SIT UAT

Reproduce the article:

http://focustesting.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/system-testing-st-sit-vs-uat-user-acceptance-testingbusiness-user-testing/

 

System testing (ST & SIT) and UAT (BUT) are stages in application testing. It is imperative that the application is tested in ST followed by SIT and finally UAT phases before alpha and beta release. Let us now analyze ST & UAT from which we can understand the basic difference between the two.

System Testing/System Integration Testing(SIT):

• ST is one of the phases in application testing in which the system is tested with no real external interfaces.
• ST can be either functional or non-functional testing (performance)
• Emphasis is more on the implemented system’s functionalit
• In ST phases, all test cases and scripts written just to satisy the functionality and the coverage is on a high level.
• No production data is usually used to test the application under system testing phase, unless otherwise specified as a deviation in the test plan/strategy.
• In SIT phase, all internal interfaces are integrated and tested functionally and from the perspective of data integrity.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT):

• UAT is pure functional testing where the system behaviour is monitered with real production (scrambled) test data.
• Also known as BUT (Business User Testing) is a phase in application testing where end users are involved in testing the application.
• All external and internal interfaces are available with the AUT (application under test) during UAT.
• Usability is also considered as apart of UAT phase. UAT is usually carried out with production data (in case of existing legacy application).
• In UAT phases, test scripts are written extremely in detail with step by step precision to realise a test case (functionality)
• Functional test techniques such as BVT, Equivalance partationing, use case testing, state transition testing and Decision table testing.

  There has been several instances where many projects run both SIT and UAT parallel. This due to operational constraints and Business user’s availability factors that influence such decisions. The product runs into several risks such as application unstability during such instances. But this is the risk which most managers take to meet schedule commitments.