QTP refers to Quick Test Professional, a product developed by HP to provide functional and regression test automation for different software environments and applications that are developed. QTP is also widely used in enterprise quality assurance. RFT, on the other hand, refers to a Relational Functional Tester which is a tool for automated testing developed by IBM’s software division.  Users have the capability of creating tests that mirror the actions and assessments that would be given by a human tester. Although the face values of these two tools is similar, there are several differences observed between them.

Differences

In script generation and language, RFT is capable of developing fully functional VB scripts as well as Java scripts.  QTP on the other hand can only generate VB scripts.  Looking at the scripts that these two create, the script in HP’s QTP is graphic user interface (GUI) based. On each step that is performed by the user, auto documentation is done. All this is recorded in the table and in the keyword view, thus making a novice to feel confident and  making it easy to work with the tool. Any user of RFT must have a fair level of programming experience as it does not have a graphic interface as in QTP. A novice would therefore find using RFT extremely challenging.

In the playback of scripts, a replay of user actions performed during the recording phase is done. In contrast with RFT, which does not allow selection of multiple values (which is done by use of shift keys), QTP does support the selection of multiple values. Different test cases can be generated by the use of data driven commands in RFT, but the output of values has to be entered manually. QTP uses parametrization of tests in the generation of test cases.

In object identification, QTP is very good and can identify any custom object. RFT on the other hand targets standard objects but does not perform well for custom objects.  This goes on to test execution where QTP is seen to execute very quickly as opposed to RFT, which is significantly slower in execution.

In reporting capabilities, QTP employs standard reporting formats such as HTML and XML with the default format being its own user interface and HTML. RFT, on the other hand, only works with a single format, HTML, which is also the default format.  Custom coding is required if other interfaces are needed.

In the browsing capabilities, QTP is quite advanced and can support Internet Explorer 7.0 and Netscape 2.0. IBM’s RFT cannot support both Internet 7.0 and Netscape 2.0. The framework supported by RFT is keyword driven, data driven modularity. QTP, on the other hand, supports library architecture, modularity, keyword driven, and data driven.

The active screen availability does not have RFT available in it while QTP supports active screen availability. HP’s QTP supports a descriptive programming approach. Looking at the costs for procurement, RFT is significantly cheaper as opposed to procurement costs associated with QTP.

Summary

There are major strengths and weaknesses of both QTP and RFT. A comparison of features shows that overall QTP has better features than RFT.

If a novice tester is looking for a good testing program, QTP is the recommended program as it is GUI based

RFT does not allow for multiple select feature using shift keys, which is however possible in QTP

Output values must be manually entered into the data pool in RFT

QTP allows for the generation of output during runtime

Costwise, RFT is cheaper than QTP

When dealing with cryptography and encryption algorithms, there are two names that will appear in every once in a while. These are DSA and RSA. Both of these are encryption systems that are in common use when encrypting content. Both of them give good results and can be employed at will. However, if there is need of their specific abilities, some differences are noted. A thorough comparison of the two is discussed below.

The DSA commonly refers to the Digital Signature Algorithm. The RSA on the other hand refers to the initials of the people who created it. These are Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman. The DSA was designed as an encryption algorithm. The DSA was developed by the NSA to be used by the US government as a standard for digital signatures. This signature borrows heavily from the ElGamal Signature Algorithm from which most ideas were borrowed from. RSA, on the other hand, looks at the difficulty of factoring numbers as the main aspect of its development.

The name DSA spells out its main function. This is a program that is mainly built for signing, and therefore it is quite popular with digital signatures.  This however does not extend beyond the signature to the message itself. RSA, on the other hand, covers signing in encryption and encryption of the message contained as well.

As a result of dealing with digital signatures only, the use of DSA is preferred when faster key generation is needed. This is because DSA produces the keys very quickly. When faster encryption is required, RSA is preferred as it encrypts both message and signature for signing in. When in need of decryption, DSA is faster mainly due to the fact that it is specialized for a single function only. Digital signature generation work best with DSA while verification of the digital signature is faster when RSA is employed. In looking at how quickly either DSA or RSA handles a given task, it should be assessed whether fewer computer resources are used.

A perfect balance must be found which employs both DSA and RSA, as no single encryption algorithm can be rolled out alone. Both the RSA and DSA are crucial in rolling out encryption algorithms that can be employed in the server environment and with the client as well.

Both the RSA and DSA can be said to have similar cryptographic strengths. It is however the performance advantages when rolling out at specific points that make one or the other the preferred choice to be used at that specific point in time.

It can be generally concluded that the DSA is best suited for signing in and decrypting while verification and encryption can be left to the RSA. If any issue is noted with the performance, an evaluation can be done to find out if the right encryption algorithm has been rolled out.

Summary

DSA and RSA are two common encryption algorithms that can be said to be of equal strength

The performance of the two is what distinguishes one from the other

DSA is faster when generating a key than RSA

RSA on the other hand is faster at encryption than DSA

When decrypting, DSA is faster, mainly due to its great decryption capability

If you need digital signing, DSA is the encryption algorithm of choice

For verification of the digital signature RSA is the best choice.

Depending on the circumstances, a choice will need to be made, but both DSA and RSA have equal encryption capabilities and the option with less demand on the resources should be chosen.

There is dynamic memory in C and this points to allocation of memory in the C programming language through a set of functions present in the C standard library. One of these is malloc, which refers to memory allocation. In the UNIX system there is mmap, which refers to a memory mapped system that comes with its own unique I/O. These two (mmap and malloc) will at face value perform the same function but further scrutiny reveals some differences. These differences, that arise from functionality, are outlined below.

Differences

First off, it is important to establish whether there is any evidence indicating that there is significant stifling of the memory available. This is done through the measurement of the program’s performance against memory management .

The main memory allocation interface is malloc. This is the largest in the C library. Part of the management code contained in it is mmap.  When malloc is running, it gathers all available system facilities. Additional system facilities can be mobilized through the kernel, which is one of the memory management strategies that systems use to ensure that there is satisfactory memory allocation. The process is  not straightforward, though, and has been made to be complicated for the sole reason of preventing people from creating simple programs that can disorganize memory allocation and hence create poor performance.

‘mmap’ on the other hand is a system call that takes charge and requests the kernel to find an unused and contiguous region in an application’s address that is large enough to allow for the mapping of several pages of memory. There is also the creation of virtual memory management structures which in effect cannot result in a segfault.

Malloc generally functions in most of the memory management process. In the event the program requires additional memory, this is borrowed from the OS. Mmap on the other hand makes use of a context switch that converts into kernel land.

Malloc is best suited for allocating memory in any application running on the system as opposed to the use of mmap. This is what is required to happen by default, other than in special cases when it may be permitted.

Mmap can be used to speed up the response given by applications. This is however not advisable as it ends up sacrificing some bytes to pages so that the application can run smoothly. Although the data content may seem small in the beginning, extrapolating it when numerous applications want to run may in effect slow down the system even further.

After measuring performance and usage of resources, a thorough evaluation of data usage by all applications running on the system should be done.  If the lifetimes of the applications running can be shown it can become better.

Use of mmap for allocating memory comes with the disadvantage that the allocation and deallocation of data in chunks is expensive. This is because data is split into numerous areas, and also denies mmap from making system calls.

Mmap is advantageous over malloc because memory used up by mmap is immediately returned to the OS.   The memory used up by malloc is never returned unless there is a data segment break. This memory is specially kept to be reused.

Summary

‘malloc’ stands for main memory allocation point

A mmap system calls and requests a kernel to find unused regions in application addresses which can accommodate mapping of several memory pages

Mmap is not recommended for allocating memory as it splits available memory and cannot make system calls

A benefit of mmap over malloc is the availability of memory, as opposed to malloc memory, which is reused.