QA and test automation for Deutsche Telekom’s Entertain TV

Deutsche Telekom AG is Europe’s largest telecommunications company and a leading telecommunications providers for fixed and mobile network solutions and TV entertainment. The company operates technical networks on the German telecommunications market offering fixed-line networks, broadband, TV over satellite, IPTV and cable as well as complex business information and communication technology solutions.

 

In cooperation with Deutsche Telekom, Starkkraft developed and optimised the new setup of different test processes regarding the software quality within the company. Telekom aims to remain the European Telecom leader in customer experience, technology and GK productivity. Therefore, the products and services must deliver the highest quality standards and create a high quality customer experience.

 

The challenge:

The Evaluation of suitable test tools and integration of test automation solutions for the new interactive platform of Entertain TV. This platform can process Web, OTT and IPTV services and is flexible and open for additional services and functions. All in an extreme tight timeframe.

Deutsche Telekom needed to find a vendor that really understood its needs and the technical scope of the job. A supplier/partner which has proven relevant sector business process experience and could leverage existing partnerships that would help simplify the process; ensure that the tight deadline could be met, and that is able to automate a large number of functionalities that were manually tested and integrated into a well structured test process.

 

The technology and methods:

To secure the successful implementation of test automation, we started with a test automation assessment, created a test strategy plan and finally implemented the test automation effectively according to the needs of the company.

The systems are developed for IPTV with special set top boxes and their own operating systems. A test automation framework had to be developed to  enable the software and simultaneously the hardware set top box and OTT devices to perform automated regression-, stability- and performance tests and also to recognise and compare moving images.

 

The methods:

  • Execution of a Test Automation Assessment
  • Test Automation Tool Evaluation phase and recommendation
  • Development of a convergent test automation framework

 

Open Source Technologies:

  • JAVA, MySQL, OpenCV, TestNG
  • Jenkins, Github, IntelliJ IDEA
  • Special signal control embedded hardware and video capture hardware
  • Selenium, Appium, Sikuli automation Frameworks

 

Commercial technologies:

  • See Test Mobile Automation Software
  • Micro Focus HP UFT
  • SoapUI
  • Neoload

 

The solution:

All activities around the automation of the above mentioned tests were built and developed mostly with open source solutions. We developed a solution based on a unique technology, which can reproduce the behaviour of users when using their household appliances, such as set-top boxes and smartphones, or Internet access boxes and web browsers. The Challenge was to test automated multi service scenarios (convergent scenarios). Our solution was an innovative, fast and cost efficient solution aligned to the rapid changes in the Telecommunications & Media Industry