Insight Blog

Brilliant minds meet to evaluate Exasol in a testing dojo

A group of clever minds came together on Saturday, 18 July 2015 as part of a “testing dojo” to put the world’s fastest in-memory analytic database from Exasol through its paces.

The event saw several experienced testers gather under the same roof in Stockholm to examine the database thoroughly.

The managing director of Competitive Management AB, Johan Sandström, who led the testing process, commented:

This is a great opportunity for companies to have experienced testers try out their product for free, while at the same time gather useful data based on the stability, usability and how their product is perceived from an user experience.

The objective of the meeting was therefore to see if the software meets business and technical requirements that it is designed for and whether it stands up to the promise.

We were delighted to interview Mr. Johan Sandström who was on board during the testing process and who shares his thoughts on testing Exasol as well as his passion for exploration.

What was your role in moderating and supervising the review process?

During the testing dojo it was my task to observe, guide, and direct our testers on what needed to be tested, by adhering to key areas and answering pre-determined questions. The testing team then used a variation on the waterfall methodology while testing in an agile environment.

The session goals were defined as follows:

  • aim to test all identified key areas from the perspective of an end user
  • find issues related to how the product is perceived via the User Experience (UX) phase
  • discover matters related to how the product is perceived using usability features

What was the main motivation behind choosing to test Exasol’s in-memory analytic database?

Whenever we run a testing dojo, we aim to find sponsors that already have a stable and fully developed product in place. This way, we can concentrate on what we do best: uncovering issues related to how the end-user perceives their product. From our experience we have realized that developers often tend to turn a blind eye towards their obvious product flaws, not because they want to, but rather due to the ever growing size of the product they are working on.”

After conducting the tests, what are your general impressions on Exasol’s database?

During the session, our team went through the software searching for issues related to how the solution is perceived by the end-user, concentrating on usability and user experience. Based on the session’s results, it soon became clear that a lot of effort has been put into creating a very stable and fast solution at Exasol.

What were the central criteria and elements you used when testing Exasol?

While running the testing dojo we identified key areas, based on how we thought the end-user perceived the product. Those key areas included installation, services, and configuration. In order for us to clear the testing area, five different questions were to be answered before proceeding:

  • Does the GUI reflect what is promised by the solution?
  • Is the usability considered up-to-par with the rest of the product?
  • Are there sufficient notifications given to the user, and are they user-friendly?
  • Does the user experience fulfill the customers’ expectations?
  • How does the look and feel compare to that of the rest of the product?”

In your opinion, what are the fundamental opportunities and benefits end users can gain via integrating Exasol as their back-end system to analyze data?

Exasol helps organizations turn data into business value. They develop an in-memory database for analytics and data warehousing that is specifically engineered to deliver unprecedented analytic performance with no limits on their data. Basing our opinion on the testing dojo results, extensive and continuous testing could enable deeper conclusions in order to meet the higher demand expected by the end-user in today’s market.

About Johan Sandström

Johan Sandström is a larger-than-life character who has several years of international testing experience in different continents. His assignments vary between functional, automated, and technical testing in embedded systems, streamed media, and complex payment solutions.

Currently Johan is employed at AddQ Consulting as a senior technical test consultant and runs his own company at the same time. He has devoted a great deal of his time to coaching various social networks in test and agile methodologies, both as a speaker and participant.

His latest venture is to run the testing dojo network together with two colleagues.