beteo ALM Experts Blog

Category: HP Quality Center

HP Quality Center, HP UCMDB, test management tools

  • HP Quality Center 10: From a Test Manager’s Perspective

    The new Version 10 of the HP Quality Center (QC) is now available. Yet what are the actual advantages of the new QC compared to its predecessor from a Test Manager’s perspective? Below, I will take a look at some of the new features and changes, and I will answer the question whether one should even make the switch.

    The Most Significant Changes:

    HP Quality Center 10 brings several important new features. The most significant change is the complete redesign of the user interface, which is now based on a web client rather than a dedicated client application. This brings advantages in terms of deployment and maintenance, but requires adaptation from experienced QC users.

    New features include improved dashboard functionality with customizable views and reports, better integration with HP’s ALM tool suite, enhanced defect workflow capabilities, and improved performance with large test repositories.

    From a Test Manager’s perspective, the most valuable improvements are in reporting and dashboard functionality. The new dashboards provide better real-time visibility into test execution status and defect trends. The improved reporting capabilities make it easier to create management-level reports that communicate test progress and quality status effectively.

    The migration from QC 9.x to QC 10 requires careful planning. Data migration needs to be tested thoroughly, and all integrations with other tools must be re-validated. Custom workflows and business rules need to be reviewed and potentially adapted for the new version.

    Recommendation: HP Quality Center 10 offers genuine improvements, particularly in reporting and dashboarding. However, the migration effort should not be underestimated. A phased migration approach with thorough testing is recommended.

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  • Integrating Jira and HP Quality Center

    Testing departments use HP Quality Center (QC) for quality management and testing activities. Besides managing test requirements, it also helps them to compile test plans, and to conduct and monitor testing. In addition, Quality Center gives them a way to manage all defect tracking.

    However, developers often work with their own tools to manage bugs and defects, and to monitor problem-fixes. This is often Jira, an issue tracking and project management tool from Atlassian. This creates a situation where two different tools are used for defect management: HP Quality Center on the testing side and Jira on the development side.

    The integration of Jira and HP Quality Center bridges this gap by synchronizing defects between the two tools. When a tester creates a defect in Quality Center, it can automatically be created in Jira as well. When a developer updates the status in Jira, the change is reflected in Quality Center. This bidirectional synchronization ensures that both teams always have access to the latest defect status.

    beteo has implemented such integrations for various clients and has developed expertise in the technical and organizational aspects of tool integration. The benefits include: elimination of duplicate data entry, improved communication between testing and development teams, better traceability from defects to fixes, and more accurate reporting across both tools.

    The integration can be implemented using various approaches, including commercial integration tools and custom development. The choice of approach depends on the specific requirements and the technical environment.

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  • beteo Successfully Assists SBB in Implementing HP Quality Center

    Test factory based on HP Quality Center is now available for all SBB projects. When it came to the complex and systematic implementation of the software quality management program, SBB called upon the Swiss Application Lifecycle Management consulting company beteo. SBB is utilizing HP Quality Center in its test environment, where standardized test procedures and consistent test management can now dramatically simplify and optimize the testing process.

    SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) is one of Switzerland’s largest enterprises and one of the most important public transport companies in Europe. The implementation of a standardized test environment across all projects was a major challenge, requiring careful planning and execution.

    beteo’s approach was to establish a test factory concept based on HP Quality Center that provides a centralized, standardized testing infrastructure for all SBB projects. This enables consistent quality management, better test coverage, and significant efficiency gains in the testing process.

    The project results demonstrate the value of professional ALM consulting: standardized test procedures, improved test documentation, better traceability between requirements and test cases, and more efficient defect management. The implementation has set a new standard for software quality management at SBB.

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  • HP uCMDB 7.0 Base Implementation Training

    In beteo’s projects, HP´s Universal CMDB is often used as configuration management database in the context of Application Lifecycle Management projects. I had the opportunity to get more general uCMDB knowledge at a HP training course in Helsinki. CMDBs (Configuration Management Databases) are used more and more consistently in enterprises in order to map and survey the increasingly complex system landscapes. uCMDB (Universal CMDB) is the name for HP´s CMDB implementation, which clearly focuses on the capability of mapping large business environments. The training was a five-day course held at Oracle´s Training Center. The participants came from Finland, Poland, England and Switzerland.

    The course started with a survey about how to use a CMDB. Step-by-step, we were led through almost all menus of uCMDB. The basic element of a CMDB is the so-called CI (Configuration Item), which describes the properties of any hardware, software as well as business process. Each CI is an instance of a CIT (Configuration Item Type), comparable to an object in object-oriented programming.

    The most important modules of uCMDB are the automatic search function enabling the search for system landscape changes by means of discovery, the impact analysis and the distributed storage of the CMDB via a centralized administration, the so-called Federated data model.

    Basically, uCMDB is able to store all kinds of properties of all kinds of systems. In combination with HP Business Availability Center (HP BAC), uCMDB allows a monitoring system to be implemented. The training course clearly demonstrated the power of the uCMDB, in spite and because of its actually simple structure.

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  • Integrating HP PPM with HP Quality Center – As Simple as It Looks?

    Very often, the processes of change & transport and quality management in the IT organzation are technically not very tightly integrated. Although organizationally, they are well coordinated, with both processes being clearly defined, digitized, automated and constantly improved, I doubt if their integration is tight enough.

    Integration von Change Management und Quality Management

    HP Software, a significant vendor not only of the process engine for change and transport management HP PPM, but also of HP Quality Center as the leading test management solution, provides a basis for an integrated solution. I was asked to carry this over into practice – an exciting as well as seemingly simple task.

    The first step was to technically join both environments together and logically merge them into one platform.

    The Search

    Well, searching for information in the Internet was not very fruitful or, to be exact: there is none. So I was forced to utilize my good connections to HP to get holf of the documents I needed. Thanks to the competent people I addressed, it was a success.

    Compatibility with versions

    An overview of the compatibility of versions was particularly important and helpful. Our PPM versions required that we used the PPM extension Application Change Lifecycle (ACL 2.0) for the intergration with QC. The newer tool Managing Application Change Tool (MAC) does not yet work with our customer´s version.

    Integration guide

    The procedure of integrating PPM and QC is documented in the Integration Guide of HP and described step by step. So it was my job to work out the 200 pages of this guide one page after another.

    Mappings

    Applying the technical procedure to our actual environment and system landscape was a challenge, particularly with regard to the mappings. The intergrated standard workflows and interface definitions may be a good basis for implementation. But to meet all requirements, the mappings of data, stati, and processes must be elaborated. Careful attention must be paid to the change of stati in the workflow in order to avoid uncontrolled process steps.

    What next?

    So far, I have made a huge step towards the integration aimed for. But I am sure there will be more problems to be sorted out. In due time, I will report on my experience with the ongoing implementation. Comments and further hints from fellow sufferers or sympathizers are welcome.

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