How iTest Works

Maintain tests

iTest® uses powerful abstraction techniques to help automation teams build tests that are maintainable over time, robust, and capable of running in "lights out" regression systems. Imagine that you had written a simple feature test and within that test was the IP of the device. Then you gave this test to the automation team to run in their test lab, against their testbed. The test would likely fail because the IP is no longer valid. iTest solves this problem by applying abstraction, which pulls "static" items out of the test so the test can run against different testbeds without much work.

Abstraction is particularly useful to testers who work with development teams that are constantly modifying the software.

One might wonder: What would happen if a developer renamed one of the fields? Would the test then break? With iTest, the answer is no. If the testers used a response map, the test could be easily preserved. Imagine if you built a response map for the "show traffic" command, and you have 100 tests cases that reference that response map. If development changed the "show traffic" command, you only need to update the response map, and all 100 of the test cases would remain viable.