test design technique in which test cases are designed to execute scenarios of use cases.

State Transition Testing

A black box test design technique in which test cases are designed to execute valid and invalid state transitions.

Classification Tree Method

A black box test design technique in which test cases, described by means of a classification tree, are designed to execute combinations of representatives of input and/or output domains.

N-Wise Testing

A black box test test design technique in which test cases are designed to execute all possible discrete combinations of any set of n input parameters.

Test Log

A chronological record of relevant details about the execution of tests.

Finite State Machine

A computational model consisting of a finite number of states and transitions between those stats, possibly with accompanying actions.

Requirement

A condition or capability needed by a user to solve a problem or achieve an objective that must be met or possessed by a system or system component to satisfy a contract, standard, specification, or other formally imposed document.

Pointer

A data item that specifies the location of another data item; for example, a data item that specifies the address of the next employee record to be processed.

Escaped Defect

A defect that was not detected in a previous test level which is supposed to find such type of defects.

Component Specification

A description of a component's function in terms of its output values for specified input values under specified conditions, and required non-functional behavior.

Testability Review

A detailed check of the test basis to determine whether the test basis is at an adequate quality level to act as an input document for the test process.

Daily Build

A development activity whereby a complete system is complied and linked every day (often overnight), so that a consistent system is available at any time including all latest changes.

Embedded Iterative Development Model

A development life cycle sub-model that applies an iterative approach to detailed design, coding and testing within an overall sequential model. In this case, high level design documents are prepared and approved for the entire project but the actual detailed design, code development and testing are conducted in iterations.

Incremental Development Model

A development life-cycle where a project is broken into a series if increments, each of which delivers a portion of the functionality in the overall project requirements. The requirements are prioritized and delivered in priority order in the appropriate increment. In some version of this life-cycle model, each sub project follows a mini V-model with its own design, coding and testing phase.

Iterative Development Model

A development lifecycle where a project is broken into a usually large number of iterations. An iteration is a complete development loop resulting in a release (internal or external) of an executable product, a subset of the final product under development, which grows from iteration to iteration to become the final product.

Buffer

A device or storage area used to store data temporarily for differences in rates of data flow, time or occurrence of events, or amounts of data that can be handled by the devices of processes involved in the transfer or use of the data

Simulator

A device, computer program or system used during testing, which behaves or operates like a given system when provided with a set of controlled inputs.

Emulator

A device, computer program, or system that accepts the same inputs and produces the same outputs as a given system.

State Diagram

A diagram that depicts the state that a component or system can assume, and shows the events or circumstances that cause and/or result from a change from one state to another.

Configuration Management

A discipline applying technical and administrative direction and surveillance to; identify and document the functional and physical characteristics of a configuration item, control changes to those characteristics, record and report change processing and implementation status, and verify compliance with specified requirements.

Test Phase

A distinct set of test activities collected into a manageable phase of a project, e.g. the execution activities of a test level.

Test Plan

A document describing the scope, approach, resources and schedule of intended test activities. It identifies amongst others test items, the features to be tested, the testing tasks, who will do each task, degree of tester independence, the test environment, the test design technique and entry and exit criteria to be used, and the rationale for their choice, and any risk requiring contingency planning. It is record of the test planning process.

Release Note

A document identifying test items, their configuration, current status and other delivery information delivered by development to testing, and possibly other stakeholders, at the start of a test execution phase.

Test Evaluation Report

A document produced at the end of the test process summarizing all testing activities and results. It also contains an evaluation of the test process and lessons learned.

Incident Report

A document reporting on any event that occurred e.g. during the teting, which requires investigation.

Defect Report

A document reporting on any flaw in a component or system that can cause the component or system to fail to perform its required function.

Test Procedure Specification

A document specifying a sequence of actions for the execution of a test. Also known as test script or manual test script.

Test Case Specification

A document specifying a set of test cases (objective, inputs, test actions, expected results, and execution preconditions) for a test item.

Test Design Specification

A document specifying the test condition (coverage item) for a test item, the detailed test approach and identifying the associated high level test cases.

Test Progress Report

A document summarizing testing activities and results, produced at regular intervals, to report progress of testing activities against a baseline (such as the original test plan) and to communicate risks and alternatives requiring a decision to management.

Test Summary Report

A document summarizing testing activities and results. It also contains an evaluation of the corresponding test items against exit criteria.

Test Specification

A document that consists of a test design specification, test case specification and/or test procedure specification.

Specifications

A document that specifies, ideally in a complete, precise and verifiable manner, the requirements, design, behavior or other characteristics of a component or system, and often, the procedures for determining whether these provisions have been satisfied.

Risk

A factor that could result in future negative consequences; usually expressed as impact and likelihood.

Quality Attribute

A feature or characteristic that affects an items quality.

Defect

A flaw in a component or system that can cause the component or system to fail to perform its required function e.g. an incorrect statement or data definition. A defect, if encountered during execution, may cause a failure of the component or system.

N-Switch Testing

A form of state transition testing in which test cases are designed to execute all valid sequences of N+1 transitions.

Test Point Analysis

A formula based test estimation method based on function point analysis.

V-model

A framework to describe the software development lifecycle activities from requirements specification to maintenance. The V-model illustrates how testing activities can be integrated into each phase of the software development lifecycle.

State Table

A grid showing the resulting transition for each state combined with each possible event, showing both valid and invalid transitions.

Configuration Control Board (CCB)

A group of people responsible for evaluating and approving or disapproving proposed changes to configuration items, and for ensuring implementation of approved changes.

Agile Software Development

A group of software development methodologies based on iterative incremental deveolpment, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams.

Test Type

A group of test activities aimed at testing a component or system focused on a specific test objective, i.e. functional test, usability test, regression test etc. A test type may take place on one or more test levels or test phases.

Test Level

A group of test activities that are organized and managed together. A test level is linked to the responsibilities in a project. Examples of test levels are component test, integration test, system test and acceptance test.

Test Policy

A high level document describing the principles, approach and major objectives of the organization regarding testing.

Performance Indicator

A high level metric of effectiveness and/or efficiency used to guide and control progressive development, e.g. lead-time slip for software development.

Test Performance Indicator

A high level metric of effectiveness and/or efficiency used to guide and control progressive test development

Test Strategy

A high-level description of the test levels to be performed and the testing within those levels for an organization or programme.

User Story

A high-level user or business requirement commonly used in agile software development, typically consisting of one or more sentences in the everyday or business language capturing what functionality a user needs, any non-functional criteria, and also includes acceptance criteria.

Error

A human action that produces an incorrect result.

Top-down Testing

A incremental approach to integration testing where the component at the top of the component hierarchy is tested first, with lower level components being simulated by stubs. Tested components are then used to test lower level components. The process is repeated until the lowest level components have been tested.

Test Schedule

A list of activities, tasks or events of the test process, identifying their intended start and finish date and/or times, and interdependencies.

Condition

A logical expression that can be evaluated as True or False.

Metric

A measurement scale and the method used for measurement.

Buffer Overflow

A memory access failure due to the attempt by a process to store data beyond the boundaries of a fixed length buffer, resulting in overwriting of adjacent memory areas or the raising of an overflow exception.

Session-based Test Management

A method for measuring and managing session-based testing, e.g. exploratory testing.

Mutation Analysis

A method to determine test suite thoroughness by measuring the extent to which a test suite can discriminate the program from slight variants of the program.

Quality Function Deployment

A method to transform user demands into design quality, to deploy the functions forming quality, and to deploy methods for achieving the design quality into subsystems and component parts, and ultimately to specific elements of the manufacturing process.

DD-path

A path between two decisions of an algorithm, or two decision nodes of a corresponding graph, that includes no other decisions.

Audit Trail

A path by which the original input to a process(e.g. data) can be traced back through the process, taking process output as a starting point. This facilitates defect analysis and allows a process audit ti be carried out.

Feasible Path

A path for which a set of input values and preconditions exist which causes it to be executed.

Infeasible Path

A path that cannot be exercised by any set of possible input values.

Technical Review

A peer group discussion activity that focuses on achieving consensus on the technical approach to be taken.

Hyperlink

A pointer within a web page that leads to other web pages.

Equivalence Partition

A portion of an input or output domain for which the behavior of a component or system is assumed to be the same, based on the specification,

Process Reference Model

A process model providing a generic body of best practices and how to improve a process in a prescribes step-by-step manner.

Quality Risk

A product risk related to a quality attribute.

Exercised

A program element is said to be exercised by a test case when the input value causes the execution of that element, such as a statement, decision, or other structural element.

Process Improvement

A program of activities designed to improve the performance and maturity of the organization's processes and the result of such a program.

Decision

A program point at which the control flow has two or more alternative routes. A node with two or more links to separate branches.

Scripting Language

A programming language in which executable test scripts are written, used by a test execution tool.

Project

A project is a unique set of coordinated and controlled activities with start and finish dates undertaken to achieve an objective conforming to specific requirements including the constraints of time cost and resources.

Burndown Chart

A publicly displayed chart that depicts the outstanding effort versus time in an iteration. It shows the status and trend of completing the tasks of the iteration. The X-axis typically represents days in the sprint , while the Y-axis is the remaining effort in engineering hours or story points.

Test Objective

A reason or purpose for designing and executing a test.

Scorecard

A representation of summarized performance measurements representing progress towards the implementation of long-term goals. A scorecard provides static measurements of performance over or at the end of a defined interval.

Non-functional Requirement

A requirement that does not relate to functionality, but to attributes such as reliability, efficiency, usability, maintainability and portability.

Testable Requirements

A requirement that is stated in terms that permit establishment of test designs (and subsequently test cases) and execution of tests to determine whether the requirement has been met.

Functional Requirement

A requirement that specifies a function that a component or system must perform.

Formal Review

A review characterized by documented procedures and requirements

Informal Review

A review not based on a formal procedure.

Peer Review

A review of a software work product by colleagues of the producer of the product for the purpose of identifying defects and improvements. Examples are inspections, technical reviews and walk-through.

Product-Risk

A risk directly related to the test object.

Project Risk

A risk related to management and control of the (test) project, e.g. lack of staffing, strict deadlines, changing requirements, etc.

Measurement Scale

A scale that constrains the type of data analysis that can be performed on it.

Test Execution Schedule

A scheme for the execution of test procedures. Note: The test procedures are included in the test execution schedule in their context and in the order in which they are to be executed.

Data-Driven Testing

A scripting technique that stores test input and expected results in a table or spreadsheet, so that a single control script can execute all of the tests in the table. Data-driven testing is often used to support the application of test execution tools such as capture/playback tools.

Keyword-Driven Testing

A scripting technique that uses files to contain not only test data and expected results, but also keywords related to the application being tested. The Keywords are interpreted by special supporting scripts that are called by the control script for the test.

Control Flow

A sequence of events (paths) in the execution through a component or system.

Path

A sequence of events, e.g. executable statements, of a component or system from an entry point to an exit point.

Subpath

A sequence of executable statements within a component.

Basic Block

A sequence of one or more consecutive executable statements containing no branches. Note: a node in a control flow graph represents a basic block.

Use Case

A sequence of transactions in a dialogue between an actor and a component or system with a tangible result, where an actor can be a user or anything that can exchange information with the system.

Pseudo-Random

A series which appears to be random but is in fact generated according to some prearranged sequence.

Build Verification Test

A set of automated test which validates the integrity of each new build and verifies its key/core functionality, stability and testability. It is an industry practice when a high frequency of build releases occurs (e.g. agile process) and it is run on every new build before the build is released for further testing. See also regression and smoke testing.

Test Case

A set of input values, execution preconditions, expected results and execution postconditions, developed for a particular objective or test condition, such as to exercise a particular program path or to verify compliance with a specific requirement.

Process

A set of interrelated activities, which transform inputs into outputs.

Risk Type

A set of risks grouped by one or more common factors such ad a quality attribute, cause, location, or potential effect of risk; a specific set of product risk types is related to the types of testing that can mitigate that risk type. For example the risk of user-interactions being misunderstood can be mitigated by usability testing.

Test Suite

A set of several test cases for a component or system under test, where the post condition of one test is often used as the precondition for the next one.

Basis Test Set

A set of test cases derived from the internal structure of a component or specification to ensure that 100% of a specified coverage criterion will be achieved.

Stub

A skeletal or special-purpose implementation of a software component, used to develop or test a component that calls or is otherwise dependent on it. It replaces a called component.

Tester

A skilled professional who is involved in the testing of a component or system.

Driver

A software component or test tool that replaces a component that takes care of the control and/or the calling of a component or system.

Pair Programming

A software development approach whereby lines of code (production and/or test) of a component are written by two programmers sitting at a single computer. This implicitly means ongoing real-time code reviews are performed.

Off-the-shelf Software

A software product that is developed for the general market i.e. for a large number of customers, and that is delivered to many customers in identical format.

Monitor

A software tool or hardware devise that runs concurrently with the component or system under test and supervises, records and/or analysis the behavior of the component or system.

Compiler

A software tool that translates programs in a high order language into their machine language equivalents.

Instrumenter

A software tool used to carry out instrumentation.

Test Oracle

A source to determine expected results to compare with the actual results of the software under test. An oracle may be the existing system ( for benchmark), other software, a user manual, or an individual's specialized knowledge, but should not be the code.

Intake Test

A special instance of a smoke test to decide if the component or system is ready for detail

Quality Gate

A special milestone in a project. Quality gates are located between those phases of a project strongly depending on the outcome of a previous phase. A quality gate includes a formal check of the documents of the previous phase.

Load Profile

A specification of the activity which a component or system being tested may experience in production. A load profile consists of a designated number of virtual users who process a defined set of transactions in a specified time period and according to a predefined operational profile.

Baseline

A specification or software product that has been formally reviewed or agreed upon, that thereafter serves as the basis for further development, and that can be changed only through a formal change process.

Test Charter

A statement of test objectives and possibly test ideas about how to test. Test charters are used in exploratory testing.

Agile Manifesto

A statement on the values that underpin agile software development. The values are: -individuals and interactions over processes and tools -working software over comprehensive documentation -customer collaboration over contract negotiations -responding to change over following a plan.

Predicate

A statement that can evaluate to true or false and may be used to determine the control flow or subsequent decision logic.

Executable Statement

A statement which, when compiled, is translated into object code, and which will be executed procedurally when the program is running and may perform an action on data.

Walkthrough

A step-by-step presentation by the author of a document in order to gather information and to establish a common understanding of its content.

Maturity Model

A structured collection of elements that describe certain aspects of maturity in an organization and aid in the definition and understanding of an organizations processes. A maturity model often provides a common language, shared vision and framework for prioritizing improvement actions.

Smoke Test

A subset of all defined/planned test cases that cover the main functionality of a component or system to ascertaining that the most crucial functions of a program work, but not bothering with finer details.

Best Practices

A superior method or innovative practice that contributes to the improved performance of an organization under given context, usually recognized as the best by other peer organizations.

Defect Taxonomy

A system of categories designed to be a useful aid for reproducibly classifying defects.

Safety Critical System

A system whose failure or malfunction may result in death or serious injury to people, or loss or severe damage to equipment , or environmental harm.

PRISMA (Product Risk Management)

A systematic approach to risk-based testing that employs product risk identification and analysis to create a product risk matrix based on likelihood and impact.

Decision Table

A table showing combinations of inputs and/or stimuli (causes) with their associated outputs and/or actions (effects), which can be used to design test cases.

Hazard Analysis

A technique used to characterize the elements of risk. The result of a hazard analysis will drive the methods used for development and testing of a system.

Exhaustive Testing

A test approach in which the test suite comprises all combinations of input values and preconditions.

Frozen Test Basis

A test basis document that can only be amended by a formal change control process.

Blocked Test Case

A test case that cannot be executed because the preconditions for its execution are not filled.

Statistical Testing

A test design technique in which a model of the statistical distribution of the input is used to construct representative test cases.

Error Guessing

A test design technique where the experience of the tester is used to anticipate what defects might be presenting the component or system under test as a result of errors made, and to design tests specifically to expose them.

Test Harness

A test environment comprised of stubs and drivers needed to execute a test.

Three Point Estimation

A test estimation method using estimated values for the "best case" "worst case", and "most likely case" of the matter being estimated, to define the degree of certainty associated with the resultant estimate.

Fail

A test is deemed to fail if its actual result does not match its expected result.

Pass

A test is deemed to pass if its actual results match its expected results.

Test Control

A test management task that deals with developing and applying a set of corrective actions to get a test project on track when monitoring shows a deviation from what was planned.

Test Monitoring

A test management task that deals with the activities related to periodically checking the status of a test project. Reports are prepared that compare the actuals to that which was planned.

Phase Test Plan

A test plan that typically addresses one test phase.

False-Fail Result

A test result in which a defect is reported although no such defect actually exists in the test object

False-Pass Result

A test result which fails to identify the presence of a defect that is actually present in the test object.`

Test Comparator

A test tool to perform automated test comparison of actual results with expected results.

User Test

A test whereby real-life users are involved to evaluate the usability of a component or system.

Performance Testing Tool

A tool t support performance testing that usually has two main facilities: load generation and test transaction measurement. Load generation can simulate either multiple users or high volumes of input data. During execution, response time measurements are taken from selected transactions and these are logged. Performance testing tools normally provide reports based in test logs and graphs of load against response times.

Static Code Analyzer

A tool that carries out static code analysis. The tool checks source code, for certain properties such as conformance to coding standards, quality metrics or data flow anomalies.

Defect Management Tool

A tool that facilitate the recording and status tracking of defects and changes. They often have workflow-oriented facilities to track and control the allocation, correction and re-testing if defects and provide reporting facilities.

Unit Test Framework

A tool that provides an environment for unit or component testing in which a component can be tested in isolation or with suitable stubs and drivers. It also provides other support for the developer, such as debugging capabilities.

Coverage Tool

A tool that provides objective measures of what structural element e.g. statements, branches have been exercised by a test suite.

Dynamic Analysis Tool

A tool that provides run-time information on the state of the software code. These tools are most commonly used to identify unassigned pointers, check pointer arithmetic and to monitor the allocation, use and de-allocation of memory and to flag memory leaks.

Security Testing Tool

A tool that provides support for testing security characteristics and vulnerabilities.

Configuration Management Tool

A tool that provides support for the identification and control of configuration items, their status over changes and versions, and the release of baselines consisting of configuration items.

Review Tool

A tool that provides support to the review process. Typical features include review planning and tracking support, communication support, collaborative reviews and a repository for collecting and reporting of metrics.

Test Management Tool

A tool that provides support to the test management and control part of a test process. It often has several capabilities, such as testware management, scheduling of tests, the logging of results, progress tracking, incident management and test reporting.

Security Tool

A tool that supports operational security

Stress Testing Tool

A tool that supports stress testing.

Modeling Tool

A tool that supports the creation, amendment and verification of models of the software or system.

Requirements Management Tool

A tool that supports the recording of requirements, requirement attributes and annotations, and facilitates traceability through layers of requirements and requirement change management. Some requirements management tools also provide facilities for static analysis, such as consistency checking and violations to pre-defined requirements rules.

Test Design Tool

A tool that supports the test design activity by generating test inputs from a specification that may be held in a CASE tool repository e.g. requirements management tool, from specified test conditions held in the tool itself, or from code.

Load Testing Tool

A tool to support load testing whereby it can simulate increasing load e.g. numbers of concurrent users and/or transaction within a specified time-period

Debugging Tool

A tool used by programmers to reproduce failures, investigate the state of programs and find the corresponding defect. Debuggers enable programmers to execute programs step by step, to halt a program at any program statement and to set and examine program variables.

State Transition

A transition between two state of a component or system.

Classification Tree

A tree showing equivalence partitions hierarchically ordered, which is used to design test cases in the classification tree method.

Traceability Matrix

A two-dimensional table, which correlates two entities (e.g. requirements and test cases). The table allows tracing back and forth the links of one entity to the other, thus enabling the determination of coverage achieved and the assessment of impact of proposed changes.

Inspection

A type of peer review that relies on visual examination of documents to detect defects e.g. violation of development standards and non-conformance to higher level documentation. The most formal review technique and therefore always based on a documented procedure.

Load Testing

A type of performance testing conducted to evaluate the behavior of a component or system with increasing load, e.g. numbers of parallel users and/or numbers of transaction, to determine what load can be handled by the component or system

Test Data Preparation Tool

A type of test tool that enables data to be selected from existing databases or created, generated, manipulated and edited for use in testing.

Test Execution Tool.

A type of test tool that is able to execute other software using an automated test script.

Stress Testing

A types of performance testing conducted to evaluate a system or component at or beyond the limits of its anticipated or specified workloads, or with reduced availability of resources such as access to memory or servers.

Input

A variable (whether stored within a component or outside) that is read by a component.

Output

A variable (whether stored within a component or outside) that is written by a component.

Test-driven Development

A way of developing software where the test cases are developed, and often automated, before the software is developed to run those test cases.

Data FLow Testing

A white box test design technique in which test cases are designed ti execute definition-use pairs of variables

LCSAJ Testing

A white box test design technique in which test cases are designed to execute LCSAJs

Branch Testing

A white box test design technique in which test cases are designed to execute branches.

Modified Condition Decision Testing

A white box test design technique in which test cases are designed to execute single condition outcomes that independently affect a decision outcome.

Statement Testing

A white box test design technique in which test cases are designed to execute statements.

Site Acceptance Testing

Acceptance testing by user/customers at their site. to determine whether or not a component or system satisfies the user/customers needs and fits within the business processes, normally including hardware as well as software.

Factory Acceptance Testing

Acceptance testing conducted at the site at which the product is developed and performed by employees of the supplier organization, to determine whether or not a component or system satisfies the requirements, normally including hardware as well as software.

Test Basis

All documents from which the requirements of a component or system can be inferred. The documentation on which the test cases are based. If a document can be amended only by way of formal amendment procedure, then the test basis is called a frozen test basis.

Control Flow Graph

An abstract representation of all possible sequences of events (paths) in the execution through a component or system.

Call Graph

An abstract representation of calling relationships between subroutine in a program.

Data Flow

An abstract representation of the sequence and possible changes of the state if data objects, where the state of an object is any of: creation, usage, or destruction.

Code Coverage

An analysis method that determines which parts of the software have been executed(covered) by the test suite and which parts have not been executed, e.g. statement coverage, decision coverage, or condition coverage.

Thread Testing

An approach to component integration testing where the progressive integration of components follows the implementation of subsets of the requirements, as opposed to the integration of components by levels of a hierarchy.

Session-based Testing

An approach to testing in which test activities are planned as uninterrupted sessions of test design and execution, often used in conjunction with exploratory testing.

Business Process-Based Testing

An approach to testing in which test cases are designed based on descriptions and/or knowledge of business processes.

Design-Based Testing

An approach to testing in which test cases are designed based on the architecture and/or detailed design of a component or system e.g. tests interfaces between components or systems.

Risk-based Testing

An approach to testing to reduce the level of product risks and inform stakeholders of their status, starting in the initial stages of a project. It involves the identification of product risks and the use of risk level to guide the test process.

Work Breakdown Structure

An arrangement of work elements and their relationship to each other and to the end product.

Feature

An attribute of a component or system specified or implied by requirements documentation.

Test Reproducibility

An attribute of a test indicating whether the same results are produced each time the test is executed.

Data Quality

An attribute of data that indicates correctness with respect to some pre-defined criteria, e.g. business expectation, requirements on data integrity, data consistency.

Defect Type

An element in a taxonomy of defects. Defect taxonomies can be identified with respect to a variety of consideration, including, but not limited to: * Phase or development activity in which the defect is created e.g. a specification error or a coding error. * Characterization of defects e.g. and "off-by-one" defect. * Incorrectness e.g. an incorrect relational operator, a programming language syntax error, or an invalid assumption. * Performance issues e.g. excessive execution time, insufficient availability.

Configuration Identification

An element of configuration management, consisting of selecting the configuration items for a system and recording their functional and physical characteristics on technical documentation.

Configuration Control

An element of configuration management, consisting of the evaluation, co-ordination, approval or disapproval, and implementation of changes to configuration items after formal establishment of their configuration identification.

Status Accounting

An element of configuration management, consisting of the recording and reporting of information needed to manage a configuration effectively. This information includes a listing of the approved configuration identification, the status of proposed changes to the configuration, and the implementation status of the approved changes.

Variable

An element of storage in a computer that is accessible by a software program by referring to it by name.

Statement

An entity in a programming language, which is typically the smallest indivisible unit of execution.

Coverage Item

An entity or property used as a basis for test coverage, e.g. equivalence partitions or code statements.

Test Environment

An environment containing hardware, instrumentation, simulators, software tools, and other support elements needed to conduct a test.

Review

An evaluation of a product or project status to ascertain discrepancies from planned results and to recommend improvements. Examples include management review, informal review, technical review, inspection and walkthrough.

Entry Point

An executable statement or process step which defines a point at which a given process is intended to begin.

Exit Point

An executable statement or process step which defines a point at which a given process is intended to cease.

Data Definition

An executable statement where a variable is assigned a value

Bottom-up Testing

An incremental approach to integration testing where the lowest level components are tested first, and then used to facilitate the testing of higher level components. This process is repeated until the component at the top of the hierarchy is tested. See also integration testing.

Exploratory Testing

An informal test design technique where the tester actively controls the design of the test as those tests are performed and uses information gained while testing to design new and better tests.

Boundary Value

An input value or output value which is on the edge of an equivalence partition or at the smallest incremental distance on either side of an edge, for example the minimum or maximum value of a range.

Input Value

An instance of an input.

Output Values

An instance of an output.

Functional Integration

An integration approach that combines the component or systems for the purpose of getting a basic functionality working early.

Interface Testing

An integration test type that is concerned with testing the interfaces between components or systems.

Big-bang Testing

An integration testing approach in which software elements, hardware elements, or both are combined all at once into a component or an overall system, rather than in stages. See also integration testing.

Test Condition

An item or event of a component or system that could be verified by one or more test cases, e.g. function, transaction, feature, quality attribute, or structural element.

Defect Masking

An occurrence in which one defect prevents the detection of another.

Test Session

An uninterrupted period of time spent in execution tests. In exploratory testing, each test is focused on a charter, but testers can also explore new opportunities or issues during a session. The tester creates and executes on the fly and records their progress.

Static Analysis

Analysis of software development artifacts, e.g. requirements or code, carried out without execution of these software development artifacts. Static analysis is usually carried out by means of a supporting tool.

Static Code Analysis

Analysis of source code carried out without execution of that software.

Deliverable

Any (work) product that must be delivered to someone other than the products author.

Incident

Any event occurring that requires investigation

Test Deliverable

Any test (work) product that must be delivered to someone other than the test (work) product's author.

Testware

Artifacts produced during the test process required to plan, design, and execute test, such as documentation, scripts, inputs, expected results, set-up and clear-up procedures, files, databases, environment, and any additional software or utilities used in testing.

Security

Attributes of software products that bear on its ability to prevent unauthorized access, whether accidental or deliberate, to programs and data.

Exception Handling

Behavior of a component or system in response to erroneous input, from either a human user or from another component or system, or to an internal failure.

BVT

Build Verification Test

Unreachable Code

Code that cannot be reached and therefore is impossible to execute.

Test Reporting

Collecting and analyzing data from testing activities and subsequently consolidating the data in a report to inform stakeholders.

COTS

Commercial Off-The-Shelf software.

Test Script

Commonly used to refer to a test procedure specification, especially an automated one.

Dynamic Comparison

Comparison of actual and expected result, performed while the software is being executed, for example by a test execution tool.

Post-execution Comparison

Comparison of actual and expected results, performed after the software has finished running.

CASE

Computer Aided Software Engineering

Cast

Computer Aided Software Testing

Code

Computer instructions and data definitions expressed in a programming language or in a form output by an assembler, compiler or other translator.

Software

Computer programs, procedures, and possibly associates documentation and data pertaining to the operation of a computer system.

Verification

Confirmation by examination and through provision of objective evidence that specified requirements have been fulfilled.

Validation

Confirmation by examination and through provision of objective evidence that the requirements for a specific intended use or application have been fulfilled.

Quality Management

Coordinated activities to direct and control an organization with regards to quality. Direction and control with regard to quality generally includes the establishment of the quality policy and quality objectives, quality planning, quality controls, quality assurance and quality improvement.

Structural Coverage

Coverage measures based on the internal structure of a component or system.

Test Data

Data that exists (for example, in a database) before a test is executed, and that affects or is affected by the component or system under test.

Pass/Fail Criteria

Decision rules used to determine whether a test item or feature has passed or failed a test.

Failure

Deviation of the component or system from its expected delivery, service or result.

Attack

Directed and focused attempt to evaluate the quality, especially reliability, of a test object by attempting to force specific failures to occur. See negative testing.

Postcondition

Environmental and state conditions that must be fulfilled after the execution of a test procedure.

Precondition

Environmental and state conditions that must be fulfilled before the component or system can be executed with a particular test or test procedure.

Test Cycle

Execution of the test process against a single identifiable release of the test object.

Development Testing

Formal or Informal testing conducted during the implementation of a component or system, usually in the development environment by developers.

Acceptance Testing

Formal testing with respect to user needs, requirements, and business processes conducted to determine whether or not a system satisfies the acceptance criteria and to enable the user, customer or other authorized entity to determine whether or not to accept the system.

Operational Environment

Hardware and software products installed at users or customers sites where the component or system under test will be used. The software may include operating systems, database management systems, and other applications.

Coverage Analysis

Measurement of achieved coverage to a specified coverage item during test execution referring to predetermined criteria to determine whether additional testing is required and if so, which test cases are needed.

Function Point Analysis (FPA)

Method aiming to measure the size of the functionality of an information system. The measurement is independent of the technology. This measurement may be used as a basis for the measurement of productivity, the estimation of the needed resources, and project control.

Maintenance

Modification of a software product after delivery to correct defects, to improve performance or other attributes, or to adapt the product to a modified environment.

System of Systems

Multiple heterogeneous, distributed systems that are embedded in networks at multiple levels and in multiple interconnected domains, addressing large-scale inter-disciplinary common problems and purposes, usually without a common management structure.

Non-conformity

Non fulfillment of a specified requirement

Beta Testing

Operational testing by potential and/or existing customers/users at an external site not otherwise involved with the developers, to determine whether or not a component or system satisfies the customer/user needs and fits within the business process. Beta testing is often employed as a form of external acceptance testing for off-the-shelf software in order to acquire feedback from the market.

Quality Assurance

Part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled.

White-box Test Design Technique

Procedure to derive and/or select test cases based on an analysis of the internal structure of a component or system.

Functional Test Design Technique

Procedure to derive and/or select test cases based on an analysis of the specification of the functionality of a component or system without reference to its internal structure.

Black Box Test Design Technique

Procedure to derive and/or select test cases based on an analysis of the specification, either functional or non-functional, of a component or system without reference to its internal structure.

Experienced-Based Test Design Technique

Procedure to derive and/or select test cases based on the tester's experience, knowledge and intuition.

Non-functional Test Design Technique

Procedure to derive and/or select test cases for non-functional testing based on an analysis of the specification of a component or system without reference to its internal structure.

Test Design Technique

Procedure used to derive and/or select test cases

Incident Logging

Recording the details of any incident that occurred.

Boundary Value Testing

See boundary value analysis.

Independence of Testing

Separation of responsibility, which encourages the accomplishment of objective testing.

Alpha Testing

Simulated or actual operational testing by potential users/customers or an independant test team at the developers site but outside the development organization. Alpha testing is often employed for off-the-shelf software as a form of internal acceptance testing.

Bespoke Software

Software developed specifically for a set of users or customers. The opposite is off-the-shelf software.

Operational Profile Testing

Statistical testing using a model of system operations (short durations tasks) and their probability of typical use.

Installation Guide

Supplied instructions on any suitable media, which leads the installer through the installation process. This may be a manual guide, step-by-step procedure, installation wizard, or any similar process description.

Installation Wizard

Supplied software on any suitable media, which guides the installer through the installation process. It normally runs the installation process, provides feedback on installation results, and prompts for options.

Scripted Testing

Test execution carried out by following a previously documented sequence of tests.

Procedure Testing

Testing aimed at ensuring that the component or system can operate in conjunction with new or existing users business procedures or operational procedures.

White-box Testing

Testing based on an analysis of the internal structure of the component or system.

Functional Testing

Testing based on an analysis of the specification of the functionality of a component or system.

Experience Based Testing

Testing based on the tester's experience, knowledge and intuition.

Monkey Key

Testing by means of a random selection from a large range of inputs and by randomly pushing buttons, ignorant of how the product is being used.

Failover Testing

Testing by simulating failure modes or actually causing failures in a controlled environment. Following a failure, the failover mechanism is tested to ensure that data is not lost or corrupted and that any agreed service levels are maintained.

Ad Hoc Testing

Testing carried out informally; no formal test preparation takes place, no recognized test design technique is used, there are no expectations for results and arbitrariness guides the test execution activity

Operational Testing

Testing conducted to evaluate a component or system in its operational environment.

Back-to-Back Testing

Testing in which two or more variants of a component or system are executed with the same inputs, the outputs compared, and analyzed in cases of discrepancies.

Regression Testing

Testing of a previously tested program to ensure defects have not been introduced or uncovered in unchanged areas of the software, as a result of the changes made. It is performed when the software or its environment is changed.

Isolation Testing

Testing of individual components in isolation from surrounding components, with surrounding components being simulated by stubs and drivers if needed

Static Testing

Testing of software development artifact, e.g. requirement, design or code, without execution of these artifacts, e.g. reviews or static analysis.

Desk Checking

Testing of software or a specification by manual simulation of its execution.

In-sourced Testing

Testing performed by people who are co-located with the project team but are not fellow employees.

Outsourced Testing

Testing performed by people who are not co-located with the project team and are not fellow employees.

Integration Testing

Testing performed to expose defects in the interfaces and in the interactions between integrated components or systems.

Hardware-Software Integration Testing

Testing performed to expose defects in the interfaces and interaction between hardware and software components.

Dynamic Testing

Testing that involves the execution of the software component or system.

Confirmation Testing

Testing that runs test cases that failed the last time they were run, in order to verify the success of corrective actions.

Non-functional Testing

Testing the attributes of a component or system that do not relate to functionality. e.g. reliability, efficiency, usability, maintainability and portability.

Maintenance Testing

Testing the changes to an operational system or the impact of a changed environment to an operational system.

API (application programming interface) Testing

Testing the code which enables communication between different processes, programs and/or systems. API testing often involves negative testing, e.g., to validate the robustness of error handling.

System Integration Testing

Testing the integration of system and packages; testing interfaces to external organizations.

Database Integrity Testing

Testing the methods and processes used to access and manage the data(base), to ensure access methods, process and data rules function as expected and that during access to the database, data is not corrupted or unexpectedly deleted, updated or created.

Documentation Testing

Testing the quality of the documentation e.g. user guide or installation guide.

Concurrency Testing

Testing to determine how the occurrence of two or more activities within the same interval of time, achieved either by interleaving the activities or by simultaneous execution, is handled by the component or system.

Usability Testing

Testing to determine the extent to which the software product is understood, easy to learn, easy to operate and attractive to the users under specified conditions.

Robustness Testing

Testing to determine the robustness of the software product.

Safety Testing

Testing to determine the safety of a software product.

Scalability Testing

Testing to determine the scalability of the software product.

Security Testing

Testing to determine the security of the software product.

Invalid Testing

Testing using input values that should be rejected by the component or system

Incremental Testing

Testing where components or systems are integrate and tested one or some at a time, until all the components or systems are integrated and tested.

Volume Testing

Testing where the system is subjected to large volumes of data.

Black Box Testing

Testing, either functional or non-functional, without reference to the internal structure of the component or system.

Negative Testing

Tests aimed at showing that a component or system does not work. Negative testing is related to the testers attitude rather than a specific test approach or test design technique

Automated Testware

Testware used in automated testing, such as tool scripts.

Error Tolerance

The ability of a system or component to continue normal operation despite the presence of erroneous inputs.

Reliability

The ability of the software product to perform its required functions under stated conditions for a specified period of time, or for a specified number of operations.

Traceability

The ability ti identify related items in documentation and software, such as requirements with associated tests.

Mean Time To Repair

The arithmetic mean (average) time a system will take to recover from any failure. This typically includes testing to insure that the defect has been resolved.

Mean Time Between Failures

The arithmetic mean (average) time between failures of a system. The MTBF is typically part of a reliability growth model that assumes the failed system is immediately repaired, as part of a defect fixing process.

Impact Analysis

The assessment of change to the layers of development documentation, test documentation and components, in order to implement a given change to specified requirements.

Expected Result

The behavior predicted by the specification, or another source, of the component or system under specified conditions.

Actual Result

The behavior produced/observed when a component or system is tested.

Test Estimation

The calculated approximation of a result related to various aspects of testing (e.g. effort spent, completion date, costs involved. number of test cases, etc.) which is usable even if input data may be incomplete, uncertain, or noisy.

Safety

The capability of the software product to achieve acceptable level of harm to people, business, software, property or the environment in a specified context of use.

Compliance

The capability of the software product to adhere to standards, convention or regulations in laws and similar prescriptions.

Scalability

The capability of the software product to be upgraded to accommodate increased loads.

Functionality

The capability of the software product to determine the functionality of a software product.

Interoperability

The capability of the software product to interact with one or more specific components or systems

Fault Tolerance

The capability of the software product to maintain a specified level of performance in cases of software faults or of infringement of its specified interface.

Suitability

The capability of the software product to provide an appropriate set of functions for specified tasks and user objectives.

Accuracy

The capability of the software product to provide the right or agreed results or effects with the needed degree of precision.

Recoverability

The capability of the software product to re-establish a specified level of performance and recover the data directly affected in case of failure.

Resource Utilization

The capability of the software product to use appropriate amounts and types of resources, for example the amounts of main and secondary memory used by the program and the sizes of required temporary overflow files, when the software performs its functions under stated conditions.

Usability

The capability of the software to be understood, learned, used and attractive to the user when under specified conditions.

Test Object

The component or system to be tested.

Configuration

The composition of a component or system as defined by the number, nature, and interconnections of its constituent parts.

Result

The consequences/outcome of the execution of a test. It includes the resource-utilization of a software product.

Resumption Criteria

The criteria used to restart all or a portion of the testing activities that were suspended previously.

Suspension Criteria

The criteria used to stop all or a portion of the testing activities on the test items.

Risk Impact

The damage that will be caused if the risk becomes an actual outcome or event.

Test Input

The data received from an external source by the test object during test execution. The external source can be hardware, software or human.

Resumption Requirements

The defined set of testing activities that must be repeated when testing is re-started after a suspension.

Consistency

The degree of uniformity, standardization, and freedom from contradiction among the documents or parts of a component or system.

Complexity

The degree to which a component or system has a design and/or internal structure that is difficult to understand, maintain and verify.

Availability

The degree to which a component or system is operational and accessible when required for use. Often expressed as a percentage.

Quality

The degree to which a component, system or process meets specified requirements and/or user/customer needs and expectations.

Performance

The degree to which a system or component accomplishes its designated functions within given constraints regarding processing time and throughput rate.

Software Integrity Level

The degree to which software complies or must comply with a set of stakeholder-selected software and/or software-based system characteristics (e.g. software complexity, risk assessment, safety level, security level, desired performance, reliability, or cost) Which are defined to reflect the importance or the software to its stakeholders.

Coverage

The degree, expressed as a percentage, to which a specified coverage item has been exercised by a test suite.

Maintainability

The ease with which a software product can be modified to correct defects, modified to meet new requirements, modified to make future maintenance easier, or adapted to a changed environment.

Portability

The ease with which the software product can be transferred from one hardware or software environment to the next.

Probe Effect

The effect on the component or system by the measurement instrument when the component or system is being measured, e.g. by a performance testing tool or monitor. For example performance might be slightly worse when performance testing tools are being used.

Risk Likelihood

The estimated probability that a risk will become an actual outcome or event.

Condition Outcome

The evaluation of a condition to True or False

Acceptance Criteria

The exit criteria that a component or system must satisfy in order to be accepted by user, customer, or other authorized entity.

Configuration Auditing

The function to check on the contents of libraries of configuration items, e.g. for standards compliance.

Test Process

The fundamental test process comprises test planning and control, test analysis and design, test implementation and execution, evaluating exit criteria and reporting, and test closure activities.

Test Approach

The implementation of the test strategy for a specific project. It typically includes the decisions made that follow based on the (test) project's goal and the risk assessment carried out, starting points regarding the test process, the test design techniques to be applied, exit criteria and test types to be performed.

Test Item

The individual element to be tested. There usually is one test object and many test items.

Instrumentation

The insertion of additional code into the program in order to collect information about program behavior during execution.

Man in the Middle Attack

The interception, mimicking and/or altering and subsequent relaying of communications(e.g. credit card transactions) by a third party such that a user remains unaware of that third party's presence.

Moderator

The leader and main person responsible for an inspection or other review process.

Test Execution Technique

The method used to perform the actual test execution, either manual or automated.

Defect Density

The number of defects identified in a component or system divided by the size of the component or system (expressed in standard measurement terms e.g. lines-of-code, number of classes or function points).

Quality Control

The operational techniques and activities, part of quality management, that are focused in fulfilling quality requirements.

Test Infrastructure

The organizational artifacts needed to perform testing, consisting of test environments, test tools, office environments and procedures.

LCSAJ Coverage

The percentage of LCSAJs of a component that have been exercised by a test suite. 100% LCSAJ coverage implies 100% decision coverage.

Decision Condition Coverage

The percentage of all condition outcomes and decision outcomes that have been exercised by a test suite. 100% decision coverage implies both 100% branch coverage and 100% statement coverage.

Boundary Value Coverage

The percentage of boundary values that have been exercised by a test suite.

Branch Coverage

The percentage of branches that have been exercises by a test suite. 100% branch coverage implies both 100% decision coverage and 100% statement coverage.

Multiple Condition Coverage

The percentage of combination of all single condition outcomes within one statement that have been exercised by a test suite. 100% multiple condition coverage implies 100% modified condition decision coverage.

Condition Coverage

The percentage of condition outcomes that have been exercised by a test suite. 100% condition coverage requires each single condition in every decision statement to be tested as True and False.

Data Flow Coverage

The percentage of definition-use pairs that have been exercised by a test suite.

Equivalence Partition Coverage

The percentage of equivelance partitions that have been exercised by a test suite.

Statement Coverage

The percentage of executable statements that have been exercised by a test suite.

Path Coverage

The percentage of paths that have been exercised by a test suite. 100% path coverage implies 100% LCSAJ coverage.

N-Switch Coverage

The percentage of sequences of N+1 transitions that have been exercised by a test suite.

Test Execution Phase

The period of time in a software development lifecycle during which the component of a software product are executed, and the software product is evaluated to determine whether or not requirements have been satisfied.

Requirements Phase

The period of time in the software lifecycle during which the requirements for a software product are defined and documented.

Software Lifecycle

The period of time that begins when a software product is conceived and ends when the software is no longer available for use. The software lifecycle typically includes a concept phase, requirements phase, design phase, implementation phase, test phase, installation and checkout phase, operation and maintenance phase, and sometimes retirement phase. Note these phases may overlap or be performed iteratively.

Reviewer

The person involved in the review that identifies and describes anomalies in the product or project under review. Reviewer can be chosen to represent different viewpoints and roles in the review process.

Test Manager

The person responsible for project management of testing activities and resources, and evaluation of a test object. The individual who directs, controls, administers, plans and regulates the evaluation of a test object.

Scribe

The person who records each defect mentioned and any suggestions for process improvement during a review meeting, on logging form. The scribe should ensure that the logging form is readable and understandable.

Failure Mode

The physical or functional manifestation of a failure. For example a system in failure mode may be characterized by slow operation, incorrect outputs, or complete termination of execution.

Testing

The process consisting of all lifecycle activities, both static and dynamic, concerned with planning, preparation and evaluation of software products and related work products to determine that they satisfy specified requirements, to demonstrate that they are fit for purpose and to detect defects.

Installability Testing

The process of Testing the installability of a software product.

Test Data Management

The process of analyzing test data requirements, designing test data structures, creating and maintaining test data.

Test Analysis

The process of analyzing the test basis and defining test objectives.

Measurement

The process of assigning a number or category to an entity to describe an attribute of that entity.

Integration

The process of combining components or systems into larger assemblies.

Certification

The process of confirming that a component, system or person complies with its specified requirements, e.g. by passing an exam

Qualification

The process of demonstrating the ability to fulfill specified requirements. Not the term 'qualified' is used to designate the corresponding status.

Debugging

The process of finding, analyzing and removing the causes of failure in software.

Test Comparison

The process of identifying differences between the actual results produced by the component or system under test and the expected results for a test. Test comparison can be performed during test execution or after test execution.

Fault Injection

The process of intentionally adding defects to a system for the purpose of finding out whether the system can detect, and possibly recover from, a defect. Fault injection intended to mimic failures that might occur in the field.

Fault Seeding

The process of intentionally adding defects to those already in the component or system for the purpose of monitoring the rate of detection and removal and estimating the number of remaining defects. Fault seeding is typically part of development testing and can be performed at any test level.

Defet Management

The process of recognizing, investigating, taking action and disposing of defects. It involves recording defects, classifying them and identifying the impact.

Incident Management Tool

The process of recognizing, investigating, taking action and disposing of incidents. They often have workflow-oriented facilities to track and control the allocation, correction and re-testing of incidents and provide reporting facilities.

Test Logging

The process of recording information about tests executed into a test log.

Test Execution

The process of running a test on the component or system under test, producing actual results.

System Testing

The process of testing an integrated system to verify that it meets specified requirements.

Compliance Testing

The process of testing to determine the compliance of the component or system.

Efficiency Testing

The process of testing to determine the efficiency of a software product.

Functionality Testing

The process of testing to determine the functionality of a software product.

Interoperability Testing

The process of testing to determine the interoperability of a software product.

Maintainability Testing

The process of testing to determine the maintainability of a software product.

Performance Testing

The process of testing to determine the performance of a software product.

Portability Testing

The process of testing to determine the portability of a software product.

Reliability Testing

The process of testing to determine the reliability of a software product.

Test Design

The process of transforming general test objectives into tangible test conditions and test cases.

Failure Rate

The ratio of the number of failures of a given category to a given unit of measure e.g. failures per unit of time, failure per number of transactions, failures per number of computers run.

Simulation

The representation of selected behavioral characteristics of one physical or abstract system by another system.

Behavior

The response of a component or system to a set of input values and preconditions.

Decision Outcome

The result of a decision (which therefore determine the branches to be taken).

Domain

The set from which valid input and/or output values can be selected.

Input Domain

The set from which valid input values can be selected.

Output Domain

The set from which valid output values can be selected.

Entry Criteria

The set of generic and specific conditions for permitting a process to go forward with a defined task e.g. test phase. The purpose of entry criteria is to prevent a task from starting which would entail more (wasted) effort compared to the effort needed to remove the failed entry criteria.

Exit Criteria

The set of generic and specific conditions, agreed upon with the stakeholders for permitting a process to be officially completed. The purpose of exit criteria is to prevent a task from being considered complete when there are still outstanding parts of the task which have not been finished. Exit criteria are used to report and to plan when to stop testing.

Performance Profiling

The task of analyzing, e.g. identifying performance bottlenecks based on generated metric, and tuning the performance of a software component or system using tools.

Component Testing

The testing of individual software components.

Cost of Quality

The total costs incurred on quality activities and issues and often split into prevention costs, appraisal costs, internal failure costs and external failure costs.

Software Quality

The totality of functionality and features of a software product that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs.

Horizontal Traceability

The tracing of requirements for a test level through the layers of test documentation. e.g. Test plan, test design specification, test case specification and test procedure specification or test script.

Test Execution Automation

The use of software e.g. capture/playback tools, to control the execution of tests, the comparison of actual results to expected results, the setting up of test preconditions, and other test control and reporting functions.

Test Automation

The use of software tp perform or support test activities, e.g. test management, test design, test execution and results checking.

Compound Condition

Two or more single conditions joined by means of a logical operator (AND, OR or XOR), e.g. 'A>B AND C>1000'.

Pair Testing

Two persons e.g. two testers, a developer and a tester or an end-user and a tester, working together to find defects. Typically they share one computer and trade control of it while testing.

Actor

User or any other person or system that interacts with the system under test in a specific way.

Random Testing

a black box test design technique where test cases are selected, possibly using a psuedo-random generated algorithm to match an operational profile. This technique can be used for testing non-functional attributes such as reliability and performance.

System

a collection of components organized to accomplish a specific function or set of functions.

Test

a set of one or more test cases.

Vertical Traceability

he tracing of requirements through the layers of development documentation to components.