Alpha Vs Beta Testing

What is Software Testing? Difference between Alpha and Beta Testing?

Basically people are not perfect. We make errors in design and code. Hence testing is an essential activity in Software development life cycle which is used to uncover as many as possible. Testing is an important activity carried ou in order to improve the quality, finding out all possible errors by generating test cases and by systematically using the disciplined technique.

According to the organisational need testing technique is choosen by having an eye on customer’s requirement. The dynamic testing is a method in which the actual testing is done to uncover all possible error with the users interaction and feedback.

There are different types of testing used by many software empire :

• Black Box Testing.
• Graph based estimation model
• Equivalance partitioning
• Boundary value analysis
• Orthogonal Array Testing
• Comparision testing
• White Box Testing.
• Basic Path Testing
• Flow Graph Testing
• Cyclometric Complaxity
• Control Structure testing.
• Conditional Testing
• Data Flow Testing
• Loop Testing
• Integration Testing.
• Top down Integration Testing
• Bottom up Integration Testing
• Regerassion Testing
• Smoke Testing
• Validation Testing.
• Acceptance Testing
• Alpha Testing
• Beta Testing
• System Testing.
• Recovery Testing
• Security Testing
• Stress Testing
• Performance Testing

Inspite of all the two major testing methods used are Alpha and Beta Testing.

Alpha Testing : A testing method in which the version of complete software is tested by the customer under the supervision of Developer and performed at the developer’s side with natural settings and controlled environment.

Beta Testing : A testing method in which the version of software is tested by the customer without the developer being present. The testing is performed at consumer’s site with uncontrolled environment. The end user records the problems and reports to the developer.

 2)

Alpha vs Beta Testing

In the development of any application, it is not enough to simply build the program and release it right away. It needs to undergo a series of rigorous testing to ensure that the program passes the requirements of the client and has no bugs that can cause minor glitches or even serious problems later on. Alpha and beta testing are two of the stages that a software must undergo testing. Alpha testing occurs first and when the software passes that, beta testing can then be undertaken. If a software fails alpha testing, changes are done and it repeats the tests until the software passes.

Alpha testing is undergone by a small team of experts who knows how to find software faults. Although the team is only composed of a few members, their expertise allows them to catch majority of the problems by putting the software through all scenarios they can make and try any combination of inputs to coax the software into an error. With beta testing, the testers are no longer actual experts but the lack of expertise is made up by the sheer number. Depending on what the client wants, the beta version of the program can be released to a limited number of participants or to anybody who wants to. Participants in a beta test report errors and what they are doing or attempting to do at that very instant so that the developers can try to replicate the error and then find a fix for it.

During alpha testing, the program is still relatively rough and there may still be serious problems that can cause the program to crash. The limited number of alpha testers also mean that the program can only be tested on a limited number of hardware configurations. It may seem that the program is already working flawlessly during alpha testing but the different configurations of users can cause errors within the program. In beta testing, the task is more of polishing the program so that it works nicely for everyone rather than ensuring that it actually works. Problems are then patched prior to the release of the final version of the software.