V-model in software testing with advantages and disadvantages

V model

V-model is software development model it is improve from the waterfall model. V-model is normally used for manage the software development project in the large company.

V-model is also called verification and validation model (V&V). It has a very intensive testing in order to eliminate the bug/error that may be occur during each stage of development project using V-model.

You can see the picture of V-model as below

Following are the Verification phases in V-Model:

• Business Requirement Analysis: This is the first phase in the development cycle where the product requirements are understood from the customer perspective. This phase involves detailed communication with the customer to understand his expectations and exact requirement. This is a very important activity and need to be managed well, as most of the customers are not sure about what exactly they need. The acceptance test design planning is done at this stage as business requirements can be used as an input for acceptance testing.
• System Design: Once you have the clear and detailed product requirements, it.s time to design the complete system. System design would comprise of understanding and detailing the complete hardware and communication setup for the product under development. System test plan is developed based on the system design. Doing this at an earlier stage leaves more time for actual test execution later.
• Architectural Design: Architectural specifications are understood and designed in this phase. Usually more than one technical approach is proposed and based on the technical and financial feasibility the final decision is taken. System design is broken down further into modules taking up different functionality. This is also referred to as High Level Design (HLD).
• The data transfer and communication between the internal modules and with the outside world (other systems) is clearly understood and defined in this stage. With this information, integration tests can be designed and documented during this stage.
• Module Design: In this phase the detailed internal design for all the system modules is specified, referred to as Low Level Design (LLD). It is important that the design is compatible with the other modules in the system architecture and the other external systems. Unit tests are an essential part of any development process and helps eliminate the maximum faults and errors at a very early stage. Unit tests can be designed at this stage based on the internal module designs.

Coding Phase

The actual coding of the system modules designed in the design phase is taken up in the Coding phase. The best suitable programming language is decided based on the system and architectural requirements. The coding is performed based on the coding guidelines and standards. The code goes through numerous code reviews and is optimized for best performance before the final build is checked into the repository.

Validation Phases

Following are the Validation phases in V-Model:

• Unit Testing: Unit tests designed in the module design phase are executed on the code during this validation phase. Unit testing is the testing at code level and helps eliminate bugs at an early stage, though all defects cannot be uncovered by unit testing.
• Integration Testing: Integration testing is associated with the architectural design phase. Integration tests are performed to test the coexistence and communication of the internal modules within the system.
• System Testing: System testing is directly associated with the System design phase. System tests check the entire system functionality and the communication of the system under development with external systems. Most of the software and hardware compatibility issues can be uncovered during system test execution.
• Acceptance Testing: Acceptance testing is associated with the business requirement analysis phase and involves testing the product in user environment. Acceptance tests uncover the compatibility issues with the other systems available in the user environment. It also discovers the non functional issues such as load and performance defects in the actual user environment

Advantages:-

1. The defect or bug can be found in the early stage.
2. It is trustworthy software development model that used widely in the big company.
3. V-model can be done parallel in each side of “V” (Left and right side), that mean the testing (Right side) is acting like planning (Left side).
4. The tester must design the test case and the testing team is joined early in the project development life cycle, so they will receive a good understanding of the project at the very beginning

Disadvantages:-

1. Use a lot of money and resource to implement the complete V-model
2. Suitable for the large project which have to do for long term (not suitable of short term project because it need to review at each stage).
3. Test is important, by ignore any one of test phase may affect the quality of product.
4. No prototype software can be made because the software is developed in
5. the implementation phase.
6. It is rigid and least flexible (if something happen or change in during the middle stage of V model,
7. the requirement document and the test document is also need to update)

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