Compatibility Testing : All You need to know

What is Compatibility Testing?

Compatibility testing, as a type of software testing, determines whether your software can run on different combinations of hardware, operating systems, applications, network settings, or mobile devices.

This is an example of Non-functional testing.

Types of Compatibility Tests

Below are some of the testing types based on compatibility:

Hardware: It ensures that the software is compatible with various hardware configurations.

Operating Systems: It verifies compatibility with a variety of operating systems, including Windows, Unix, and Mac OS.

Software: It verifies that the software you have created is compatible with other programs. For example, the MS Word application should work seamlessly with other programs such as MS Outlook, MS Excel, and VBA.

Network: Performance evaluation of a system in a network involves assessing its performance under various conditions, such as bandwidth availability.

Browser:

This testing for websites involves testing their compatibility with a variety of browsers, including Firefox, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer.

Devices: Testing for software includes testing its similarity with a variety of devices, such as USB ports, printers, scanners, other media devices, and Bluetooth.

Mobile: This testing verifies your software with mobile platforms such as Android and iOS.

Versions of the software: Process of ensuring that your software program is compatible with various software versions. For instance, checking the compatibility of your Microsoft Word with Windows 7, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 7 SP2, and Windows 7 SP3 is an example of this.

There are two types of version of Compatibility Testing:

Backward Compatibility Testing

This is a technique for ensuring the behaviour and compatibility of newly developed hardware or software with previous versions of the same. Backward compatibility testing is much more predictable as all previous version modifications are known.

Forward Compatibility Testing

This is a technique that verifies the behaviour and compatibility of created hardware or software with newer versions. 

Because the changes in newer versions are unknown, so forward compatibility testing is difficult to predict.

Tools for Testing Compatibility:

1. BrowserStack: Browser: This tool aids a software developer in testing an application across many browsers.
2. Virtual Desktops Operating System Compatibility: This is used to execute applications as virtual machines on several operating systems. Connect n number of systems and compare the results.

How to Perform

• The first step in this is to determine which environments or platforms the application will be used in.
• The tester should be familiar enough with the platforms,software,  and hardware to understand how the application should behave in various setups.
• Set up the environment for testing with various platforms, devices, and networks to see if your application works well in various setups.
• Make a bug report. Fix the bugs. Re-test to ensure that the defect has been resolved.

Conclusion:

This is most used to guarantee that generated software works in various setups (as stated in requirements 

documentation). 

The objective of testing is to ensure that the application works in the client’s environment.

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