Quality Center - Introduction
What is Quality Center?
HP Quality Center (QC), a test management tool, is now popularly known as Application Life Cycle Management (ALM) tool, as it is no longer just a test management tool but it supports various phases of the software development life cycle.
HP-ALM helps us to manage project milestones, deliverables, and resources. It also aids in keeping track of project health, standards that allow Product owners to guage the current status of the product. It is important to understand the history, architecture, and workflow of Quality Center.
History of QC
Quality Center was formerly known as Test Director, a product of Mercury Interactive. The following table provides us a better insight about the version history of QC.
| S.No# |
Commercial Name |
Version Numbers |
Owned By |
| 1. |
Test Director |
v1.52 to v8.0 |
Mercury Interactive |
| 2. |
Quality Center |
v8.0 to v9.0 |
Mercury Interactive |
| 3. |
Quality Center |
v9.2 to v10.0 |
Hp |
| 4. |
ALM |
v11.0 to v11.5x |
Hp |
Architecture of QC
HP-ALM is an enterprise-wide application that is based on Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) technology and uses MS SQL Server or Oracle as its back end. There is also a load balancer to effectively cater users’ requests.
Site Administration Database is hosted on a standalone database server, while other project related data are stored on a separate database server. The following diagram shows how the setup of QC would be in a large corporation.
HP ALM Editions
HP ALM is a commercial licensed tool and HP deploys it in four different editions that are listed below −
- HP ALM
- HP ALM Essentials
- HP Quality Center Enterprise Edition
- HP ALM Performance Center Edition
ALM Edition Feature Comparison
Each one of the above editions has its own limitation in terms of ALM functionalities. Based on the following table, one can decide which license is required for their project purpose.
| Feature |
HP ALM |
HP ALM Essentials |
HP QC Enterprise Edition |
HP ALM Performance Center Edition |
| Release Management |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Project Planning and Tracking |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
| Risk Based Quality Management |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
No |
| Test Authoring and Execution |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Test Resources |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Test Configurations |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Hp Sprinter |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
No |
| Lab Management |
Yes |
No |
No |
Yes |
| Versioning |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Baselining |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Cross Project Customization |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
| Sharing Defects |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
Quality Center Workflow
The following diagram shows the workflow of Quality Center −
