Database Fundamentals for Test Professionals (Elective)

This tutorial covers the Elective area of the Test Management Body of Knowledge (TMBOK) required for the Certified Test Manager (CTM) certification. This tutorial also covers the Elective area of the Certified Software Test Professional requirements.

For cost and cities where this course might be offered, check our Public Training Schedule.To bring this course to your test team at your location, contact our Education and Professionals Services Group.

Concepts

Most applications today are built with a relational database backend. Without knowledge of how these databases are designed and implemented, testers cannot properly test multi-tiered applications. This course will enable the student to understand, evaluate, and interact with the database component of modern applications. While not a course on SQL, SQL will be introduced and its role in database applications examined.

Outline

Module 1 - DB Testing Concepts Primer: Understanding Database applications

• Where Does One Test?
• Testing Concurrently Accessed Shared Data
• Timestamps, Application IDs, and user IDs can play a role in helping to reproduce and (debug).
• Testing Multiple Application Servers
• Testing a Clustered Database
• Test Checklist
• Test Transaction integrity

Module 2 - Relational DB Basics for Testers

• Why should test professionals know Relational DB basics?
• Is your Database Truly Relational?
• Basic Properties to Inspect
• Field Integrity
• Table Integrity
• Constraints between fields
• Primary Key Fields
• Data Set Integrity
• 1 st Normal Form
• 2 nd Normal Form
• 3 rd Normal Form
• Update, insertion, and deletion anomalies
• Referential Integrity
• Lack of Data Integrity Introduces Errors
• Inspecting Database Designs
• System Tables
• Static Testing: Reading an ERD
• Table Relationships

Module 3 - Introduction to SQL

• Why should test professionals know SQL Basics?
• Standardization Layer
• Parts of the language
• SQL DML Basics
• Select statements for Testing
• SQL Basics - Select
• Order of clauses in SQL Select statement:
• SQL Basics - Insert, Update, Delete
• Combining Data from Multiple Tables
• Introduction to Joins

Module 4 - Summary

• Multi-tiered applications
• Database design fundamentals
• Role of SQL