Conformance Testing

Conformance Testing is a type of software testing that is performed to determine whether a software product or application meets with the specific and standard requirements. This type of testing is usually either logical testing or physical testing. Conformance testing procedures also involve other criteria from mathematical testing or chemical testing. Many requirements for efficiency, interoperability and compliance are applied.

Conformance testing is carried out by an authorized person or organization. When the testing is certified then the software products can be placed in market as a certified products.

Objective of Conformance Testing: The objective of conformance testing is:

• To check the requirements of the software system.
• To check the completeness of software documentation.
• To check the development and design according to specifications and standards.

Types of Conformance Testing: Conformance testing is basically of three types:

• Load Testing: Load Testing is a type of software testing which determines the performance of a software product or software application under real life based load conditions. Basically load testing determines the behavior of the application when multiple users use it at the same time. It is the response of the system measured under varying load conditions.
• Stress Testing: Stress testing is defined as a type of software testing that verifies the stability and reliability of the system. This test particularly determines the system on its robustness and error handling under extremely heavy load conditions. It even tests beyond the normal operating point and analyses how the system works under the extreme conditions. Stress testing is performed to ensure that the system would not crash under crunch situations.
• Volume Testing: Volume Testing is a type of software testing which is carried out to test a software application with a certain amount of data. The amount used in volume testing could be a database size or it could also be the size of an interface file that is the subject of volume testing.

Advantages of Conformance Testing:

• It ensures the implementation according to specifications.
• It ensures interoperability.
• It yields proper utilization of standards.

Disadvantages of Conformance Testing:

• It needs predefined values.
• It needs various extensions to perform the testing process.