Faberwork helped a major healthcare company’s TestAutomation.
We show how adherence to best practices can resolve even the most challenging TestAutomation problems.
Client
The client is an innovative and fast-paced healthcare systems provider for health plans and other healthcare providers. The company has a long history of excellence in health systems.
Challenge
The client’s successful operations depend on fast and accurate TestAutomation Suite to facilitate the adoption of new applications. In the case of this customer, however, its Software TestAutomation suite began taking more than 24 hours to run. In order to shorten the running time, the company undertook a parallel processing approach. This “multi-threading” method was designed to overcome the limitations presented by their current testing approach.
The parallel processing model introduced intermittent and unpredictable failures. These problems suggested a timing issue and a possible thread race condition which can occur when multi-process applications seek to access the same data. The result can be an indeterminate state.
The client’s TestAutomation and main development teams worked to resolve the issue, but intermittent failures of this type can be very difficult to find. The logs of the multiple threads were interspersed and difficult to use for effective troubleshooting and diagnosis. Faberwork was called upon to help.
Solution
Faberwork evaluated the problem, finding that test cases had multiple times given out-of-bounds exceptions at multiple times. In addition, neither the correct design patterns nor object models had consistently been applied.
Faberwork methodically reviewed best practices. For example, in an application utilizing static methods, modelers should avoid mixing synchronized and non-synchronized methods. In addition, using the Singleton Design Pattern guarantees a unique solution, offering a centralized access point to an occurrence. Alternatively, it might be advisable to eliminate static methods altogether, especially in the context of multi-threading. Proactive reconnaissance also involved looking for public static synchronized files. They found over 100 matches in more than 27 files. Faberwork reviewed the code with an eye to converting it to Singletons.
Faberwork also investigated the failures with experiments. They included using different processing times and configurations as well as hardware combinations. With these results, Faberwork confirmed that the problem could be resolved by adjusting the code to meet best practices. Once the adjustments were made, the system once again seamlessly executed the TestAutomation Suite without errors and within an acceptable processing time.
Result
Faberwork evaluated the problem, finding that test cases had multiple times given out of bounds exceptions. In addition, neither the correct design patterns nor object models had consistently been applied.
- With Faberwork’s help, the company’s TestAutomation error was identified and resolved.
- The client expanded the Faberwork consulting team, solidifying an enhanced collaboration with the firm.
“TestAutomation is an essential part of business processing and has its own complexities, requiring specialized expertise that Faberwork can offer.”
—Alok Pancholi, Founder & CEO of Faberwork
