Recap: The Internet of Things and Its Impact on Testing Webinar

Thank you to everyone who registered and joined us for our webinar on The Internet of Things and Its Impact on Testing! We knew this would be a popular topic and one that many people would want to learn about, and the registration and attendance numbers showed just that. We are very proud and ecstatic that you found our content valuable for your teams and your organizations!

The Internet of Things is something that all software developers and testers need to be aware of. There is no denying the impact it already has on our daily lives, and as we saw in the webinar, it's projected growth is astronomical! It might just be a buzzword to many or something that people view as novelty destined to fade, but IoT is here to stay and it is revolutionizing the way that software is being developed and tested.

And by the turnout for the webinar, many of you realize it is something you need to be ready for! We had more than 1400 registrants for this webinar and we can't thank everyone enough for taking time out of their busy schedules to listen to the material we prepared for you. As we do with all of our webinars, we ran several polls and were happy to see that participation rates continue to increase. These answers provide very valuable answers that not only guide future webinars we can prepare for you, but they also offer our panelists the chance to offer additional insight with how these answers compare to their personal experiences.

The first poll we ran measured the impact IoT has on your day-to-day testing activities and the results were quite interesting! Approximately 40% of attendees know the term "Internet of Things," but still aren't quite sure what it is, while another 42% are aware of what IoT is, but don't believe it has an impact on their jobs as testers. With the rapid growth of IoT, we are sure that those testing processes and efforts are sure to be altered in some way. And the second poll we ran gauged your primary concerns with IoT in future and, as we expected security is the primary concern with 51% of attedees selecting that option. Automation came in second at 25%, and this is perfect because the second part of our IoT webinar series will cover automation and security. That webinar will be taking place in July, so be sure to register and save your spot!

We would like to thank Joe Colantonio from TestTalks and Bob Crews from Checkpoint Technologies. Their participation and expertise were integral in making this webinar as successful and insightful as it was!

Be sure to keep checking back as we have these thought leadership webinars every month! Next month we have part II of our IoT webinar series and it will cover your concerns regarding security and automation. If you enjoyed our first webinar on IoT and want to learn more, you need to register!

Also, don't forget to download our white paper on The Internet of Things and Software Testing!

Below you can find answers from Shailesh to the questions asked during the webinar:

• Q: Exist some collaborative project available at this time to learn or contribute??
• A: It's a very wide subject and it would be good to narrow your focus on areas that you want to focus. Some projects that you can probably consider are Parse (from Facebook), Kaa (http://kaaproject.org/)

• Q: How is the Internet of Everything different from IoT? Please give examples.
• A: IoE is the superset. In other words, IoT is one of of the components of IoE

• Q: Does IoT involve white box testing for eg embedded prog lang etc?
• A: White box would be ideal but at the very least, testers would be required to understand next level of details around OS, firmware, hardware configuration, connectivity protocols, so as to provide complete test coverage. Some industry experts start calling it gray box testing.

• Q: Other than manual or checklist, which are tools available for testing?
• A: This is a relatively new and unexplored territory. Not very many tools exists that can be reused. Most devices either have home grown concoctions or relying on manual testing.

• Q: How overall it affect the Test Management? Especially regression & functional testing.
• A: It will add many more flavors to those existing types of testing categories.

• Q: Future of IoT devices in Logistics field?
• A: We are definitely seeing major changes in this area already. Technology to track shipments in real time, ability to track transit path taken, goods condition (temperature, shock, pressure etc) during transit etc are already available. Along with this, there are first generation of analytics are also being developed. There is lot more scope to come up with innovative business models and more analytical intelligence.

• Q: Does it require embedded electronics knowledge for testers?
• A: It wont be a requirement however it will be immensely helpful to know, understand the landscape to be able to better comprehend increasing complexity of this new system.

Written by Kyle Nordeen