Test strategies in distributed software development environments

Distributed software development has resulted in formation of business partners spread across different economic, temporal, and organizational zones collaborating together for shared authorship of evolving software artifacts. However, the distributed approach is not without risks, and organizations implement specific test strategies to assist in the verification process of work-in-progress software artifacts. This paper discusses the test strategies adopted in the software development lifecycle by a service provider pursuing distributed software development in New Zealand, Australia, and India. Verification and validation processes have been deployed to ascertain the quality, security and traceability of artifacts developed in distributed sites. Findings reveal that strategies are based on protection of sensitive data through management of test database, use of drivers and interfacing stub supports between modules, as well as compliance verification on incremental releases through a customized “Synchronize and Stabilize” lifecycle model. A staging environment, within the case business context, is used for evaluating the robustness of the software product before its official launch in production environment. The actual ongoing work practices within distributed software business environments are presented, which provide value to academia, industry, ICT sector and government institutions.

► We investigate test strategies deployed by a service provider pursing distributed software development in New Zealand, Australia, and India.
► Test strategies are based on protection of sensitive data through separate use of test and staging server environment.
► A customized Synchronize and Stabilize lifecycle model is used to evaluate incremental releases.
► Documentation and software tools are integrated in the development environment for mitigating risks during software evolution.
► Test strategies provide information on overall performance and assist in defining sustainable interoperability standards.