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There are companies that purchase automated testing tools only to realize that implementing a cost-effective automated testing solution is far more difficult than it appears. We often hear things like: "It looked so easy when the vendor did it, but my people couldn't get it to work." or "We spent 6 months trying to implement this tool, but we still have to do most of our testing manually."

What is Automated Testing?
Simply put, it is automating the manual testing process that is currently in use. If a tester is asked to run 100 tests, it is likely that he will eventually miss something.

Today, developers and testers require a test infrastructure with the availability of standardized test data, metrics and automated test suites for functional and performance testing that would make benchmarking tests less costly to perform. This would enable timely detection of defects in the SDLC by testing early in life cycle, repeatedly and automatically, says Venkatesh Chillara, Asst VP, Quality Consulting, Satyam.

Sharad Sharma, general manager- India, Veritas Software believes that there is an increasing shift towards automated software testing in India. "As the economies in the West struggle, automated testing is one way of keeping operational costs low.

Says T Srinivasan, managing director, Mercury India. Beyond a point, however, one cannot do manual testing, especially when there are 1000 odd users involved.

Testing Challenges
Automation almost always pays rich dividends. It is a very powerful tool and this makes it potent, declares Arindum Basu, VP and head of Independent Testing Practice, Kanbay. But he is quick to point out that while automated testing will definitely be on the rise and is in fact already a major trend in embedded testing, it is not the panacea that most people are often led to believe in.

Vipul Kocher of Pure Testing has an interesting point of view. "Most companies do not do even manual testing properly. Automation in such environments is not going to yield the expected benefits," he argues.

Case for Automated Testing
Two segments-end users and product companies, would have a repetitive requirement of testing of their applications at periodic intervals. These two constituents are taking to automated testing now.

Is there an increasing trend towards automated testing? R Chandrashekaran, managing director, Cognizant. "In recent times, automated testing has been fine-tuned and perfected, and hence we believe it is here to stay."

The increasingly integrated nature of IT systems is another factor pushing companies towards automated testing. There is definitely a greater focus on automated testing today. But there is a shortage of good quality skills in this area, says Subramaniam, director, Maveric. At the same time, organizations are still maturing their processes in testing and would be more ready for automated testing in the years to come, he feels.

Nanda Kasabe With inputs from sunitha natti in Hyderabad and Priya Padmanabhan in Bangalore.

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