Testing with FIX Protocol - BFSI Domain

Folks:

This is an interesting read. Keeping in mind that the many companies are trying to develop a level of competency to overall testing FIX protocol.

I had known that Capgemini has developed this with the help of Aegisoft and HP, but never knew that BreakingPoint Labs (http://www.breakingpointsystems.com/) has developed their own load testing tool, which will help to test the FIX Based applications.

Basics about FIX:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Information_eXchange

http://www.cameronedge.com/fixwiki/FIXwiki

http://www.fixprotocol.org/products/

What it is:

The Financial Information eXchange (FIX) protocol is an electronic communications protocol initiated in 1992 for international real-time exchange of information related to the securities transactions and markets. With trillions of dollars traded annually on the NASDAQ alone, financial service entities are investing heavily in optimizing electronic trading and employing Direct Market Access (DMA) to increase their speed to financial markets. Managing the delivery of trading applications and keeping latency low increasingly requires an understanding of the FIX protocol

Companies providing QA solutions around it:

Capgemini Announces Comprehensive FIX Protocol Testing Accelerator for Financial Services Industry

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS216595+07-May-2009+BW20090507

"The traditional approach would be to carry out the tests over the phone and using paper test scripts that would have to be updated," to reflect whether or not connectivity had been successfully established, said Murat Asku, practice head of testing for capital markets at Capgeminis's financial services business group. "Our approach involves updating digital models of tags and messages of all the major asset classes."

The Capgemini accelerator, developed in conjunction with Hewlett Packard, Blueprint Systems and Aegisoft, streamlines the updating process and stabilizes the changes being introduced. The way messages are tested and what they're tested against also are standardized, reducing strain on quality assurance and IT departments.

Capgemini Financial Dips Into FIX Testing Waters

http://www.securitiesindustry.com/issues/19_96/-23496-1.html

"The traditional approach would be to carry out the tests over the phone and using paper test scripts that would have to be updated," to reflect whether or not connectivity had been successfully established, said Murat Asku, practice head of testing for capital markets at Capgeminis's financial services business group. "Our approach involves updating digital models of tags and messages of all the major asset classes."

History teaches.....Fight to win!!

Madan Mohan Malaviya was trying to build a good university; he had to overcome many difficulties and barriers.
He worked with great determination to start the university. There was a funds crisis; but he did not get disheartened. He went from town to town, met many rich people and traders to collect donations.
He went to the Nizam of Hyderabad to request him for funds. The Nizam was furious, 'How dare You come to me for funds and that too for a Hindu University? He roared with anger and took off his footwear and flung it at Malviya.
Malviya picked up the footwear and left silently. He came directly to the market place and began to auction the footwear. As it was the Nizam's footwear, many came forward to buy it. The price went up.
When Nizam heard of this, he became uneasy. He thought it would be an insult if his footwear were to be bought by someone for a pittance. So he sent one of his attendants with the instruction, 'Buy that footwear no matter what the bidding price be!'

Thus, Malviya managed to sell the Nizam's own footwear to him, for a huge amount.
He used that money to build the Banaras Hindu University.
thus it's well said.....

"Himmate Mardaa Madad-e-khuda"

Indian Army launches its own webportal

TAKING A major step forward in an effort to empower itself into a technology driven environment, the Indian Army (IA) got its own web portal. The web portal is hosted on the National Informatics Centre (NIC) server and was launched on Thursday, November 5, 2009.

To know more click on below link

http://webrelatedsearch.blogspot.com/

SOA Testing -

Found useful stuff at a Software Testing Google Group:

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When you say SOA testing there are many complexities are involved.

SOA testing is performed at different levels
1) Application Level
2) Web services Level
3) Integration Testing
4) Database Level

As the term SOA is explained as - Service Oriented Architecture, there
are different services which are consumed within the application on
shared platform.

Service Consumer and Service Provider are the main actors along with
the Service Registry.
Testers scope are varied as per the testing requirements.

Tester is responsible to validate the SOA rules(Service Registry
rules) as well as to ensure all different applications interacting
with each other are in sync.

Web services communication within different entities is critical part.
It is like Continuous Improvements/Enhancements of the application.

Here are some of the validations from QA's perspective:-
1) Business rules are being followed within the application
2) Request & Response communication is as per SOA policies
3) Appropriate fields are being updated in DB
4) If there are any 3rd party processes like Batch process is to be
executed then the result set shows its influence in respective
applications only
5) Same Business process is executed at different levels thru
different applications
6) All applications speaks same language in terms of communication and
core business processes
7) Data security testing is high priority
8) Factors influencing the configuration of web services
9) Integration Testing is also one of high priority issue
10)Continuous Regression is needed in order to keep SOA policies up to
date

At times the application may looks preety simple however, the factors
which drive the business rules are really complex.

There are possibilities that some of the applications using SOA
platform follow different development methodology like Agile,
Iterative or any other; which makes SOA testing an interesting case.

Most frequent defects are from all quarters where the application has
touched the common platform.
One can observe defects as listed in above 10 points and to add the
list are Environment Issues as well.

Any small defect in one application could be a potential showstopper
for another, which makes QA team very vital team player in continuous
improvement activities.

If there are any queries, please let me know, I would be more than
happy to address.

All the Best!

Regards,