Quality Insurance of the Forensic Software Testing Support Tools - Term Paper Example

Quality Insurance Table of Content I. Introduction………………………………………………….…………….3 II. Overview of the document content…………………………………….….3 III. Quality objectives for the application and quality metrics………………..4 IV. Summary of the types of quality tests that should be conducted.………....4 V. Summary of the areas of the application to be tasted………………………5 VI. Summary of the artifacts required for the testing process………………….6 a. Test case………………………………………………….…………6 b. Loading of the testing software……………………………….……7 c. The data to be in use………………………………………………..7 d. The specific systems to be in use………………………………….7 e. Test environment……………………………………………………8 VII. Description of techniques that should be employed…………………………8 VIII. Description of the tools that should be used to conduct the tests……………9 IX. Summary of how defects will be documented and how they will be resolved...9 X. Requirements traceability mapping……………………………………………9 XI. List of testing roles, responsibilities, and timeline……………………………10 XII. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………10 XIII. References…………………………………………………………………….12 Introduction Quality insurance is the process of testing the functionality, effectiveness, and detection of any defects of a computer software. The quality insurance is extremely essential for the attainment of an effective project. Thus before the project applied, it ought to undergo through testing. The document explains the measures and procedures that the software tools should follow to perform its functions effectively, for instance the function of copying and also the imaging of the hard disk drives. The software is for the forensic investigation procedure when retrieving data from the hard disk drive in a computer. The software tool is called forensic software testing support tools (FS- TST). This is software that aids in testing the hard disk imaging tools during forensic investigation (Gavrila & Fong, 2004). Overview of the Document Content The following is a test plan for the project on the development of hard disk drive. The document contains a summary of the quality insurance objectives as well as the quality metrics that will be in application in this project. The document also tackles the summary on the areas of the application that will be undergoing testing. There is also the documentation of brief description of the artifacts that will be in use during the testing process. Some of the artifacts include load testing software, specific systems, test cases, and the data to be in use. There is also the description of the techniques that is in use during the testing process. The document further contains the description of the tools that ought to be in use during the conduction of the testing process. Furthermore, there is a brief summary of how the defects will be put in documentation and the resolution of these defects. The document also contains the requirements traceability that shows how this test validates and further verifies these functional requirements. Finally, the document provides a list of roles of the testing as well as the responsibilities and the tests timelines (Gavrila & Fong, 2004). Quality Objectives for the Application and Quality Metrics The quality objective for the application of the quality metrics on the hard disk drive is extremely important. The following test plan for the software of forensic software testing support tools, FS-TST, has to fulfill the objective of detailing the main activities that is necessary for the preparation and for conducting the testing of the FS-TST. Another objective of this test is to accurately define the chief sources of the data as well as information that were in use during the preparation. Finally, the test plan ought to define the test tools and also the requirements that are necessary to conduct the FS-TST tests. The testing plan further covers the testing of the functionality of the software FS-TST. It moreover ensures that the testing plan of this software complies with the legal requirements that are in the document (Gavrila & Fong, 2004). Summary of the types of Quality tests that should be conducted There are a variety of quality tests applications that ought to be done for the project to be complete. The type of quality test to be used varies depending on the features and the functions of the items to be tested. There is the type called the acceptance testing, which is for the conditions that the software ought to meet in application and utilization. Testing thus must meet the set conditions for it to be acceptable for use. One is the feature level testing, which is vital in this testing process. The process involves the testing of the components features, their task, and functioning of these elements, the errors present in these features, and performance of the features. The software is to undergo configuration and compatibility testing. This testing is applicable for the identification of various types of software and their compatibility. This further tests the software applications and the drivers’ computer devices. Finally, there is the application of the documentation testing and the online help testing for the quality of the plan. The test verifies the technical accuracy of the documentation plan (William, Rosenthal, & Georgis, 2008). Summary of the areas of the Application to be tasted The software is to be used in the testing of the hard disk imaging tools that is put to use by the forensic investigators. Thus the idea of putting the software FS-TST into testing will eventually provide a degree of accuracy and correctness that will in turn gain confidence of the forensic investigators. Thus the investigators in the forensic field will be comfortable in applying it in the testing of the hard disk imaging tools procedures. Some of the features of this software that ought to be put to test procedure largely depend on the types of items that need testing. First there are the diskwipe features that need the testing. Second is the partab features, the diskchg feature, the seccmp feature, and fifth is the seccopy feature. Additionally, there is the baddisk feature and the partcmp feature. Moreover, there is the diskcmp, diskhash, and the badx13 features. Other features include corrupt feature, the logsetup, the logcase features, the sechash features, the adjcmp feature, and the disk logging testing (Gavrila & Fong, 2004). Summary of the Artifacts required for the Testing Process The artifacts that are a fundamental requirement for the testing process includes the testing cases, loading of the testing software, the data to be in use, and the specific systems to be used. First the hard disk drives are necessary for the testing the software FS-TST tools. Therefore, the artifacts required are hard disk drives of varying interfaces like the IDE and the SCSI as well as the drives, which ought to be of different sizes in capacity. The artifacts that are necessary for this testing are explained below. a) Test Case Test case is a sample testing of the whole testing process that is normally done to a specific sample to obtain result. This results is thus to be a representation of the whole subject of interest. Thus a test case of this testing plan involves the use of a selection of different computer models as a sample for the testing procedure. The different computers are chosen at random and are the ones representing other computer models. Thus the result of this testing plan will thus be the basis of the new software testing. An example is the testing models of the hard disk drives that was in use as a testing case as shown below; LABEL MODEL INTERFACE SECTORS GB 10 FUJITSU MAN3184MC SCSI 35.885.448 17.5 13 FUJITSU MAN3184MC SCSI 35.885.448 17.5 61 WDC WD64AA IDE 12.594.960 6.1 63 WDC WD64AA IDE 12.594.960 6.1 8C WDC WD200EB-00CSF0 IDE 39.102.336 19.0 9C WDC WD200BB-32CFC0 IDE 39.102.336 19.0 B0 FUJITSU MPF3153AT IDE 30.023.280 14.7 D7 QUANTUM SIROCCO1700A IDE 3.335.472 14.7 Retrieved from http://www.cftt.nist.gov/Forensic%20Test%20specs.pdf During the test case procedure, there ought to be an application of the software tools that is to be put in test and other software tools that are necessary for the preparation of this test case. This ensures availability of other methods for the effective evaluation of the test results (Gavrila & Fong, 2004). b) Loading of the Testing Software The type of software to be in use includes the FS-TST together with other software that will assist in the testing procedure. For instance, the Partition Magic Pro Version 6.0 PowerQuest Corporation, the Disk Editor (diskit) Version 8.0 Symantec Corporation, the Red Hat Linux 7.1 Operating System, the Disk Editor (diskit) Norton Utilities 2002 Symantec Corporation, and the Red Hat Linux 8.0 Operating System. The process that was in use for the loading of this software is similar to the ones that were in use for loading the software FS-TST. This is because the testing process has to utilize similar software as the ones in use by the other computer models (Gavrila & Fong, 2004). c) The Data to be used The type of data used was from different types of computer machines. This is because the different types of the computers used were applying different types of hard disk drives. These varying types of the hard disk drives underwent testing using the software. The models include the SCSI and the IDE types that are of different models with different specifications as shown in the table. These computer models further were displaying varying capacity of the hard disk drives. The capacity ranges from those hard disks drives with less than 18GB to those with larger than the 18GB capacity. Therefore these different sizes of the hard disk drive were representing the different types of computer models that exist. d) The Specific Systems to be used The specific system to be in use is the FS-TST software. This software is for the improvement of the accessibility of the hard disk drives data and for easy retrieval mechanism. Other systems that were in use include the normal software systems and the operating systems that a computer uses to run its functions. e) Test Environment The requirements for the test environment include the computer machine, the main host facility for the testing process. The host computers that are necessary are approximately two. The computers are necessary for the testing of the FS-TST tools. They are the legacy BIOS and the extended BIOS types. Therefore the types of computers are as follows; NAME BIOS HARD DISK DRIVE SLOTS Beta3 Legacy 2 IDE Beta7 Legacy 2 IDE HecRamsey Extended 3 IDE + 2 SCSI Retrieved from http://www.cftt.nist.gov/Forensic%20Test%20specs.pdf Description of Techniques that should be employed The approach that ought to be utilized for the testing depends on the features for which specific tools used. The technique further depends on the manner in which the tools will be in use during the process. The reason for the testing procedure is to ensure that the behaviors of these features are in line with the software FS-TST. The technique to be used is the disk logging test design. The design involves putting the feature to be tested into different types of the hard disk drives. This procedure is done on different hard drives using different disks accessing techniques. The results are obtained thorough checking with different addresses present on the different hard drives. The result depends on the addresses on the drives because it presents specific number of heads because of the testing process (Gavrila & Fong, 2004). Description of the tools that should be used to conduct the tests Some of the tools used during the testing process include the computer systems containing varying types of hard disk drives. There should also be the specific software that is undergoing the testing process. The presence of the essential operating systems also ought to be to carry out this testing plan. The FS-TST uses a variety of software tools to perform the hard disk comparisons, the hard disk initialization, the extraction of data from the hard disk, the simulation of any faulty hard disk, and also the copying of the hard disk or hard disk partitioning processes (Gavrila & Fong, 2004). Summary of how Defects will be documented and how they will be resolved If the tools to be put to test do not contain any of the above features, they will yield a result that claims that the feature is not supported by this software. Furthermore, the tool will fail the test if there are any available inaccuracies present in the logs that the tools should produce. Otherwise, if the tools do not portray these characteristic outcomes, then the tools are successful one and that shows that there are no defects present. Therefore to resolve these defects, the tools ought to have all the above features. This is because the computer software will evidently identify these features and be capable of performing its functions effectively (Gavrila & Fong, 2004). Requirements Traceability Mapping The traceability mapping requirements expands further on how the tests are to undergo validation and also verification of the functional requirements. The requirements of this mapping procedure ought to be effective in the computation of the source hard disk drive. The testing procedure further ought to allow the normal hard disk drive write-block operations to effectively occur on the source hard disk drive. Moreover, the requirement of this testing is that it must successfully compute the hash calculation that is found to be of consistence with the original form of the hash calculations process (William, Rosenthal, & Georgis, 2008). List of Testing Roles, Responsibilities, and Timeline Testing of the software to be in use in the hard disk drive of the computer is necessary and very essential. This is because testing has a significant function to the project. The testing helps the developer of the software to detect any defect that may be present before it is put to use. The developer is thus able to correct any form errors and mistakes that may have occur during the developing of the project. Testing of the project further guarantees the buyer and also the final user of the software adequate performance with no defects. Thus testing process is a vital stage during the development of any form of software project that the computer uses. For instance, for more effective software functioning of the FS-TST, testing is a necessity. The responsibilities of this testing plan are the assurance that the testing took place as required. The testing is thus responsible for the kind of the final software made. Thus testing is important because it gauges the functionality level of the final product of the software. The timeline of this testing plan involves how the events will occur. The events process follows a certain format to be capable of achieving the main objective of the software. The process of testing this software involves first putting of the feature to be put to test into different types of the hard disk drives present in the different types of the computer models. This procedure is done on different hard drives using different forms of hard disks drives software techniques. Secondly, the results are obtained through cross- checking with the different addresses present on the different hard drives. Eventually, the final step is the result obtaining that depends on the addresses present on the hard disk drives. This is chiefly because it presents specific number of heads depending on the testing processing steps processes (Grochowski et al., 1997). Conclusion The testing technique is vital because it assists in the identification and the detection of any form of deficiencies that the project may experience. Thereby, immediate action of improving the defects will be taken to ensure effectiveness. This is because the main purpose of the procedure is to test and uncover any problem present. Therefore, the utilization of any form of testing process presents an opportunity of fixing any form of problem before it causes any kind of disaster. The process of testing is a mandatory step in any development of a new form of software before it is put in the market for use and application. References Gavrila, S., &Fong, E. (2004). Forensic software testing support tools, test plan, test design specification, test case specification. MD: VDG Inc. Retrieved from http://www.cftt.nist.gov/Forensic%20Test%20specs.pdf Grochowski, A., Bhattacharya, D., Vviswanathan, T., & Fellow, K. (8, august 1997). Integrated circuit testing for quality assurance in manufacturing: history, current status, and future trends. Retrieved from http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~ecex75/pdf/ic_quality.pdf William, P., Rosenthal, D., & Georgis, S. (2008). Predicting archival life of removable hard disk drives. Colorado, CO: proctor Systems Inc. Retrieved from http://www.lockss.org/locksswiki/files/ISandT2008.pdf William, P., Rosenthal, D., & Georgis, S. (2008). Predicting archival life of removable hard disk drives. Colorado, CO: Proctor Systems Inc. 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