Staging Environment

In the current there are so many e-Commerce sites, many online stores which are operate 24*7, So in this situation it difficult to perform maintenance or test changes to the system. The Web Sphere Commerce staging server allows the Site Administrator to update the data on the staging server and test the changes, and then propagate the change to the production server. This is useful for testing updates to the product catalog, but it is also important for testing new shopping process commands. The staging server is useful for both technical and business users. The staging environment lets you move Web site assets within and across different environments

For example: Suppose in an online store there is a small changed, any product has been update or any discount updated. So verifying these changes in a test environment ensures that the changes do not cause incorrect or unexpected situations in the production environment. Once tested successfully, the changes can be moved to the production server. In an enterprise deployment, you can define staging projects to move content from the development environment to the integration/test environment, from there to the staging environment, and from there to the production environment.

The staging environment consists of two components:

• The staging database server.
• The staging server.

Staging Database Server

The staging database server contains the business data, such as marketing campaigns and product catalogs, and database resources that you want to stage to the database servers in the production environment. Business users can update business data in the staging environment so that you can test and approve the changes before you incorporate the changes into the run-time environment. The staging environment prevents disruption of the run-time site and services by isolating the test and production systems.

Staging Server

The staging server is a mirror of the production business management server. You create staging projects and routes on the staging server to deploy site updates from the test environment to the production environment. You can also use the staging server to deploy updates to geographically distributed environments across a wide area network (WAN).

Comparison in Staging environment and Production Environment

Setup	Staging server	Production server
Hardware	same	same
Software version	same	same
Operating system version	same	same
Configuration	same	same
WebSphere Application Server	same	same
WebSphere Commerce Server	same	same
Database server	same	same
Database	same	same

These similarities allow a user to test changes on the staging server as if it were the production server. These tests reassure users that changes that run correctly on the staging server will run correctly on the production server. This is the basic philosophy of the staging serve. Once the testing completes, a user may want a function to automatically propagate the changes to the production server.

Reference: http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter, http://msdn.microsoft.com

Window vs Web Based Testing

Window based application:

This type of applications runs on personal computers and work stations, Application runs in single memory (Front end and Back end on single system). This type of application used by Single user only  so when you test the desktop application you are focusing on a specific environment.  It works on 2 tier architecture. For testing of window based application we are focusing on the user interface mostly as well as database which is working as back end of this application.

Client Server based Application:

Client server Application is a 2 tier Application with a Front End and a Back end. The application launched on front-end will be having forms and reports which will be monitoring and manipulating data, the front end is developed languages like PHP, .Net, JAVA etc.  . On the back end database server exist like Oracle, MYSQL, SQL server etc. For testing of client server architecture we should focus on the

• User interface testing
• Manual support testing
• Functionality testing
• Compatibility testing & configuration testing
• Inter system testing

Web based application:

 Application will be loaded in the server. Client machine use the application using URL. All the web application can be access by the many users simultaneously. It works on 3 tier architecture. Here we will be having Browser, web server and DB server. The applications accessible in browser would be developed in HTML, DHTML, XML, JavaScript etc Applications for the web server would be developed in Java, ASP, JSP, VBScript, JavaScript, Perl, Cold Fusion, PHP etc.  The Database server would be having oracle, SQL server, MYSQL etc.  You have to focus on the different things for testing purpose like

• User interface testing
• Functionality testing
• Security testing
• Browser compatibility testing
• Load / stress testing
• Interoperability testing
• Storage and data volume testing

           

Difference between window based and web based application testing:

1. A Web based application runs through a browser (IE, Mozilla, Chrome) while Windows based application is more precisely a computer based application, which is run through  OS(Windows, Linux, Mac os) there is no need of web browser for this kind of application.
2. Web based application can be used by different users accessing the same program at same time, hence mobility is more while Windows based application has to be accessed by the particular computer by single user at a time.
3. Speed of  Web based application depends upon net work that’s why some time it is slow while  Speed is comparatively faster for Windows based applications
4. Database handling plays a major part in web based while Role of database is less or none in desktop application
5.  Range is wider for web applications-HTTP,WWW,SMTP,TCP/IP while  Limited to a particular computer for window based application
6.  A Web based application Uses network layer  while Windows based application Uses application layer